Connect The Dots 02

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah. Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. And we're back. All right, so let's dive right into this first module in sha Allah, which is all about writing, okay, you cannot perform spoken word poetry if you're not writing. So the first thing I want to talk about even before you begin writing, there is a mental process that you need to actually go through. The first thing you need to ask yourself, is why are you writing? What is the point of this poem or this piece you're about to write? Right? And it reminds us of the Hadith of the prophets of Lahore under saddam, which says that every deed is by its intention in the Mullah

manual in the act, everything we do, okay? every deed is actually based upon its intention. So if your intention is to write this poem, because you want to get a lot of YouTube views, right, which is something that people do people want to get, you know, popular on social media, they want to get Facebook likes, they want to get no Instagram and snapping and chatting, and that new thing, I'm, I'm on Snapchat, so I can't talk about that. But if you're out there for popularity, then that's what you'll get in Sharla. That's the reward that you'll get right? If you're out there trying to get girls some out. Some guys are out there, right trying to write poetry. So girls would be like,

hey, that brother's deep and Mashallah, right? If that's your intention, then that's what you'll get. Right? If you're intending to please Allah Subhana, Allah to Allah, in sha Allah, if that's your goal, if that is the end goal, then that is inshallah what you will achieve, right? every deed is based upon its intention. So you have to consciously begin with an empty slate in your mind to think about what am I actually doing? And why am I actually doing this is very important, right? Because people can get caught up in many different things. It could be the money part of things you could think, you know, this is a potential career choice. I want to get paid for which is fine. If

you want to get paid for it. That's cool, right? But you also have to think about how is this going to benefit me in my grave and ChildLine? I think about that with every poem that I write every poem that I write in sha Allah, I hope that on the Day of Judgment, I will read it in my book, and it will be a good good news for me in shot it will be a black a glad tidings for me that I'll be able to see this on the day of jasmine is Sharla Anna las panatela reward me because of it because of people that have changed their ways or, you know, coming to faith because of maybe something that I've said or inspiration they've heard, obviously, nothing is from us specifically, it's from a loss

of power to Allah, but if we're a part of that change a part of that process, that insha Allah is alright man, he will reward us because of that inshallah, right? So first thing you need to ask yourself, is, why are you embarking upon this journey? Because every single deed is by its intention. So once you overcome this mental barrier, you have in your mind, okay, I know why I'm doing what I'm about to do. inshallah, your intention is straight, you're correct, you're ready to roll. The question then poses? What are you going to talk about, you know, what is this poem going to be about? So there are different approaches you can take, the biggest, almost universal mistake

that most poets make, is they start writing a poem, without a theme without a particular topic in mind, they'll just start putting together a couple ideas, a couple thoughts, right. And they'll just, you know, just kind of hodgepodge of different concepts or ideas, and they'll just try and make it stick at the very end, right. But the actual approach inshallah, that I want to teach you all about, is starting your poem off with a good intention, inshallah, and with an actual topic in mind, right? When you start writing an essay in school, you do not write an essay until you have your thesis, you need to figure out first of all, what is your thesis? What is your poem going to be

about? And because obviously, you're working within a timeframe, you know, you have an attention span of your audience. Now it's getting shorter and shorter. You know, thanks to Snapchat, people are literally giving gems in 15 seconds, right. But before that traditional slam poetry used to teach us that you had a three minute window to capture someone's attention, changed their hearts inshallah and set them up on their way. So three minutes is a good benchmark. I particularly I particularly like writing a bit longer now that I've had freedom, and I'm outside of the kind of slam poetry world, I like my poems to be between now four or five minutes long, it doesn't have to

be a certain page count. Obviously, it just depends on how you present your poem. But the main important thing is that you actually have a topic which is worth listening to. So there are a lot of topics to choose from. It's not like every single topic has been covered. And if there is a topic that someone has already covered in the past, you got to think to yourself, how can you approach this in a unique manner? Maybe there's an angle or perspective that nobody has ever talked about before. So for example, in the book that you'll find that I talked about the topic of divorce, say somebody wants to write a poem about divorce, okay, maybe people have written about that in the

past, but what particular experience or expertise Can you bring to the table about this topic? Maybe you know, someone who's been divorced, maybe you yourself have been divorced. Is divorce a good thing?

Is it a bad thing? What about the children? What about the grandparents? What about the society at large? How does this affect everybody, right? There's so many different perspectives and angles and approaches you can take that you shouldn't feel limited by any particular topic. If you think about it, how many poems how many industries have been written about the profits of the largest of them, you know, 1000s, hundreds and hundreds. I would argue a lot of them are very cliche, but actually a lot of them still to this day are able to, you know, spark the hearts, they're able to do something to us, because there's a unique approach, there's a way of speaking about himself alone, that maybe

somebody hasn't done before, or characteristics that nobody's really expanded upon, in the way that maybe this particular person has. So even if you're going to approach a cliche, subject, do it in a way that is engaging, that is entertaining, and that is unique, and that nobody's ever done before. Alright, that's enough from this video in Sharla. Stay tuned for part three. We're going to talk more about writing and how you should set yourself up for a fantastic home in Sharla. Stay tuned for watching us and I'm wanting to lie about our cats.