writing

Connecting the dots…

Posted on by Nida S.

mynotebooks

I believe in destiny. I believe in the magic of moments. How they merge into one another like sliding droplets of rain collecting at the bottom of a windshield.  Forming a little ocean, only you were meant to drink from.

Children love to collect things. Most children my age would collect stamps, coins and sea shells. I tried collecting stamps just once because it was cool. Then I also tried sea shells, but then I didn’t have any beaches nearby and flying to Karachi (the city of beaches) just for my collection was a bit too farfetched even for my taste. Now coins, I assumed would be easy since we traveled a lot, especially my father. But that didn’t go as planned either.Barbies. Now what girl wouldn’t like them? I thought it was weird that I had no barbies. So on my tenth birthday I asked my parents to get me a barbie doll. I got one of those barbies with long hair and hair styling products. Makes perfect sense because I hated brushing my hair (still do!). So after my birthday, I sat and combed her hair. Sprayed it with pink hairspray and brushed it some more. Now what? I needed more time to figure out the barbies in my life. I got hold of some more. At the end of each play time, I was bored to death. Lets just say a new version of “Toy Story – the barbie hater” was a possibility. Thank God Toy Story was just a cartoon.

So what made my heart skip a beat? Stationery. I remember my pink, furry pencil-case that no one was allowed to touch, especially my young brother. Patterned pencils, erasers, animal shaped sharpeners, scented paper, pink stapler, post-its. It was my own little bliss. My eyes almost jumped from their sockets every time I went to a book store. I would gladly trade my ice cream for a glitter pen. And God knows how much I loved ice cream.

All throughout my early years, I devoured books.The Baby Sitters Club, R.L. Stine’s Fear Street, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie The famous five, Classics…anything I could get my hands on. My pink pencil box was still safe and loved. But another love bloomed. Journal writing. Notebooks. The fresh smell of scented paper, crinkly pages waiting for my words. Diaries with my personal lock and key! How cool was that! So I wrote. Daily ramblings. Gibberish only I was meant to read. My cursive script looked like squiggly stick men strangling each other. But who cared. My writing was for me.

Fast forward almost a decade, and there I was, beating myself over programming language and cursing the bits and bytes of computer logic. Computers were never my thing. My younger brother taught me how to run a computer. The only thing I did on it was play wheel of fortune on a CD and chat with my friends. With such obvious love for technology, I went into computer science. Hard to believe, but it was an important dot that I would connect years later.

I got a corporate job in IT. I had no interest, a 9 to 5 drudgery, but the pay was good and I had friends there. So life was complacent. And the most wonderful and unexpected outcome was the love of my life. I met my husband at work. I doubt meeting him at the library or a book store was ever a likelihood. I had to be where I had to be. We got married a couple of years later and last year we moved to Canada, because of our  technology background. Another dot. Followed by another. Making perfect sense.

After so many years, moving on a path as crooked and as wondrous as a starry constellation, I am finally here and I am writing. My heart still flutters at the sight of book stores and beautiful notebooks. And I continue to dislike barbie dolls. I love computers and the Internet because they are a necessity and make my life interesting, and that’s as deep as I am willing to go with technology. Many people after reading this would ask why I didn’t get into literature, or writing before? It was all in plain sight! I say it wasn’t. My bus was supposed to take the longer route.

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Daily Prompt: Futures Past – As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? How close or far are you from that vision?

 

 

Wise-day Quotes

Good, honest writing…

Quote | Posted on by Nida S.

Good, honest writing is like ripping open your heart and sewing it back up; one raw emotion, one meaningful word at a time.

Like shedding your old skin for something newer and more refined.

Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly; over and over again.

*Nida S.*

* Today’s assignment on zerotohero challenge: build your storyteller’s toolbox by publishing a post in another format or a style you’ve never used before.

Topsy turvy, Torvy Tupsy

Posted on by Nida S.

This is my inspiration. The topsy turvy life of a mother of two lovelies. My inspiration every day:). 

 

Topsy turvy, Torvy tupsy,

Its all a chaotic harmony, in this sundry.

The grey in my mind just doesn’t matter,

My children control my life, my time, did I mention the latter?

Just when I think this roller coaster will not stop,

They take a nap and I’m rescued from the drop.

And what I am left with is more precious than gold,

My time, time for me, if I may be so bold.

I quickly clean up, from the dishes to my hair,

Set right the crooked pillow, dust an odd speck here and there

I hungrily eye my laptop from afar, and daydream of my fingers caressing its body,

This is surely my chance at glory, so I must hurry.

I walk towards my treasure to open my verbal urn,

My mouth runs dry,  so I make a left turn.

As I put my hands on the tap, the word tea pops up,

I quickly take my beverage, gulp gulp gulp.

I can almost hear my blog,

Whispering to me through bytes of  a complex log.

I am in near proximity,

It seems I am out of breath already.

I feel my heart flutter, as I sit holding my laptop,

I am too scared to smile, on fear of awakening those snoozing up top.

I begin to hum, almost giddy and eyes lit,

I enter my password and there you have it.

Just as the humbled worker  clicks on the ‘Add New’ post page,

Prince and Princess, unleash their slumberous rage.

 

Zero to Hero – Day One : Introduce yourself

Posted on by Nida S.

Zero to Hero – Day One : Introduce yourself

I am a writer, a wife, and a mother of two. Now regarding the ‘writer’ bit, I wasn’t bitten by a mutant alphabet that unleashed its crazy writing powers. I gave myself this title only a year back when I began my blog, the green and white pages on word press.  I am a writer not because I have a list of prize-winning publications under my name. Nor am I a writer because I earn wads of money and can go on exquisite vacations to chip off my writer’s block.

I am a writer, because that is something truly, most wonderfully my own. Every time I call myself a writer(mostly in my head and sometimes with reddened cheeks to other people too), I feel a surge of pride swell up and explode like juice spurting out from a plump orange. Every time I compose a crummy, pointless blog post, the exercise glues together the many loose bricks in my life. I revel in my second-not-so-secret identity so much that I sometimes have to pinch myself to get back into reality. A reality where I am an absolute nobody in the illustrious world of writers. A reality where there is a huge chance that my dream of writing and publishing my own book might not come true. A reality where despite it all, I have learned to be hopeful and to enjoy the writing process and the end product, in so many or little words.

I write and my little world lights up. I write because I think it is what I was meant to do all along. I write because the ten-year old girl, who, many years ago wrote personal diaries, essays and stories but somehow lost them all in the worldly noise, badly needed some direction. So I write because I feel I owe her an explanation. I write because I think I have something to say; mostly uninteresting, random things that make my blood bubble or freeze; depending on the intensity of the situation.

I am here in this 30-day challenge because I need discipline. My life revolves around my family and friends. But that is not a reason for not writing and throwing away my pencils, or in this case my iPhone and laptop. Simply put, I believe discipline and inspiration will get me from zero to sidekick, if not entirely hero. But I know that as long as I get to write often and plenty,  my written concoctions will always be my solace.

So I write because I need my words; like builders need their tools. Lots and lots of them.