Mohana
Wordless Wednesday: Signs of Judgement
How do you know if you’re a good mother? The verdict isn’t just up to your kids… after all, there are the prying eyes of the general public to consider.
With American Mother’s Day around the corner, I’ve been thinking a lot about all things motherhood, including how hard I was on my own!
A MADONNA OF SACRIFICE(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Here are some clips from my latest standup routine in which I talk about being a brown mother with a white looking baby.
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Idiotic, Disgusting, and Other Things Said to Freelance Writers
Traditional freelance writer work system. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Freelance writing alternates between the glamorous (invites to the latest openings) and the torturous (waiting for interviewees to show). Last week I added abusive to the list of adjectives that apply to being a free agent as a writer.
In November another publication in the region wrote me to see if I was interested in contributing for two forth coming issue with tight deadlines. After I indicated yes, I ‘d write for them, I was sent interview dates and times for the next time, without a brief. The brief tells the writer why the publication is interested in a particular person or story, suggests a few angles, mentions the payment as well as the word count.
The fact that many of these details were missing were my first indication that all was not well at this particular publication. But I chalked it up to the youth and inexperience of the staff, (the editor of the publication commissioning me had even attended an editorial meeting of Vox, a magazine I worked on; she was wide eyed and impressed by our organization in planning at least three issues at a time) reminding myself this was a magazine located in the Middle East. Not that I’m bashing locals: if you’ve been overseas for any length of time, you know that expats often sink lower than the standard of their home countries and this seemed to be the case in this particular situation.
But I wrote the pieces as best I could with the information I had and sent it in. I heard nothing for several days and moved on with my life. Then, over a long weekend during a national holiday, was surprised by an irate email from the editor (who I had no interaction with until this point). The tone and superiority of her message flagged up the issues I had been overlooking. In India at the time, I again let it go. After all, I knew I didn’t want to write for them again.
Hearing nothing else from them, I wrote on the 23rd of December requesting payment information. My email went unanswered. Cue the holidays. End December.
In January, when the world went back to the normal, if dull, pace of business, I wrote again to inquire where my payment for these pieces was. No answer. I called the offices. ”We pay 45 days from printing,” the person I had been corresponding with said. Wouldn’t that have been nice to know the first four times I asked?
These kinds of terms give one pause, but again, I let it slide. Until March, when I saw the printed issues of the magazine (with my ‘sub-par’ work) in a library. I wrote again. I kept writing, every week; most of the time with no replies. I even texted the editor asking what was happening. By now, of course, it was a matter of principle.
Image via CrunchBase
On April 16th everything came to a head when I took the issue on to Twitter. Here’s what I said: ”Freelancers: don’t recommend writing for xxxxx unless you can wait 90 days or more for payment. Still waiting-will keep you posted.”
Social media creates a direct line to replace static channels: I’ve seen four star hotels like the W Doha and the Four Seasons respond to a Tweet with an efficiency and effectiveness I may not have gotten from speaking to the onsite manager.
But in this case, instead of replying with an apology or a vow to make it better, the email from the Special Projects Manger (whose automatic away message first said he was out of the office) ripped off any veneer of civility:
Mohanna
The payment has been made and should be in your bank account soon. Although we cannot excuse the delay in your payment your idiotic remark on Twitter was disgusting. We're disappointed by your constant lack of manners and poor attitude that you have shown towards xxxx.
Good day Mohanna!
Nothing like misspelling the name of the person you are insulting to make sure they know how professional you are.
If you are an aspiring writer, beware that you’ll need thick skin. Not only to receive feedback on your writing but also deal with the intrapersonal dynamics.
If you are a freelancer, what strategies do you have to do deal with delayed payments or snide staff?
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Wordless Wednesday: Kanye West and Kid Cudi in Qatar
For my second Wordless Wednesday, an image I saw today afternoon on Twitter: from the super-secret set of Kanye West and Kid Cudi’s video.
They were filming on the Ceremonial Court at Qatar Foundation. (The same place some concerned staff kept me from organizing an Arab hip hop concert a few years ago because of cultural concerns that it was too august a place to be defiled by Palestinian artists, like DAM rapping about their dreams as young Arabs). Don’t get me started on commercial hip hop… wrote a book about how far the dollars brought the art from its roots.
And yes, when I drove by yesterday morning on my way to teach class, I thought the beehive of activity was setting up for the QF graduation. Should have known better: that’s at least two weeks away).
Photo courtesy of Doha News
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A Year Retrospective on My Revolution Within
Tahrir Square during 8 February 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Yes, somehow, the wheels of time have churned away an entire year since young and old, male and female flooded Tahrir square in Cairo, Egypt. The confluence of the world’s Middle East media bureaus in the same city where the campaign to oust the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was being dramatically staged, transported viewers into the protests and then victory celebrations. The ripple effect of the Tunisia revolution reached as far away as Libya as into my heart. I saw the bravery of people standing up for what they believed in and did something I never thought I would need to do: I broke away from a promising career as a professional in order to focus on writing full time.
This break was risky because not only did I give up the considerable benefits of my job, and the attendant status of being associated with a high profile employer, but I also gave up the stability of being part of a group, any group. Last June when I struck out on my own, a friend gave voice to what many were perhaps thinking.
“Are you really going to write? Or is this fantasy of yours?”
She was confused because writing was always something I did on the side; while in graduate school I escaped from the rigors of first a Masters in 2001 and then PhD in literary theory in 2003 by taking creative writing courses. I have the elective requirements of the American university system to thank for my discovery of my creative voice. Like many other passions in my life, I didn’t give the creative urge center stage, letting it fill in the gaps created by the demands of being a wife, mother, and mentor.
I meandered through higher education administration, and then publishing, until I was spending so much time promoting the work of others, my own work grew jealous.
“What about me?” My novel projects whispered to me each time I organized a book signing.
“Ebooks are the way to enter the market,” experts advised at all the writing conferences I attended.
Even with these twin voices of reason, from the comfort of my senior level position in an organization, I didn’t listen. I toiled and stressed: I heard the increasing complaints of junior staff who felt that their training and education were not being put to use. Ironically it was this, the injustices suffered by others, that got my attention. I am a classic martyr type: I won’t sacrifice for myself, but I will if others will benefit. Every corner I turned in our office building, I was regaled with a tale of woe.
“You are the youngest in the company,” our leader said to one of the juniors, someone I had hired. “You should sit and listen. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
This twentysomething had been educated in the American system. Her faculty, and student affairs staff had encouraged her to think that she had transferable skills that would be an asset to her employer. She, like me, thought that age didn’t matter: the person standing in front of you did.
united states currency eye- IMG_7364_web (Photo credit: kevindean)
I know there are many people in Qatar fighting this juxtaposition of values and my heart goes out to them. What do you do when your education prepared you to expect a different environment than the one in which fact you live? I can’t say that I have a lot of advice to offer on this dilemma. Even now as my vow to write full time segued into teaching as an adjunct faculty member at American universities, I do believe that critical thinking, questioning assumptions, even sheer hard work will get you the respect you deserve, no matter how young you are.
But stereotypes in the workforce conspire against us in a unique way in Doha.
“Here’s a laptop. Sit there and try not to break anything,” someone said to a female student who was a computer science graduate.
“Rich girl, don’t you want to go home and spend Daddy’s money?” Someone else reported me to as the attitude towards Qatari women in the oil sector.
That’s the limitation of stereotypes: they are true for a reason but they often don’t adjust for the uniqueness of the person in front of you. I feel deep empathy for the women in these situations just as I wonder if some of the resistance I encounter in the classroom from male students isn’t because I’m a young, South Asian professor, as opposed to a six foot four, white male. I don’t know. But I do know that I feel more in control of how I treat people and in general, how they treat me. So the reduced salary, the occasional student irritation, the nights spent grading are worth it.
In the year since my liberation, I have published four e-books, posted regularly to this blog, and kept writing on more projects. I’m only sorry I can’t say that my work wasn’t the inspiration for my revolution. I let writing take a backseat because I didn’t know how important it was to me. I hope never to make that mistake again. The answer to the questions my friend posed to me a year or so ago are both yes. Yes, I have been writing and hope to continue to do so through the summer has I have three more releases planned. And yes, this is the fantasy version of my life: the life that I know many creatives want to live. I don’t take a second for granted (especially as stories of the dissatisfied employees trickle back to me through the grapevine).
Help me celebrate this watershed year in my writing life and vote for me as the blogger to win in the “Industry” category of the Goodreads Independent Book Blogger Awards. If the writing advice I’ve been tapping out as blog entries has helped, inspired, or even hurt you in some way, drop me a line in the comments box and let me know.
Where were you a year ago? And where would you like to be a year from now?
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- Cairo artists sustain revolution with graffiti (cbsnews.com)
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April Brings Baby Showers
Last weekend I was one of the hostesses of a baby shower. Tomorrow I’m attending as a guest at another one. Baby showers appear to be an American custom that is also spreading to other countries. In India, as well as much of the Arab world, it’s often thought inauspicious (bad luck) to celebrate a baby before his/her arrival. In many cultures there are naming ceremonies or other significant landmarks, such as Baek Il, or the baby’s 100 day mark, for Koreans. Modern science has given those of us with access to medical care the security of lower infant mortality rates.
In the spirit of sweet spring babies, I’m joining a large group of bloggers hosting chances for you to win $200 Paypal cash from CouponTrade.com and The Ultimate Baby Shower! So if you know someone having a baby soon, sign up.
The Ultimate Baby Shower will offer MONTHLY diaper and Formula giveaways, as well as a seasonal NURSERY giveaway! That’s right- you can win the entire nursery, furniture, bedding, and all the baby gear an expecting parent could need.
With CouponTrade.com combine coupon savings with discounted gift cards for the same stores, plus sell all those unused gift cards and redeem whats yours, all in one place.
Entry is so simple, just fill out the Rafflecopter form below! There are also other bloghop hosts so enter for more chances to win.
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Wordless Wednesday (A Clinton on the Gulf Peninsula, circa 2010)
I haven’t participated in Wordless Wednesday before (which is a meme for bloggers and Twiterati when either put up a photo without any text or minimal text, letting readers react). For my first Wordless Wednesday, I took inspiration from the hundreds of photos I’m looking over while trying to decide which ones to use for the book trailer From Dunes to Dior, my memoir about living in Doha as a South Asian American woman (more on this later). I’ve also put some links below the photo of other people’s Wordless Wednesdays so check ‘em out.
I chose this particular photo because it speaks volumes about modernity, international relations, and of course, women in power. This was during Hilary Clinton’s visit to Qatar, when she made a pit stop at Carnegie Melllon University in Qatar at Qatar Foundation to talk to students and faculty. The man on the far left is the American ambassador, and the one on her immediate left is the Vice President of Education at Qatar Foundation, Dr. Abdulla bin Ali Al Thani.
Leave a comment and let me know your reactions to this photo.
Photo by Alexander Cheek
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Stop asking and Start Learning
books (Photo credit: brody4)
Happened again today: I opened my email to find a note from someone who heard I worked at well reputed publisher. She wanted to take me to coffee so she could tell me about her literary aspirations. She has a book idea; she wants to get published.
Before I tell you how I replied, let me get off my chest what I wanted to say to her (and the dozens of other people who write to me on a monthly basis in this vein): the Internet is your friend.
In most cases, the aspiring author is not a sweaty, tempted plagiarizing undergraduate. The average I-have-a-book adult has a well paying job and the germ of a story he/she wants to tell to someone. Anyone. They just can’t figure out how to get pen to paper. This is the first problem. The non-writer, we’ll call this type, because the person who professes to want to publish a book HASN’T WRITTEN ONE. Ever. To this person I say forget the debut novelist bestsellers. This is the same as dropping out of college and saying you’re going to be Jobs-like genius.
Keep it simple, non-writer. Start writing. By yourself. At home. In the cafe. In groups. As Nike says, Just Do It. And when you’ve finished a story, a chapter, a manuscript, then we’ll talk. Writing is about commitment. Show your great idea some.
The second most common problem is the what-do-I-do-with-my-book. If you are reading this from a laptop in the comfort of your home (or on a desk top at work) then you are amongst the more fortunate 10% of the world who have access to education and technology. Do some research with your best friend for dinner party debates, Google. There are literally hundreds of thousands of articles out there for first time writers. The indie boom has meant that everyone who has self published talks about, blogs, about, tweets their publishing stories. There are even some related links in this post below. Read them. Apply. Repeat.
If you’re too lazy, clueless or busy to do either of the above, then check out my book So You Want to Sell a Million Copies which is the result of two years of my guest blogging publishing advice at Writers and Artists Yearbook.
I got my own job in publishing; I published my own books. You can too. If you still want more details, join me and the media master mind Rachel in the OC this Tuesday 9:00 p.m. (Doha time) on Spreecast. It’s free to setup an account and we’ll share our wisdom at no extra charge. And this is when I’ll tell you what I said to my latest I-have-a-book inquirer.
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What a Bunny Has to do with It….
In our over climate controlled modern world, where we can be warm when it’s freezing outside and cool when it’s roasting, we may not appreciate what seasons meant to them. Sure, we love to talk about ‘fall colors’ (and admittedly after decades in Florida and six years in the desert I’m no expert) but unless we live in Maine or Iceland, we probably don’t have jubilation at the sight of the first blade of grass popping up in spring time.
Spring was even more important in the ancient world as the time when the earth awoke from a long slumber, back into the cycle of life that would lead up to the season of harvest which sustained villages, towns, and cities. In this traditions rich environment – not of Good Friday or Easter morning — the first Christians found themselves trying to separate from the practices of other religions.
But what’s a startup religious group to do? The first rule of guerrilla marketing: incorporate the popular symbols of the day into your own celebrations. In order to compete with these other older, pagan traditions, the early church adopted many of the symbols of the festivals around spring.Enter the rabbit, a symbol of fertility, often used in the worship of a goddess of fertility, Eastre. Enter eggs, the classic symbol of birth and new life.
Commercialization has stripped Christmas of the joy of giving gifts and Valentine’s Day of the romance associated with a candle light dinner. But for me, I resist the pressure to succumb to Easter as an explosion of pastels and eggs. I welcome the reminder of sacrifice and the call to live again. And like the early church, I am a part of the society in which I live.
This is why I’m delighted to welcome you to the Hoppy Easter Eggstavaganza Giveaway Hop! There are over 250 blogs participating and lots of cool prizes.
This hop is sponsored by Once Upon A Twlight and I’m A Reader Not A Writer. This giveaway is from Friday, April 6 through Thursday, April 12 and winners will be announced the next day. Make sure you enter at each blog. I’m gifting a copy of my first novel, an e-book Saving Peace(no Kindle required) to one lucky winner. This is the story of three friends, separated by time, who are forced to decide if the memories they share will unite or divide them. We are talking about women here so it’s a book full of the dilemmas and dramas of being female!
Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
To enter for a chance to win, fill out the form below.
More about Saving Peace:
A novel about the power of women's friendships
Thirty years intervene in the friendships begun at the all female Peace College. Sib, the local news anchor with dreams of going national. Mary Beth, the capable, restless mother of three. Kim, the college president who admits male students. Saving Peace is the story of promises made and broken, love found then lost, and redemption sought for the past.Three women. Two choices. One campus.
Why Stand Up Comedy Isn’t My Worst Nightmare
Books about Humour and Stand Up Comedy 03 (Photo credit: Julie70)
When people hear I perform standup comedy, they generally have the one reaction: whether male or female, eyes wide, “I could never do that,” the speaker usually says, giving me the once over as if seeing me in my material form for the first time. Since fear of public speaking rates higher than fear of dying, I seems to have superhero powers when I say I regularly get up in front of people and try to make them laugh. “My worst nightmare,” someone said with a shudder last week when I mentioned I had a show.
For me standup comedy is a monthly reminder that as a creative person, I have to be willing to put myself out there, much the same way I do each time I publish a book. But since I’ve got quite a few titles to my name now, the vulnerability I might feel publishing has diminished (not to say that it ever entirely goes away). Creatives are kind of like thrill seekers: We have to keep searching for the next thing that will keep us creating in order not to fall into stale, repetitive patterns.
When I started keeping this blog, I of course began work on an expat memoir – that genre that is almost as ubiquitous as the Novel – about my experiences living in Qatar as a South Asian American woman. I contemplate a lot in the articles about race, class and gender through the everyday things that happen to me in a fairly serious tone. When it came time to stand up for my first routine (in support of the only other female comic in the city at the time) I stripped away the social commentary from these incidents and told them as they happened.
The audience’s reaction was electrifying to me: they laughed! They saw the irony from my perspective and I was hooked by the unsettling feeling of nervousness I felt in the moments before going on stage. I teach five classes a week to undergraduate students: in a way my life is standup comedy. You have to be quick on the uptake, lively, upbeat — if you want to keep them from outright doodling or texting during class.
See what you think of one of my sets during last week’s show, where I talk about being an Indian with an American accent.
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Reading Outside Your Genre
I’ve been telling you about the differences between indie writers and those who are commercially published. Here’s one area where we are the same: every writer needs readers. One way to get readers interested in 
your work, regardless of which camp you’re in, is to give away copies. After all who doesn’t love free stuff? And this is a great way to get to readers outside your genre who might not normally read you. Check out one such giveway where authors have banded together to give you not just one title but 8.
The adventure for the Masquerade Crew started a little more than six months ago. Since they posted their first author-requested review on October 1st, they’re going to officially celebrate their six month blogaversary between now and April 1st, which is the first day of the A to Z challenge. They encourage you to come back to their website often this month because for 26 days in April they’re going to post writing tips from some of their followers.
In the meantime, they’re kicking off this party with a mega giveaway. Roughly half of the authors listed here (each with 5 star reviews) have agreed to give away copies of their books. This is your chance to win up to 8 free books! Click on the book covers to go check out more details about each title.
There are lots of chances to win, so be sure to check out their page!
A Soul to Steal
by Rob Blackwell
Force of Habit
by Marian Allen
The Punished
by Peter Meredith
CurbCheK
by Zach Fortier
Spirits Rising
by Krista D. Ball
Everything I Tell You Is A Lie
by Fingers Murphy
Blood Passage
by Michael J. McCann
Enter Below for your Chance to Win
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