Chapter 24

Short, but I am already too late for work.

It was light. Everywhere was white. I looked around, trying to find someone but I didn't. There was smoke and I felt like I was walking through clouds. I looked down at myself and saw that I had a white longsleeved dress on. My hands went to my hair and I felt that I had a hijab on. I felt like I had been here for years but still didn't know where I was.

"Anyone there?" I heard myself yell when I saw something grey in the distant. It disappeared so I looked around me. Nowhere.

"Do not forget your religion, Manar. Taking care of your child is not the only priority you have. You also have other things you need to do, besides taking care of your child. Learn, Manar. Learn" I heard a faded voice say. I tried to open my eyes, not knowing why. I thought I was already awake. I mean, I was here looking around, right? Why would I want to open my eyes when they are already open?

"Manar" I heard a voice whisper. It sounded so sad, so vulnerable and I just felt like opening my eyes to it the moment I heard it.

"Please wake up.." I heard again. I opened my eyes slowly and out of reflex closed them again. The light was just too bright. I couldn't open it. After a few second, I tried it again. Even though it still hurt, I pushed myself. I just needed to look him in the eyes. I needed know if he was okay.

"Kamal.." I said in a whisper. My throat was dry so even I couldn't hear what I said. When I slowly turned my head to the side I looked him right in the eyes. When he looked at me, his eyes widened and he came closer to me, taking my hand. I felt a tear streaming down my face, especially when I thought of the place I backed out. I tried to speak, but couldn't. I had a huge headache and my throat did hurt. I felt pain going through my stomach when I tried to sit up. Kamal immediately put me down and gave me a glass of water. I never liked drinking water, but that day I just needed it. I don't think I've ever loved water more than this.

"Are you hurt?" he asked me in a slow voice. I nodded, not wanting to lie.

"Where is.." I stopped trying to breathe. That two words could tire you out so much. I took a deep breath before continuing.

"Where is Karim?" I asked him. He just looked away, letting go of my hand. I needed to know if Karim was alright. I needed to. But the expressions on his face told me that he was not okay..

~

Islam is my Life

DISCLAIMER:

I know that sometimes I sounded harsh and stuff, but you should realize after reading this that I take writing too seriously, and expect other people to take it as seriously as I do (which is not a good thing of me) but I just want this to be a little guider for you and if you have any questions left, feel free to ask!

So I thought about this for a long time and finally decided to do this (after getting tons of messages about it). Its not really about Islam, okay in a way it is, but I just want to talk about writing. I get a lot of messages from girls who ask me how they can get their story noticed. I started writing last year after I got (very) bored of the same Islamic plots here on Wattpad. I had already experience with writing on the internet so it was not that difficult for me to begin. After three months I think I already reached the 1 million reads. That was mainly because I knew (still know) how to deal with writing and stories and I just wanted to share it with you. First of all, not everyone can write. Okay, everyone can write but not everyone can write. What I am trying to say is, don't only try to write a story just because you want to get noticed on Wattpad. Just stop right now if you only do it to get a lot of votes and comments just because you want to be like these girls who got a lot of followers and are known all over Wattpad. Thats not the right way, that won't bring you success. Of course, we all want comments and votes because we want some credit for the time and effort we put to put up a story. I don't write these stories for myself. If I did, I would've had it only on my laptop and not all around Wattpad. Just stop when you only write because you aint got nothing else to do and you only want fame. Only write when you feel like writing is a part of you. Only write when you feel like writing is a friend of you which you've not seen for a long time and you just reunited. Only write when you think that writing is like breathing to you and that it only makes you happy. So you need to know your intentions and why you write.

Why I got pretty fast noticed here on Wattpad was because of my storyline. I had a different plot than what everybody else did here which attracted people. So first of all you need to come up with unique and different ideas. Ideas need to fly around your head constantly. What inspired me was a quote of Taylor Swift. She once said that ideas were like on clouds and you just needed to pick it up at the right moment for the right thing. If you find it hard to come up with ideas and just try to write with stuff from other books; you won't last long here. You have to come up with really unique stuff if you want to survive on Wattpad. There was once this girl who kind of had almost all of my scenes from y,mp in her story. I am now good with her and I know that it was NOT her intention, but mashing up other peoples ideas and stories won't make you reach anything. The success she got was not hers, it was mine. My story was pretty successful here, so don't you think that the same story with only a change of names and places will get successful too? The success she earned with that was haraam, because she kind of took it out of my hands. So don't just take an idea from that story and another idea from another story and mix that up and voila, here a very good story-no, it does NOT work that way. If you are not able to write, just don't write. I am sorry.

Try to come up with something that no one else has done before. For example forced marriages are so not trend anymore and people here around are kind of bored with them. Not every story has to be about forced marriages. When I started to write about forced marriages you only had a few of them which made it acceptable to write about it. But now like almost every Islamic story on here is about forced marriages. I honestly don't read English Islamic books anymore because to me they are not what I look for. My expectations for books are very high so maybe thats why. Now I only read from IBooks and Turkish Islamic stories because they're really different. A lot of girls (most of the time very young) are writing stories that are like, kind of boring, because the plots they think is amazing has been done so many times already. When I try to come up with an idea for a story, I always think of million other things to do with that. Writing is a creative process, you have that creativity or you do not have it. If you don't have it, just don't write. I bet there are other things you are talented in. Not everyone should write because that just puts the value of writing deep down under the ground, because how uncreative people act sometimes.

Also what VERY common on Wattpad now is that people don't come up with unique titles. To me I feel like that people don't even think for a title. They just type something in as a title that they think would do and don't think much of it. Little do they know that titles is what people firstly look at when they want to read a book. I spent two days straight to come up with a title for my fourth book. But sometimes a title just comes up in my mind. But I always think at least three days if the title I came up with would suit or if the title is something I am happy with and will be great for the story. Titles tell you what the story is about. For example (I don't want to hurt anyones feelings, but I have to say this) you have a lot of books here on Wattpad that are like The nerd and the bad boy, and now that flew over to Islamic books. The hijabi and that. The hijabi and this. It doesn't sound interesting and won't attract people because when someone sees a title, that person needs to think 'wow thats a different, interesting title. Lets check out what this is'. Why do we always need to put hijabis in our books. Why do the hijabi girls always need to be to perfect and flawless and never sin. Why do the guy always have to be a bad boy. My first story was about a bad boy too, but alhamdulillah my girl was not a hijabi that prays 9583453 times a day. I immediately stop reading a book when the girl is too flawless because I feel like there are too much of them. And I don't think its realistic too. Like, sometimes when I read a book like that and the girl does a sin, everyone in the comments get crazy, not realizing that all of them sin too. Thats why I never make my main characters perfect hijabis (only one of them is hijabi) because I got so annoyed with hijabi books. Even in the last chapter, Sahra was not a too practising muslim. So if you want to come up with an amazing idea and want to be a successful writer, do the complete opposite of what the people do here.

I judge a book by its cover, because the cover will show you how creative the writer really is. If I see someone who has just got a lame image from Google and just wrote the title on it won't make me read the books. If you look at my first cover, you will think that I did the same (which I did) but I knew what I had in my head and knew what I wanted and after changing images a lot, I finally found the one. I didn't even make my covers myself until the last book. @sara_is_hungry I asked Sara everytime I was going to start a new book that I needed a cover. She then asked me what the story was about and what I wanted and not wanted in my covers and after I replied to her she would sent me around ten covers which I have to pick one out of. I really take writing seriously and only when you take things seriously it will give you success. The last two covers of my books are made by me, because I kind of wanted to experiment with how to make covers and wanted to make my thought of a cover real. The cover of my last book for example was exactly pictured in my mind like that and I made it like that. Just put some time and effort in your story.

And I don't even want to start about the descriptions. When I think the title and cover are okay I am always too excited to read the description. And if I don't like the way the description is I don't read the book no matter how good the book is. I know that writing a description is really difficult and that not everyone is good at it, but try to write it as poetry. Try to minimilize (I know I spelled the word wrong) the feelings but also make it like that that people know exactly how the main character is feeling. Don't make bios in descriptions because no one cares about who got how many siblings. Write the storyline in a good way without too much details that will make the reader curious.

And please, please do not write "are they going to fall in love with each other, or not??(a lot of ???'s here btw) Read to find out"- no, stop it. No one likes to be forced in reading books and writing that will not make you get a lot of readers because a) everyone is sure that the main characters will fall in love with each other, no need to ask b) I won't read the book if you are saying to me to read the book. I've never seen this happen in a real life book btw..

Also do NOT message people with 'read my book (and then the link)' because I delete these kinda messages immediately without responding. It just sounds so mean and comes over very.. unnice, so thats why I don't read it. BTW also dont comment on other peoples books to read your story because to me I think that disrespectful and I regret that I did it in the past. Its a comment box for people to comment on the chapter not to advertise books.  I want to find out about books myself and if your book is really good, I will find out after a while. I don't have anything against people who leave a nice message and ask me then to read their book, then I really appreciate it. If you don't know where to start and you think you have a nice description, title and cover, start following people on Wattpad. Start following them (without asking for a follow back (ugh I hate that)) and try to make a nice conversation. Comment on books you like which will get the writer to notice you. Ask people for covers. Go to clubs where you can share your story. A lot of girls try to get noticed by already famous writers on Wattpad. They don't take people seriously who only have a few followers and thats so wrong, because the people who got less followers and are not famous on Wattpad, most of the time know more on whats going on on Wattpad than famous ones (experience talking). Don't ask famous writers to read your book because they won't because you are not the first one to ask them that. The people that comment A LOT and are really genuine are the not famous ones here. I am not saying that famous ones are not and that they are not nice, no. What I am trying to say is that famous writers get a lot of messages and comments that they just are so busy when it comes to Wattpad so they won't read all the books they get a message from. Just know that if your story is really unique, different and awesome, you will get noticed very fast. Its not difficult to get noticed on Wattpad. All you need is a good plot, not giving up and patience.

I wish you all very luck with writing (if you only write because of the reasons I told you above, and not because you only want fame)