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New Year resolutions anyone?

Personally, I just need to learn some serious TIME MANAGEMENT!

Have a good year, everyone!

Again I say, I’m not a professional writer. I’m not even a published one. I never took any formal Creative Writing classes although I have been wanting to do that for a long time. Albeit all of that, a lot of people contact me asking me for general advice on how to write a story or a poem. Others send me their work requesting my help and input. Naturally, it gives me a sense of pride to see that others think of me as someone whose opinion matters. I try to take the task seriously but more often than not, I’m not that good as an instructor when it comes to writing. Anyhow, this is just an attempt to explain some basic rules that you should follow when you are writing a story. These are my own personal guidelines that I learned by reading countless fictional stories and scanning through creative writing lessons online.

- Obey the rules of grammar, punctuations and spelling! This is THE most common mistake in all the pieces of inexperienced writers. It pains my brain and my eyes when I see a story or a poem that could’ve been great if not for the shameful grammatical errors. Punctuations are very important and often neglected by many. They make the story easier to read and less confusing. Spelling mistakes are just a sign of laziness. Don’t you have a spelling checker?!

- Never use abbreviations. This is somewhat related to the previous rule but it had to be mentioned alone because the younger generation (speaking as if I’m old) tend to abbreviate everything! Remember, using 2 instead of to and 4 instead of for can only be done when you are texting someone.

- Maintain a consistent style and tone. If you are using the first person narrative format stick to it and don’t switch to other formats. If your story is basically a romantic one, keep it that way. Don’t insert some aliens, a sudden police car chase or make it overtly funny. Otherwise, you’ll lose the reader’s sense of romance and you’ll turn your story into an Indian movie.

- Don’t use adjectives and adverbs excessively. This is also a common mistake because many think it adds something to the writing when in fact it takes away from it. The hot blazing golden sun shined brightly over the blue lazy waters. Do you see what’s wrong with the previous sentence?

- Divide and conquer! Well, not exactly. If your story is long then it would be smart to divide it into multiple chapters. Each chapter should have a central theme or event. Each chapter should end in a way that makes the reader look forward to the following one. That what makes the reader finish a novel in one day instead of reading it on and off for a couple of weeks. Be careful not to overuse cliff hangers because they can get old.

- There must be action! By action I don’t mean cars flipping over and explosions. However, a story that has nothing but dialogue can get boring. The characters should move and go through multiple events that shape up the story. Of course, don’t over do it.

- The dialogue should be realistic and interesting. I admit that this is not one of my strengths. Your dialogue should be believable in the context of the story. It should sound normal and flow easily. You must keep clear who is saying what because it is very annoying for a reader when he or she gets mixed up.

- Keep vulgarity to a minimum. Don’t use cuss words unless you absolutely have to in order to get a point to the reader or if the character requires that. Describing love scenes can be tricky and becomes vulgar if you are not careful.

- Create complex characters. I can’t stress this enough. The difference between a good writer and a bad writer is most evident in their choice of characters for the story. Try to stay away from one dimensional characters such as the evil man who does nothing but bad things and the hero whose only goal is to save lives and be a good man! Humans are much more complex than that and you should make your characters multidimensional and as the reader flip through the pages, he gets to learn more about them and connects to them.

- Balance your descriptions. Describing anything too much can be irritating to the reader and describing too little can make the reader unable to imagine what is going on and subsequently disengage from the story. It’s a hard formula to master. Use details when you want the reader to feel intimate with the place and what is going on or when it’s an unusual place and the readers need further description. You can skip describing some major elements when you want the reader to picture the surroundings in their own way instead of being restrained by your view. There is nothing exactly right or wrong when it comes to this. It all depends on your personal taste.

- If you don’t have a plot, you don’t have a story. The plot is the most important component of any story. A good plot can make people read your story even if you didn’t abide by all the rules above! There’s nothing really to instruct here. It just needs to be interesting. It has to have the reader waiting to see how the characters develop, how the events play out and how everything comes together in the end. It’s best if you keep your ending unpredictable but don’t force it. It’s fine to have a predictable ending as long as the story itself makes you want to know how did it come to that particular ending.

- Once you’re done with your story, leave it aside. Hide it away in a drawer and forget about it for a couple of weeks or months then read it again. I assure you you’ll find many things that you want to change, mistakes you haven’t paid attention for, some weird contradictions, a confusing time line and such things that you can only spot once you have managed to get the story out of your head and read it as if you’re reading a new novel for the first time.

That is all I have in my mind right now. I hope this will benefit someone someday. The best of luck to all aspiring writers out there!

As all of you probably know, the Turkish series Noor along side its cousin Sanawat Aldya3 have come to an end just before Ramadan. I have refrained from talking about these shows because everyone has talked about them and well, I don’t want to repeat the same points again. Now that it’s over, I can honestly say that I thought they were of the worst shows to ever air on TV! I only watched a couple of episodes out of interest and had to sit through a horrible few others while I was stuck at a relative’s or friend’s house. The plot is very ridiculous and the acting is extremely immature. The directing is average at best and the so called attractive Noor, Mohannad and Lamees (if I remembered correctly) are not good looking in my opinion but then beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As if to why would anyone watch those shows and how did they come to be so popular, well the most sensible answer was out of boredom because no other reason sounds logical to me. A friend of mine who’s half Turkish swears to me that no one in Turkey bothered to watch the show when it first aired in its mother country! So what’s the deal then? Are we smarter than Turkish people that we have witnessed those jewels of TV shows and they didn’t? Are we a romance-deprived nation as many writers blame for being the reason for watching such shows? Is it because the average looking actors are better looking than our average Saudi?! It all comes down to this, it was a stupid show and I have no idea why anyone watched it. Thank God it ended. MBC was the smartest and the biggest winner of all by marketing this show.

Moving on to another pressing matter, Ramadan TV. Every year all TV channels work their hardest to create an unbelievable amount of TV shows for this holy month. I have read somewhere that Egyptian TV was the one started the trend more than a decade ago by its Fawazeer Ramadan shows. The truth is, somewhere along the line, probably due to good marketing and lack of public awareness, Ramadan has turned into the month of TV and food rather than the holy month of worship. The major players now are MBC, Dubai TV and Abu Dhabi TV. Rotana Khalijia is trying to break into the market and well Orbit channels are always struggling but then who really watches Orbit anymore? Of course the other TV channels all are trying to win a portion of the big pie that is advertisement money paid by food and beverage companies for the ad slots within the popular shows. Saudi TV has basically lost the race when it’s one popular show Tash Ma Tash was sold to MBC in 2005 and now has stopped airing all together.

So what is the formula for any TV channel during Ramadan? I’ll break it to you in case you want to start your own channel. First of all you must have the Historical Series, something that takes place back in the days of Abo Ja’afar Almansoor or Haroon Alrasheed. Then you’d have to have the Bedouin Series, something that is filled with meaningless poetry and many horses and the occasional tribal fight. After that you have to include the Syrian Drama series which is basically nothing except for macho Syrian men yelling at one another in the midst of social issues. The Kuwaiti Series is of course a regular on all channels and this is the most colorful one because it must have at least and not limited to, women in their full make up at the early morning hours, the drunken father, the beaten down mother, the drug addict cousin, the old man who dies of a heart attack, the young boy who gets in an accident, the love affair that never works and the evil man who ruins everyone’s lives. Don’t forget to add some beating and wailing to that mix. Then you’d have to make space for the Khaliji Sitcom Wannabe that always fails to be funny. The Egyptian Drama Series is of course compulsory but the only good thing about it that its’ usually variant unlike the other types of shows that repeat the same things. The blood boiling Hidden Camera Show should never be forgotten. The cameraman has to get beaten a few times by a couple of angry people. Oh yeah! The purely idiotic game show that just throws money at people in order to make more money by calls and ads! Last but not least, the Religious Show in order to satisfy the more conservative market. Better if you could attract a famous Shaikh or Islamic Personality to the show.

That ladies and gentlemen concludes today’s lessons of How to Create Your Own TV Channel in Ramadan! May you enjoy a happy Ramadan filled with spirituality and good deeds.

PS. There’s a list sent by email that contains most of the TV shows schedules including Time, Channel and Reruns. It’s extensive to the degree that you’d have nothing else to do if you wanted to watch them all, In fact, you’ll miss a few each day! Hint: watch whatever show you want AFTER Ramadan. The good ones get reruns then Use this month to make amends for all your sins during the year!

The Olympic Games are over. In my personal opinion, this was the best Olympics I have witnesses in my life, not that I have witnessed many. I missed the closing ceremony but I’m sure it was just as marvelous as the opening one. China did an excellent job in preparing an organizing for this Olympics. London has its work cut out for it if they want to resemble what China has done when 2012 comes. I doubt they’ll outdo Beijing.

China came in first with a total of 100 Medals; 51 of which were Gold medals. Americans are sore losers because I noticed as I watched various American news programs, none of them referred to the official ranking of countries and some of them even listed USA at the top because it won a total of 110 medals although only 36 of them were Gold. However, we all know that China kicked the American ass! Russia came in 3rd and UK was 4th.

37 world records were broken in this tournament which is a first, if I remember correctly. The grand winners were of course Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt. Phelps is the American swimmer who broke the world record for the number of Gold medals won in a single tournament by one athlete. He won 8 Olympic Gold medals. He also broke the world record of the number of Gold medals won by one athlete in the Olympics. Combining his latest 8 Gold medals with the 6 Gold ones he won in Athens 2004 brings his total to an astounding 14 Gold medals.

Bolt, the Jamaican who is considered the fastest man on earth now, has won 3 Gold medals in 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay breaking the world records in all three races! Watching him run, he didn’t even look tired to me! It seemed as if he could’ve run even faster.

Arab athletes were of course a disappointment winning a total of 8 medals; 2 of which are Gold through the Tunisian Osama Mallouli in 1500m Swimming Freestyle and the Bahraini Rashid Ramzy in 1500m track race.

Saudi athletes won nothing which is expected albeit all our hopes for the opposite. The fact is that the Saudi Government doesn’t really pay much attention to the Olympic games. We cannot blame our athletes for not achieving anything. If you look at the amount of money and time spent on the athletes in all the developed country you’ll see that ours basically got nothing. Those in whom we foresee a hope of achieving something in the next Olympics should be taken care of beginning right this moment and should be given time and money to practice and perfect their skills. I would argue that only half or let’s say quarter of the money going to football players and footballs clubs in this country will be enough to support our athletes in all different sports. God knows our national football team isn’t accomplishing much anyway. We should start focusing on other sports. Isn’t it the prophet, peace be upon him, who instructed us to teach our sons archery, swimming and horse riding? How come we have virtually no achievements in these sports?

Let us all hope and pray that the Arab and particularly Saudi athletes will demonstrate a much more honorable performance in London.

For pictures and clips from this Olympics, the full results and various interesting stuff, check the Beijing 2008 official site.

I used to think baby car seats are pretty intuitive. I mean it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the car seats aren’t designed for babies’ comfort or safety. They’re designed for us adults. Therefore, the moment you are blessed with a baby, you should have a car seat installed because eventually you are going to have to take him/her somewhere with you. It’s an act of negligence and pure and utter stupidity not to! You think I’m being too harsh? Well, tell that to the baby that was rushed into the ER with a head injury after he bumped into the windshield of his father’s car when it was hit by another car from behind. YOU MORON don’t deserve a child was all I could think of. Not only did he allow his child to stand, notice it’s stand not sit, on the passenger’s seat, he didn’t instruct him to put his seat belt on. That is simply irresponsible.

You know who, in my opinion, should have their children’s custody taken away form them? Those parents who have their children sitting in the front seats with them! You see, the mother holding a baby in her arms and another older child playing next to her. The more dangerous one is the father who drives with a baby or a child on his lap! That is putting his and the baby’s life at risk in addition to putting other drivers at risk for injuries because I’ve seen it myself, the child can easily distract his father or even try to turn the steering wheel all of a sudden!

I think we should have a national campaign explaining the benefits of baby car seats and urging the public to start using them. It’s not a fancy accessory. It’s a necessity to keep children at minimum risk of injury if God forbid the vehicle was involved in an accident. It’s upsetting to see that only foreigners have enough common sense to use them while we don’t. I can honestly say that the number of Saudi families who use baby car seats for their kids is extremely low and is almost exclusive to highly educated ones.

So for God’s and your baby’s sake, please use a baby car seat and advice your family and friends about using one too.

I love you, mom. You are the greatest mother in this world.

For you readers, do you know that The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice a.k.a. Hay2a stopped a celebration of mother’s day taking place at Roshan Mall here in Jeddah that night? The organizers were very careful not to call it Mother’s Day and instead just advertised it as a celebration of mothers in order not to offend Mutawwa’ but apparently that didn’t work because half an hour into their mini festival they were ordered to immediately discontinue everything. Kids alongside mothers who came to attend the celebration were left disappointed. Hmm… here I was thinking that loving one’s mother is a virtue! Thank God I found out it’s a vice due to the heroic actions of our brothers at the lovely Commission.

It’s been raining all day. Say your prayers everyone!

Eid Al-Hajj doesn’t really feel like an eid, does it? Anyhow, Kol sana wo ento 6ayeben