When Maryam told me she’s busy and I need to update the blog, I thought…oh, no biggie. I mean, it’s just writing random thoughts, mostly stuff about the lounge. How hard can it be?
But this is weird. And scary. I mean I had a blog once and only a few close friends knew about it. But I know lots of people read this blog. And I’m kind of tongue tied, or finger tied in this case. (Was that a bad joke? Should I take it out?)

So…hmm… yeah, the lounge (atleast this isn’t a speech where people can hear the awkward pauses!). Things are looking up after the slow summer and the collective writers block we all seemed to be facing. (Mine, evidently, is here to stay. This post should be further proof of that).
There are new members and lots of activity. We’re at the polling stage for volume three (have you started voting yet?), with the release date being set at January 7th. With a little over three weeks between the end of polling and the actual publishing date, looks like December will be busy for the editors and the finalists.

I was recently “promoted” at the lounge, so I am now going to be a lot more actively involved in the actual working of the site. I have Maryam overlooking all of my administrative activities, but the poor girl needs help shouldering the responsibility! One of my first thoughts logging into the admin panel was: Holy Crap this isnt as simple as I thought.

I can never get over how far we’ve come from our Orkut days, and we all owe it to Maryam for bringing us this far. I thought I’d use this space to acknowledge how much work she’s put into the Lounge.

(And lets face it, when she reads this sorry excuse for a blog entry, I’m going to need something to save me from complete annihilation!)

This might be a good time to stop. Till next time, if there is one!

(And you were going to go vote now, weren’t you?)

I always wondered whether I would live through a ruckus of a political situation, use it as a backdrop for my stories, and portray the picture of my country as I knew it. That was before I knew November 03, 2007 was on the horizon.

This post isn’t writing related, granted or even remotely related to the website or community. It’s a condemnation against the General, for what he’s done and what undoubtedly, he will do. Because local news channels have mysteriously disappeared and the lone international channel standing (BBC) at about 6-7pm last evening, zapped out shortly thereafter. The only form of actual news we’ve got left is what’s on the Internet, where thankfully, the government hasn’t banned news sites. Imagine getting news about your own country from the Internet, because you know the local media’s only reporting what the government wants them to, facing imprisonment otherwise.

Today I attend a desi writer’s wedding, and having discussed it with a new member yesterday, I realize just how far we’ve come together. From strangers to writer buddies to friends, we’ve made amazing progress in very little time. And at last, the forums are alive and kicking…in fact, there’s such a plethora of new material, I’m finding it difficult to catch up on my reading (especially after once again committing to the book club’s Les Miserables pick), which naturally includes any comments/feedback/critique I may have to give.

Will write more tomorrow — there’s far too much going on today.

With development slated for November’s first week, a structural policy or something is needed imminently. A board member (we have an unofficial board of directors, comprising mostly of the remaining members from our original Orkut days – five including yours truly) recently stated that we need to make alliances with other desi oriented writing websites. And here I thought we were the pioneers (no, that’s not entirely true: I knew we weren’t. But our operations are so far from left field, it’s genius). To that extent, there are quite a few of them out there – desiwriters.com (name thieving…and this is quite literally true – the founder of the place was a former member, back in the days when we were still trying to narrow down a time and place for the creation of our own site), desilit.org, chowk.com, readitlive.com, t2f.org for related events, etc and probably a handful of others just waiting to be discovered. If we create alliances with these places, chances are it helps us both. So that’s something else on my list of things to do.

I’ve found an excellent example of how I’d like our debating platform, The Podium, to look like…it was something work-related but my God, it was brilliant. Of course, I have no idea whether or not there’s going to be a component with just the right amount of tweaking involved to get us going, but at least it’s out there. Somewhere on the global, webby, stratosphere, it exists.

The event calendar is just a handy little way to keep our visitors and members abreast of anything new on the cultural, literary, arty and theatrical scenes. To that extent, it may become something like a global adventure, with members from all countries posting their ‘flyers’ on the bulletin board. Of course, that it comes out exactly as I’ve envisioned it is key. It has to look “writery”.

To that extent, our header image of the writer’s desk will more appropriately be incorporated into the site…something original and not infringing on anyone’s intellectual property is what we’re looking for. I’m hoping the board will begin to split responsibilities for varying pieces of the pie…since although November seems ideal, it’s the time when my own work is going to step up several notches. No more lunch hour blog posts, in other words.

One of our members–Obi’s got a play coming up–starting, if my sources are right, on October 26th and no doubt stretching to the 10-14 days that now seem standard. All kinds of rumors have begun to spew forth from ‘it’s a twisted love story’, to ‘it’s a horror story…or so I’ve heard’. Whatever it is, it’s entitled The Good Doctor. Since it’s an Islamabad only event, tickets are available from Illusions and the Islamabad Club. Make sure you get yourself a seat–I’ve been hearing the events may be sold out. But hey, that’s the news on the grapevine.

The Inheritance of Loss is the book that’s scheduled to take me out of my recent reader’s slump, and it’s been doing a decent job of it. I may now have the courage to pick up Hugo again considering I heavily pushed for it in the Book Club, and have been largely (read: entirely), absent in its discussions. How tragic.

However, I’m hoping that with the right amount of activities, people will and can get their butts to the Lounge, become members and start posting. We’re looking for the talent–our scouts are out there as we speak–but in case they miss you, drop me a line and we’ll see what we can do.

Later amigos.

I realized that I made mention of elaborating on something which I never ended up doing – not wholly abnormal for me considering the varying plateaus of thought I switch to constantly. Anyway, back on topic, I’m talking about the whole ‘writer’s loneliness’ thing I wrote about previously.

Discussion about points 9-11, 13 begins now. Just to recap: #s 9-11 discuss the laziness of writers in general, while #13 talks about the importance of realizing rejection and getting past it. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the ‘excellent citations and examples’ I was going to give when I originally began writing that entry.

“A person must realize that writing is a daily routine, not the result of an occasional inspiration. The Writer has to find the time every day to sit down and write. Keeping a journal is one way of sitting down and writing. The beginning writer cannot use his job as an excuse for not writing.” – #9.

This is something that needs to be discovered through personal experience, otherwise it’ll never ring true. I would know – one of the desi writers has been drilling this into me since day one. ‘Color Me In’ – a short story I wrote about family skeletons was my own turning point. I had to get on it again and again. It’s taken me about a decade of writing to get to this point. Advice is all well and good, but actually seeing it for yourself, in action – pursuing this course of action on your own initiative really works wonders.

Writing, like any other serious pursuit, must be won by diligence and discipline. Just because it’s an art doesn’t mean it can’t be owned although to an extent, words in themselves will always be the elusive enigmas they are.

#11 is something I believe I’ve already covered throughout this blog. When you’re not writing, don’t blame it on the right inspiration or whatever excuse, when the plain, simple and rather glaring fact is you simply don’t want to. I know it’s often the reason I’ve got. Take the latest story, for instance – “Numb”. I just didn’t want to get into it, because I wasn’t sure where it’d take me – my stories often seem to be letters I seem to be writing myself, thereby proving Zafon’s timeless quote: “A story is a letter the writer writes to himself to tell himself things he wouldn’t be able to discover otherwise”. This is true on many, many levels. So when you’re scared of where a story’s going to take you, and don’t want to take the risk, eventually…if you’re not careful – it consumes you. Fortunately, I shared this fear with a friend who simply told me there’s nothing to the game without risk. One of our members stated this very thing (a lack of courage to write) on a comment on ‘The Bitch is Back’ post. My advice isn’t new: grow a pair and get out there. Everyone has an ego which will inevitably be knocked around a bit, but that’s no reason not to try. On that note, I should learn to take my own advice when it comes to program applications and writing competitions. Go figure, huh? I, however, have been out there. And trust me, it hurts. But you get right back on that horse and keep trying until you hit gold.

I think I may have gone off on a tangent there. I seem to have melded point #11 with posting on our forums. Whoops. 🙂

But seriously, with the 150+ members we’ve got not more than 10 who actually post. My question is simple: What exactly are you so terrified of? Being hurt, bashed into little pieces? What about us? Do you think it was easy? That we just breezed by? It hurt. And it always does, always will, but you take what you want and discard the rest, and then come back for more. Nothing’s better than being around your peers, learning and growing with them by your side. Chances are you’ll make a few friends — you’re surrounded by people who do exactly what you do — in gallons. Surely that has to count for something?

If you’re a writer, you have to be prepared for rejection. If anything, you’ll develop a thick skin after it all, and better able to take the undoubted rejection slips that will inevitably find their way to you. No writer I know hasn’t been rejected in some way or form. But if you’ve been through the moral, emotional and critical bashing phase, you learn to move on. A lot quicker, too.

Think about it.

Blogs it seems, are all the buzz and have been sending traffic our way, so naturally I’m all up for it. Most particularly, one of them linked here (Jaded Malang’s blog) has sent repeat traffic our way. Yaay!

I realize it’s been a while since I’ve been here, and that may have resulted in a loss of readership. That being said, the reason was much simpler: there was simply nothing mind blowing enough to write. And since this is a writer’s blog, it just seems like it should be more writer oriented.

To that purpose, I have something new for us today. Familial literati – or, to put it simply: the pursuit of literary ambitions when its hereditary. What does that even mean, anyway? Umm…well, it’s normally when a parent is a writer or in the general field – take, for instance – Kamila Shamsie’s mother, Munizeh Shamsie whose an editor and critic and thus produced a writer offspring. I’m not seeing a necessary connection, but there are those who do, and we at the Lounge, like to say we take everyone into consideration. 🙂

So is it really a big deal? Do they really have an edge over the lesser fortunate who’ve grown up with the working class mom and dads, or in most traditional and conservative households in Pakistan, working dads? Or is it just another hurdle thrown out by the perpetual would-be writers, trying to make things difficult for themselves? Sure, as a writer’s kid, you’ll probably come more into contact with the artists of the literary world, or in general. And you’ll kinda take certain things for granted. But that only makes the struggle for the lesser fortunate, that much more interesting. Because we haven’t grown up with writers coming in and out of our houses, haven’t been in close contact with artists in general or activists in particular. We’ve had to climb our way up, earn our positions the hard way, and if you see it in a certain light it’s the ‘fortunate’ few who’ve got a tougher job. Being the offspring of a particularly good and established writer pushes you to develop your own voice away from that of your parent (or parents). So really, we’ve got a far better deal. Besides, we also know how much is at stake here, because we’ve slaved our way to the top…or, well…wherever.

A few months ago (enter personal anecdotes – there are few things I, as a writer, haven’t been through), coming off of rejection from my dream program, I began to wonder whether I was really at a disadvantage from those who were either holders of English majors in their undergrad, or Masters or with literary backgrounds, or with family history of literary backgrounds. My mother put it into perspective for me: You’ve had to do things the hard way. It wasn’t easy to be recognized or accepted as a writer, by either family or society, but with diligence and determination, I got there. So isn’t that a far greater accomplishment than having something handed down to you? Doesn’t that really show the love for craft, more than family or background? It’s much the same in anything – those who are handed down a title are more at a disadvantage than those who’ve had to get there by their own efforts alone.

So really, don’t complain about people whose fathers or mothers were writers being at a higher vantage point, when really it’s all about perspective. Beauty, as someone once said, is in the eye of the beholder. You make your own path in this life, irrespective of class, status or family and you earn respect for that.

But these are as always, my thoughts, and you’re completely free to disagree with them. In fact, I’d be happy to spar with someone who disagrees. We could have a healthy debate right here, which brings me to a feature we’ll be incorporating into the redeployed version of the ‘Lounge. ‘The Podium’, which as a platform for encouraging debate allows a member to create an argument, allow for rebuttal and name the deadline for said rebuttal. It’s sort’ve like a competition of sorts, too and is a great platform for all those verbal spars I hear in my mind sometimes. And the cool thing about it is, though you have to be a member to initiate a debate, you don’t have to be one to continue and/or rebut it. So you can write a well worded, detailed rebuttal and it’ll find its way up there, allowing the original or agreeing members of the population to contest it. Pretty nifty, huh?

We’re also planning a virtual bulletin board of sorts, complete with push pins and cork, which will allow members and members only to post upcoming events, but and here’s the nifty thing again: Anyone can view this. These two segments of the site will be independent from the forums, and will also include a rejuvenated and reborn Book Club including a newsletter to keep you abreast of our discussions regarding the book in question. Nifty, eh? Yeah. Very nifty. It will, I suppose, be lifting and editing existing discussions on the forums, and will probably introduce a degree of responsibility since I’m hoping more people would like a simple newsletter instead of joining the entire site at large. Responsibility for our members to be more active, involved and serious minded in the discussion.

So I’m trying to cater for everyone here. I’m just hoping this succeeds.

Comments are welcome, although I’m a little weary of actually getting them considering we haven’t gotten any yet. 🙂 But hope springs eternal!