Welcome to my Blog! Here you'll find insights into the intellectual processes (stumbles, false-starts and everything else) that I use to create the characters, scenes, settings, and storylines of my novels.
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March 10, 2010
More than anyone, I think it’s Camus who inspires me to bring philosophy into my writing. One of my favorite works of his is the short novel, The Stranger. The Stuart Gilbert translation that many of us read in high school was good. I think the more recent Matthew Ward translation is much better. Matthew Ward's translation provides a richer reading experience than Stuart Gilbert's; nuances, subtleties and other details of character and dialogue are mixed and seasoned better into the broth of the story, a story about Meursault, a man alone but not lonely, who views with dispassion the alternating streams of tenderness and brutality that form human experience. His earthly incarnation seems only a vehicle through which to observe, to keenly catch fine points of gesture and expression in a context of non-judgment. And so he can view with equal dissociation the brutal mistreatment of an intimate partner and the play of the setting sunlight on street scenes below his apartment window. For Meursault, each is a series of fascinating images created by the impersonal, moving physicality of the universe. I enjoyed the novel and have enormous respect for Camus' talent in translating sharp observations into stimulating prose. But in my own writing I chose an abrupt departure from one aspect of Camus' character: likeability. Meursault, though fascinating, interesting, and intellectually engaging, doesn't feel, doesn't empathize, doesn't cry, and so I'm challenged to truly like him. Despite this, Camus has given us a readable, instructive, engaging and provocative novel that forms a literary nexus between fiction and philosophy. I read it twice.
March 9, 2010
Here's a link to the press release for my upcoming virtual book tour. If you're interested in participating in the tour's blog discussions, the press release includes specific tour dates and URLs:
March 8, 2010
I created a comic strip titled Dr. Mohamed in early 2006. The strip's focus and central character was an American Muslim engineer with a philosophical disposition, a bi-sexual Jewish girlfriend and a dog named Buck. The satire included themes of social and religious commentary with side helpings of quantum physics and special relativity. I completed 24 episodes, then set the project aside. What's interesting is that many of the strip's punchlines found a home in the scenes, dialogue and circumstances of my first novel. I suppose Dr. Mohamed wasn't a net loss. I might even get back to it after finishing Christmas in Mecca.
March 6, 2010
It's time like this that I actually believe in my second novel. Christmas in Mecca is coming along.
March 2, 2010
The international blog book tour for "Resolution 786" is coming in late March 2010. The tour includes stops in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. The following blogs are hosting the tour:
February 28, 2010
“What’s In, What’s Out”
I have a section on revision in the developing draft of my book, Creating Fiction: A Hands-on Practitioner’s Guide. I list all the usual phenomenon that induce writers to revise: poor writing; inconsistent characterizations; discordant timelines; factual inaccuracies; thematic diversions; over-writing; not enough or too much detail. After drafting the short section, I leaned back close-eyed and exhaled; I was considering how to revise my paragraph on revision. I did a quick mental inventory of the serendipitous, winding process of revising the drafts of my first novel and realized that I’d missed a practical consideration of revision: public domain issues. The draft of my first novel included verses of a popular Christmas rhyme. I assumed that the old and often used ditty was in the public domain. A little research revealed that it’s not. As a result, I opted to use a different rhyme, one that was in the public domain. I then revised the scene and the text surrounding the newly inserted rhyme to create thematic harmony. Many factors compel writers to revise. Public domain issues are yet another.
February 26, 2010
Looks like Laura Strathman Hulka’s review got posted at another literature/book site. Congrats, Laura!
February 22, 2010
Mughal’s Amendment, with Full Apology to the Literary Orthodoxy
I’m not going to flatly disagree with the age-old, well-worn adage to write what you know. I do, however, want to offer a slight spin on it. We’ll call the spin Mughal’s Amendment, which states: Extrapolate and interpolate from what you know. If I had limited my writing to the original adage of writing what I know, I could not have had a key character go through a detailed experience of death in my first novel. After all, I haven’t died so I don’t “know” the experience. I’ve never met a being from outside of earth (as far as I know), but extraterrestrials play a significant role in my second novel. Again, I couldn’t create a physical description or the psyche of these characters from what I know. So what did I do to create these components of my fiction? In the case of a character experiencing death, I extrapolated and interpolated from what I’d read and heard about near death experiences. I coupled these anecdotal data with my understanding of several world religions. To create aliens, I used scientific conjectures regarding extraterrestrials while simultaneously pressing the boundaries of the basic theories of physics, biology, quantum mechanics, astronomy and special and general relativity. My apologies to the literary orthodoxy for not binding my fiction to the strictures of “write what you know.” Indeed, writing fiction is most enjoyable when I’m not writing what I know but when I’m writing from what I know, projecting into new syntheses, enticing and unproven conjectures that lie both beyond and in between known facts.
February 15, 2010
The Kinks – Celluloid Heroes: A Personal Favorite
Sentiment, beauty, vulnerability. Glamour, fame, dreams and mannequins lovely echoes tears, yes, those too graves, memories youth tousles, with not a grey. Fantasy. God. magical, nose-powdered immortality
now there’s some great songwriting
February 11, 2010
“Greek Chorus”
There’s a scene in the first draft of my second novel where two characters are criticizing ancient Greek playwrights for the flagrantly artificial device of a chorus. Even Sophocles used a chorus in Electra as a convenient device to give the audience background, summary, insight and thematic commentary. But are the characters in my novel truly criticizing the Greeks or Sophocles? No. They’re poking fun at their own author. There's a group of unnamed aliens in the novel and as the story and the plot continue to build, I see that these extraterrestrials synchronize, collate, reiterate and highlight the finer points of theme, the gently nuanced inclusion of existential and other philosophies. Good gosh (I realized recently)…the aliens are my Greek Chorus! I wondered if this was the first time that I’d had the equivalent of a chorus in a piece of fiction. It’s not. I had a cartoon playing on T.V. in a number of scenes in my first novel. In the ‘toon, a cheetah chases a cunning ostrich through the desert, never catching him and doing himself outlandish bodily harm in the pursuit. That happens in the background; the foreground is the Iraq War, so you can imagine what and who the ostrich and the cheetah represent. The larger take-home point is that the Greek Chorus did not die with Sophocles. Millennia later, we can (and do) use similar devices in variant forms in modern day fiction.
February 8, 2010
Ready to go around the world? Coming soon: the International Virtual Book Tour for Resolution 786!
February 6, 2010
“Mughalian Archetypes”
I woke before dawn this morning. I wanted to take full advantage of a non-work morning at home, to relish in the unfettered opportunity to write during my most creative time. In the throes of developing a new suicide scene and adding flourishes and delicate nuance to existing drafts, I came to a larger realization about the novel that’s beginning to jell in my hard-drive: the primary male characters are projections of major archetypes that comprise my present being. These archetypes are the noble poet; the miserable wretch; orthodoxy’s interrogator; and the curious child. “How interesting,” I thought. And how narcissistic to so brazenly splash so much of myself into my fiction! February 2, 2010
A link to our latest press release: http://www.prlog.org/10516245-muslim-writer-speaks-at-maryland-unitarian-church.html
February 1, 2010
I’m both humbled and intrigued by Laura Strathman Hulka’s January 11, 2010 review of Resolution 786, available at http://readerwomanreads.wordpress.com/. I’m humbled that Ms. Hulka found the novel insightful and with “so much essence and substance.” I’m intrigued that she found some of its topical content “uncomfortable and personally disturbing.” Ms. Hulka, I have a confession: the first draft of my second novel is shaping into more of the same. Thank you, Laura Strathman Hulka, for your honest and thoughtful book review!
January 31, 2010
Inna Selipanov just posted an insightful review of Resolution 786 on her book blog, Onions and Tea, http://www.onionsandtea.blogspot.com/ . Inna’s an intelligent and thoughtful literature enthusiast in Berlin, Germany. I think you’ll be impressed with the depth, candor and analysis she puts into her book reviews and so I encourage you to read her other posts as well. On my part, I can’t wait to read the novel she’s working on. Thank you, Inna, for giving us the privilege of seeing the keen observations of your beautiful mind!
January 30, 2010
I'll be speaking at the Cedarhurst Unitarian Universalists in Finksburg, Maryland on February 7, 2010. My discussion's titled “The Good Guys vs. the Bad Guys.” I plan to use scripture and other literary sources to explore notions of who’s “good” and who’s “bad.” The Cedarhurst Unitarian Universalists consider themselves a congregation that nurtures spiritual growth and that advocates religious freedom and acceptance of others so I think they're a perfect audience for an open-minded conversation about good vs. bad.
January 27, 2010
I thoroughly enjoyed my book signing event at the Bottomless Cup in Havre de Grace last week. In addition to enjoying the fantastic atmosphere (check out baristas Heidi White and Megan Sypolt on the event’s Facebook photos at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mohamed-Mughal/133019190089), I had the serendipitous pleasure of meeting fellow author Omar A. Khan. Well versed in literature, Omar told me of Naguib Mahfouz, the only Muslim writer (so far J) to have won a Nobel Prize. Omar, a physician by profession, also told me about his recent experiences in a polio immunization campaign in Afghanistan. A well-fed American, I thought that polio had been wiped out years ago. I was wrong. The disease continues to infect populations in Nigeria, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. You can read more on the subject in Omar Khan’s and Tim Brookes’ book, The End of Polio?: Behind the Scenes of the Campaign to Vaccinate Every Child on the Planet
My thanks to the staff and management of the Bottomless Cup for so graciously hosting yet another pleasant, educational book signing event!
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