Utter Negligence

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. I know the anglicized paraphrase of Burns’s poem is not as cool as the original, but that’s how I learned it. I have left thee, oh website. I have neglected ye, blog!

But things are going forward. I am around 35,000 words in my new novel, and I’m trying to sell my leftover copies of The Temptation. I am reducing the price. I will start advertising on Monday. If you read this, you can go to the Order Now page and get it at the price before I do the full Facebook ad thing. I am not very confident that it will sell, but I had a flier made and will start using it.

There are other things—mundane, worldly things—that are going on as well, but I do not have time to go over them here and now. I need to get back into this; I hope that I will not neglect this again—at least for not as long.

Working on a New Project!

So I had hopes that I would be more active on this than I have been, and I apologize for that. But I have been busy, and one of the things keeping me busy is a new novel I’m working on. I have about 12,000 words done so far. I am trying to get this one traditionally published when I complete the manuscript. Things have been happening that have gotten in the way of writing: I’ve moved, I had to get rid of my car, and work has had its ups and downs. My focus is now writing, and I need to put more effort into it. I hope to get a newsletter started if people sign up. I created a new author Facebook page, and I even paid for a Facebook ad! I just hope I’m not wasting my money.

Site Revamping

So the site has been a mess for a while, if any of you has visited within the past few months, but I have updated it now. It looks better. I hope this will become more popular, especially for those wanting a copy of my novel. Squarespace had updated their editor during my hiatus, and it took a while for me to figure out how to get my Jotform order form onto the site. But I did it! So those of you who want to order The Temptation of Jamal from me, you are now able to do so! More news on the way!

After a Long Hiatus…

So, I have been neglecting—with good reason—this website, but I hope to get things back up and running before the new semester starts. There is, of course, a lot of news, and I cannot possibly go through it all in a short blog post, so you will not hear much of it. However, I will hopefully keep up with this site regularly now, so you can stay abreast of all my goings-on that are fit to print.

There is a good development for those who are following the progress of my novel, The Temptation of Jamal: I got the book into a bookstore! Joybird Books will carry a copy of The Temptation of Jamal starting today. You can check them out if you are in the Orlando area.

Expect more changes!

Proof Copy!

So a lot has happened, but I was unable to post on here because there was a death in the family. The loss was immense, and we are still feeling the effects, but I am determined to get this thing out. So, in quiet moments, I finished editing and approved changes. I paid Atmosphere and I got the proof copy yesterday.

It’s a strange feeling. When the proof copy came, I had thought that it was an external hard drive that I had ordered (which still hasn’t arrived). My brother-in-law saw the package and said, “So this is the book you’ve written,” and I told him no, it was a hard drive. But then I looked at the sender and found it was from Atmosphere Press. It was the book!

Opening it was even stranger. It looks professionally done, and, when I chose the cover, I wasn’t sure about it, but seeing it physically changed my mind. It’s weird to think that I wrote this. I hope this will be a successful book, even though it is probably more difficult to market this myself and make my money back on it. I am scheduling a call with Atmosphere Press to discuss this issue.

But things are coming together.

Finally Done!

Sorry for the long wait… for those of you who were waiting, anyway. I took a break from social media and my website for Ramadan, and then some family issues occurred so I wasn’t able to get to this until today. But, the good news is that I finally completed the second round of editing the novel. I finished it last week and emailed it out to Atmosphere Press around that time. It was an interesting process going through the novel again. Some parts I really like, and some I don’t like at all. I tried to fix what I could to make it better, but there’s only so much I can do, especially since I’m so attached to the thing. A real editor, I’m sure, would be able to cut out 30,000 words easily. But.. be that as it may, I got it done to the best of my ability and sent it out. I’m hoping to hear back soon, but there were a lot of changes, so it may take a while. At least since the semester is over, I have some time to relax! Thanks for your patience!

Still Working on It…

Yikes, it has almost been a month since I updated this blog! How time does fly. I have not made much progress on the novel as of yet; I’ve begun an errata sheet (an old habit from academic editing) and am making my way slowly through the novel, catching a lot of things I missed the first two times I read it. I am trying not to change too much, but I want this thing to say what I want it to say, and not something else. I don’t think anyone else is in the position to do that for me at this point.

I have been busy with family life and teaching recently. I had planned to get a lion’s share of the editing work done during Spring Break, which was last week, but unfortunately that never materialized. I hope this week will be more productive; next week papers are due and I will have to spend time grading those.

For those of you patiently waiting for The Temptation of Jamal, it’s coming, God willing. I’m just not sure when.

Moving Along…

I know it has been a while since I’ve updated, but it has been rather busy here. Now that Covid is in an apparent decline, social life seems to return; the past week I have been occupied with such events.

But, it was also last week when I received my novel back from Atmosphere. They have designed the interior, and now I must go through the process of editing the book once more. I thought this would only be the typo portion where I can’t make major changes, but I can actually do quite a bit at this stage if I so choose.

There are a couple of questions I have about the novel that I am hesitant about. One is the language, which can be gratuitous in some places. I try to keep it as real as possible, but when writing fiction, there is always the possibility of going overboard.

The other question is the word count. I only managed to knock the beast down to 120,000 words or so, which around 440 pages in this design. That’s a huge novel. I don’t know if I should or could knock another 20,000 words out.

I am hoping to get this done soon, but this is a big task. Stay tuned for more news.

Novel in the Design Process

Hey everyone!

I got through the “major” changes of the novel, which were only three things, and I sent that, along with a bio, over to Atmosphere. Now I have to wait for the designer to get in contact with me. From this point on, I will not be allowed to make major changes. Atmosphere assures me that those minor editing issues I am concerned about will be corrected. I hope so, because when I was writing the novel, I wasn’t concerned that much with consistent spelling with transliterated Arabic words and other formatting issues. I don’t want the final product to look haphazard and sloppy.

I can also add a photo. I am hesitant about doing this, mostly because I don’t have a good photograph of myself. At least, not a recent one. What do you think?

I hope this process goes smoothly and the novel comes out soon.

Good News!

I should have written in this yesterday, but I had been busy with stuff at home and did not get a chance. But I am thrilled to say that the proofreading is done for my novel! I now have to go through the comments they have, which I have already done. Surprisingly, there were only a few comments, although there were more edits that I think I need to go over. I will try to get this done as soon as possible so that there is no more delay. Going through the draft, I am catching a lot of errors and typos I missed. I hope the final version will come out clean. As an editor, a typo is always cringe-worthy.

Spring Semester

The Spring semester has begun, and, as is obvious, it’s virtual. This in some ways is beneficial because it gives me seemingly more time to work on other things, including this website.

I don’t need or want to go into what is happening throughout the country. This is overwhelming in certain respects, and in others it was entirely, I guess, predictable. I am not actually as concerned about the state of the country as I thought I would be. This breakdown of democracy seems inevitable. A system that is not founded in revelation cannot last. It is sort of surprising that democracy is going down as quickly as it has. But we are nearing the end of time, so that should not really be a surprise. The coming days will be challenging.

I have not heard anything about the book from Atmosphere yet. The last I heard was that it was in the proofreading stage in the press, but that was at the end of December. It might take a while to proof a novel that large.

The first day of classes is relatively easy online. I did my usual introductory message, but this semester will look a lot like last semester. I hope to keep improving this website and I would like to make this blog more interesting, but interesting in good ways. We’ll just see what happens, if God grants us life and health.

So It Begins…

Welcome to my blog, and, in a larger sense to my website. In an even larger sense, welcome to a public outlet to my thoughts. I will try to post relevant information to what is going on with my life on a semi-weekly basis. This may be the greatest thing ever, or it may be a flop. Who knows? We can only see, God willing.

One piece of important news is that I am currently in the process of publishing my very first novel. I am publishing it through Atmosphere Press, which has its pros and cons (as all things, really). The novel, now titled The Temptation of Jamal , is in the editing phase. I will try to update this blog with my progress, so stay tuned for that. I also would like to have it so that you can purchase my novel ahead of time on this website.

That is all for now! I hope this is the start of something wonderful.