The 23rd of September... 2025! Inshallah!
So it's been four months since my last blog post, which was definitely NOT what I had planned. But a lot of progress has been made and I do have a lot of updates to provide.
The biggest being that I do have an 'official' date of publication for Under The Full and Crescent Moon and that is, Inshallah, the 23rd of September 2025! Which is, Inshallah, exactly a year from when I plan to put up this blog post!
That's a lot of Inshallah's already! Read on for a few more.
Inshallah means "If Allah wills it", and it is by far my favourite 'Allah' word of the many that are a a part of my culture (Subhanallah, Mashallah, Astaghfuralllah, etcetera). The reason for this, I think, is that I have always been incredibly uncomfortable with making any sort of plans or commitments for the future. Honestly speaking I don't know what's going to happen five minutes in the future, who knows what's going to happen in a day (as I write this on the 22nd of September 2024), or a year and day (when I hope to have this novel of mine published).
While one of these might seem far more minor than the other, they're both firmly in the category of things that I have no idea will actually happen and so I resort to saying Inshallah. It makes everything feel far more honest to me and gives me a lot of comfort.
So what have I been doing over the last four months since the last blog post? Well the editing process, because of events out of my control, went in fits and starts but I am honestly grateful to report that when I read the novel now it feels like it's in almost it's final form. There have been a lot of words left on the cutting room floor, but they made space for a few new ones and I really do feel both the additions and the subtractions have made the novel as strong as it can be. I do have one more pass to make and then the manuscript will be off to the next part of the publishing process.
Continuing with book news, I have been interviewed on a wonderful blogsite run by Elizabeth D. Russel where she interviews authors and other storytellers. I'm very happy with how it turned out and I'm very thankful for the questions on my writing process and how I managed to fit writing a novel into a busy life, Subhanallah.
From My Notes to You interview on the writing process
Hopefully I'll have more media to share over the coming year but, as I have said before, I have no idea what I'm doing!
The other thing, other than the usual work and family commitments that all of us know all to well, is advocacy.
I only have one hobby, that being playing a tabletop roleplaying game named Pathfinder, which is very much like Dungeons & Dragons. I am deep enough in the hobby that I consider myself to be a part of that game's fan community. But being in the space has felt deeply uncomfortable, if not horrifying, as all the spaces dedicated to the community resolutely ignore the genocide being perpetrated on the Palestinian people by the Israeli state. And so I took the step of doing something about it by writing an online letter asking the company who made the game and organizing people in the community to sign it.
You can check out the letter here
The company has, not very surprisingly, ignored this, and it may very well lead me to stepping back from being an active member of the hobby. But in the meanwhile it has led me to think about how we justify violence in our media (as violence is justified in the games we play) and how that can help explain how the unfathomable violence against Palestinians is justified.
I made a video about it and it was hard to make but I'm glad I did.
This might be a futile effort, but I would be killing a very real part of my soul if I did not make the attempt. Palestinians are asking all of us to speak up, because it is the complete silence by the people and institutions of America and American allies that has made these atrocities possible. I have a very tiny platform and very little influence, but I can say for certain that I am making sure that the issue is not invisible in the spaces that I inhabit.
Finally, I am going to try and figure out how to send out a newsletter, it'll be my first one, and it would make a lot of sense to send it out on the 23rd. Will I be able to figure it out and send it on the day? To that I can only say Inshallah.