Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Ramadan Mubarak!

Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, begins today and will end on or about September 10, 2010. I'm taking this time off from blogging to focus on observance and family gatherings. I'll be back after the sighting of the Eid moon. Until then, Ramadan Mubarak to the 1.5 billion humans celebrating this holy month. May G_d bless every precious living being on our glorious planet!

Mohamed

Friday, August 6, 2010

Friday Friends: So What Do You Do for a Living?

Are there ideal vocations that prepare people for becoming great writers? If so, what are they? Both questions have been lingering in my mind ever since I read a recent post on aspiring_x's blog, Hairnets and Hopes. In Raising My Plebian Voice, aspiring_x discusses career choices, literary perceptions and writing. She shares some of her recent experiences and offers an interesting range of reactions and conclusions. I'm sure that each of you will have a unique opinion on the piece. Personally, I savored aspiring_x's raw honesty.

I've considered the relationship between vocations and writing once before. The question came up during my virtual book tour in March. An anonymous reader asked if my background as a chemical engineer influences my writing. I answered honestly: it does.

How about you? Do you believe that there are ideal vocations that serve as training grounds for writers? What's your career choice and how does it affect your writing?

Monday, August 2, 2010

Planning a Virtual Book Tour

Writing World recently published my article on how to plan a virtual book tour. The article describes a simple, five step process that I used to plan my own tour in March 2010 and includes sample text for hosts and for press releases.

Would I do another virtual book tour? As I say in the article: "Absolutely! Done right, the process yields increased visibility to an author while increasing traffic for the host blogs. It's an ideal venue through which to create and leave behind a long-lasting cyber-trail of information about your book, about your writing and about yourself. Most of all, a virtual book tour is a perfect vehicle through which to enjoy the benefits and revelations of a real-time, deep conversation with readers and literature enthusiasts the world over."

I've always said that I value our cyber-community here at Thoughts and Ponderings. I truly do. That said, if any of the followers of this blog would like to do a virtual book tour this year, I'd be happy and honored to be one of your hosts.

Wishing each of you a week full of enjoyable reading and lucid writing,

Mohamed