Less Than Two Months
Yesterday, the book was two months away from launching in Canada. Today it is one day less than that.
I might be a day late again with this update, but that's not too bad and, even though I'll never be satisfied by how much work I have been able to put into marketing "Under The Full and Crescent Moon", I have to be kind to myself and realize I did quite a lot this week, and this month overall.
And of course, meanwhile, the people of Gaza are starving to death and I am helpless in the face of it because of the leaders of the 'free world'.
A lot of videos
I think I made about 8 short videos and posted them on various platforms this week. It's not an easy thing to do as I cannot just riff on video like some other creators seem to be able to. My smoothest videos are the ones where I have a script and so there's writing the script, gathering any screenshots I might need, recording the video, editing it with the screenshots and texts I want to put in, reviewing captions... and then posting it in multiple different places. It's actually a lot of effort. I also made five videos earlier in the month. I have to be honest with myself and acknowledge that I have put a lot of effort in.
Overt politics
Just to be able to live with myself two of the videos this week were about supposedly progressive figures downplaying their complicity in the genocide. These are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and ContraPoints. The latter's sin is justifying silence and the former's is spreading Zionist lies and messaging and then pretending to have done nothing wrong. It's disgusting and shows the many layers of defense the ugly ideology of Zionism continues to enjoy. All of them need to be torn down.
Reviews start to come in
There are five written reviews now for "Under the Full and Crescent Moon". Four of them are on NetGalley and two of them are on GoodReads. The reason 4+2=5 in this case is that one reviewer was kind enough to post their review on both platforms. That was also the reviewer who gave the book 5 stars!
Out of all of these only one is negative. I think the reason I'm not upset by it is that it's proof that people are actually engaging with my words and taking different things away from it. I shouldn't be reading these for my own sake, but having people who I haven't reached out to actually reading the book shows that it's making tiny ripples in the world and it's a unexpected milestone for me.
Another Happening
I put up an interview that I was invited to send answers to. It's the I've been meaning to ask you interview by Kathryn Mockler on her substack Send My Love to Anyone.
The questions were very thought provoking and I hope people find my answers to be valuable in some way.
Updated the site
Other than updating the happenings page, I added excerpts from the positive reviews to the book page for fun. Two ideas I have for it to think about for later is:
- Adding an Acknowledgments section as in the book I opted to only put in an Author's Notes section
- Somehow putting in a deleted scenes section if people are interested, maybe as a special feature for newsletter subscribers.
Muharram
The first ten days of Muharram mostly fell at the start of July this year and I was able to attend a lot of majlis's remembering the sacrifice of Imam Hussain in the cause of justice. The story becomes more relevant and pressing day by day and the experience of Muharram was incredibly heart rending this year because of that.
Act for Gaza
I will continue to throw words against the genocide as that is where my meager talents lie. But the times for words has passed. Now is the time for action. So please act.