Naima B. Robert – Advice for Muslim Women Writers Find the Writer in you Tayyaba Syed
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Assalamu
alaikum.
My name is Tayeb Assayed, and I am
a children's author and freelance journalist from Chicago.
Welcome to the Muslimah Writers
Journey Online Summit.
I am so grateful
to be here with you on this path
to bringing your voice
and your narrative onto the literary landscape.
Now what I want to share with you
is how do you find the writer within
you?
Is there a writer within you? How do
you even know? How do you even find
the confidence
to share your voice
and your stories and your experiences with the
world?
And I hope that after
you sit here with me for a few
minutes,
you are able to find that writer within
you and go out there and share your
stories and experiences with the world.
So Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem.
First thing I want to say
is that this idea of,
well, am I even qualified
to be a writer?
And why would anybody even care what I
have to say
or what my opinion may be
or what my experiences
may be or what stories I have to
share?
Why why would they even matter?
And that is the very first thing that
I want you to be able to realize
is that, you know, each of us was
created
differently
and that's the beauty
in our
create
being created by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
that he created each of us differently. My
voice is not the same as yours. I
don't look the same as any of you,
and yet
each of us was not created in vain.
We're all here for a reason. Our differences
are what makes us special and beautiful.
Just as that is important, so is
our voices and our stories and our experiences.
They do matter. Your voice matters,
and this is why it's important for us
to feel comfortable
sharing our stories
and finding
that that confidence to be able to write.
Where does that even begin? How do you
even find that? Well, you say to yourself,
I'm not really a writer. I'm not good
at writing.
One of the things I always tell
people is that
writing is not obviously, it's not a skill
that you're born with, and
it's not something that we all coming come
out knowing how to do. It's something that's
it's a skill that's developed.
If I was to go on to,
let's say, a tennis court
and be expected to
hit that ball with my racket back and
forth,
without making a fool out of myself.
And
I don't play tennis.
So,
it's gonna be ugly seeing me out there
on a tennis court
because I have no experience. I have no,
practice,
and that is one of the things that's
very important. Now that doesn't mean that I
can't eventually become
a good tennis player.
If we put
enough effort
into something
to learn it, to practice it,
then we can definitely become qualified
in that specific field.
And so same thing with writing,
I believe
that more than a skill, it's an effort.
And the more effort you put into it,
the more practice you put into it, the
better you'll become at it. So any opportunity
you get to write
write
and
you know if that means that you are
journaling every single day before you go to
bed
or if that means that you are
you find different opportunities
to be able to write,
for blogs or start your own blog,
do that
be able to
get practice to be writing every day so
that you can feel confident that your
writing is
worth something and is worth putting out there.
The second thing that I always tell people
that, you know, if you want to be
a good writer,
you need to be an even better reader.
You can't tell me that
you know,
I love to write but I hate to
read. That's not possible.
Those two things go hand in hand,
and the better
you the more you read, the better writer
you will become.
So
pick up as many books, you know, make
yourself a timeline that I'd like to read
maybe 1 book a week or one book
every 2 2 weeks
and get yourself reading even if that means
you're reading,
you know, a chapter or 2 a day
or something of that sort, but at least
you're reading
because the more you read it helps you
develop
your
vocabulary
it helps you learn all the different styles
of genres that are out there you know
don't just pick up oh I like mystery
so I'm only going to read mystery books
Read all types of different genre so that
you can see what interests you most and
where you could potentially put to contribute to
with genre eventually,
and you also learn people's
writing styles
you get find lots of inspiration through reading
you know they could be nonfiction books a
lot of my inspiration for my stories comes
through nonfiction
literature they're based on
real people real stories
real experiences
and
that is actually a great way for you
to be able to find inspiration is through
nonfiction literature.
It helps you
find you know different
formatting and
improve your grammar and all of these things
add up when you sit down to write
because you have familiarized
yourself with the art
and
it's really important
for you to be able to
you might actually find a book that you
say gosh this was an awful book I
can write a better book than that. So
do it. You know, a lot of these
stories and books that are being published
are just retellings
of other stories,
of folk tales,
of,
the same it's it's the same stories just
redone. And so if you feel like you
can tell a story better,
so do it.
And that is the great thing is that
you might even find inspiration
in a bad book, but if you're not
reading, you won't even be able to do
that.
Another important thing is that if you want
to be a good writer,
you need to be a good listener
you know if you're a good listener you're
paying attention you're paying attention to details
you are able to then describe
what you hear
in your writing
for example if I wanted to take
the time of day,
and let's say it's I'm comparing daytime to
nighttime.
If in I'm mentioning daytime,
I would say
I woke up, and I won't mention the
time of day it is. I could say
I woke up to the sounds
of,
cars honking
and children playing
and
birds chirping
you know that describes most likely
that you are taught waking up in the
morning,
in the earlier part of the day. Now
if I say I woke up to silence
or I woke up to the sound of
crickets or the hooting of owls
or,
you know, my father snoring.
So then you would know, oh, most likely
this character is waking up
during the nighttime
and you're able to tell that to your
reader
just based on
your description of the time that you're describing
you didn't actually mention the time and that
comes with
able to listen and pay attention to sounds
and also
when you listen
you end up
being more
understanding of people it's not just about she
said this as she said that and he
said this and he said that it's about
being able
to listen to what they're feeling and then
describe it through your writing
and say you know she she sighed
or she
whispered
or she you know, describing the tone of
voice that somebody uses,
you know, when you're when you're talking of
in dialogue
in your writing.
All of that comes through being a good
listener and then being able to describe that
in your writing.
And another thing I recommend is to be
very observant in your everything you do during
the day. You know, how do how does
the wind blow? How do
leaves, fall from a tree? Do they fall
or do they do they
sway their way down, twirl their their way
down,
dance their way down, you know, how do
children fight? They don't fight with words, they
fight with gestures,
when I do these writing workshops for youth
I I tell them you know
I'm very observant
and I can tell who's bored, who's listening,
who's tired,
who's hungry,
who's
whose back is hurting,
who's paying attention, like, all of these things.
Of course, these kids aren't talking, but I
can recognize all of that just based on
their body language.
So that if you are observant, you can
pay attention to those things. You know? How
does a bird fly, how do people stand
or walk or interact,
all of these things you're able to put
in your writing, and it really helps us
take time to pause and reflect on our
surroundings,
and that all of that we can then
incorporate into our writing as well.
So this is,
those are some things that I I recommend
on
improving
yourself as a writer.
Now
how do you get yourself into writing?
That's another thing. It's like okay well now
I think I'm comfortable to write, but what
do I write about? How do I even
get started?
And
an important thing to know
is
what is who is your audience? You know,
sit down and really ask yourself
what is my intention?
What is my purpose?
I every time I write, one of the
reasons that I began writing,
and I've been writing professionally since college,
is I want to be able to present
our this beautiful religion of Islam,
in a positive way through my writing.
And that is always my intention
when I sit down to write, is I
want to be able to show people the
beauty of our religion.
And
you know the the one of the first
things that I began writing about
was
family because,
that's important to me, and faith
and,
marriage
and food because who doesn't love food? But,
you know, those are the things that I
felt comfortable writing about. I I studied
biology, so I was comfortable writing about health
and,
about the body.
And so, you know, what what interest you?
What do you feel comfortable talking about
you don't necessarily need to be an expert
but your experiences
make you an expert. So we shouldn't be
shy about sharing them.
So you can first ask yourself who is
my audience? Who do I want to touch
with my words, who do I want to
reach with my words? That will help bring
focus
and direction be
unapologetically
you
don't
write
what
you think
Be unapologetically
you. Don't write what you think people want
to to read.
Don't write what you think
others,
are talking about. You know, write what is
important to you.
Write what is meaningful to you. And when
you do that, when you put your your
heart and soul into your writing,
when you are passionate about what you write
about, when you are authentic,
you know, you're not
projecting your worldview
on others. You're just talking about yourself and
who you are.
When you do that, when you do that
with sincerity
and,
authenticity,
your readers
will sense it, and they will feel it.
And if you love what you're writing, your
readers will love it too,
and you can feel that through the writer's
words. You can feel what they they they
meant for,
through their words. And that's one of the
beautiful things about writing. And it's also important
to make sure that your writing has flow.
Your writing has a beginning, a middle, and
a end, even if that is a simple
5 paragraph essay. But
it's important to keep a nice
compact format
to your writing and a rhythm to your
writing so the reader
starts, from the beginning and goes all the
way to the end, because you've kept the
reader engaged.
So those are a few starting points to
finding that writer in you.
The main thing to know is that there
is a writer in you, and you
have to be able
to get over this potential fear of my
writing is not good. All of us feel
that way. It's like making a meal and
serving it and hoping that your guests will
enjoy it. You know, it's the same thing.
You're putting a piece of yourself out there
when you
put your writing out there,
but when you do it from the heart,
when you do it with sincerity,
your readers will feel it and they will
enjoy it. And and you need to be
aware
of
this gift that,
God has given us of imagination
and being able to share our stories and
our our experiences.
They're important. How else are we going to
learn about each other? How else are we
going to be able to connect with each
other? How else are we going to be
able to understand each other if we are
not the ones that are sharing our stories?
So I thank you for joining me
during,
this journey of this fun journey of writing,
this crazy journey of writing, this
very scary journey of writing.
But know that you belong on this journey
and you're meant to be here
and you are somebody whose story matters.
And I can't wait to see what you
put out there, And I, like, look forward
to
I look forward to seeing your work out
there and know that if you ever need
me, you can find me on any of
my social media platforms
on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter,
as Theaba Writes, and you can find
a lot of resources
and information,
on my website, theobahseya.com,
where I give more
advice and insight into this crazy world of
writing.
And I thank the Muslim writers journey online
summit for including me,
and I want to ask each of you
to keep me in your duas as I
will of you
that Allah accepts us, our writing
for his great work.