The Poetteer

Hello Poetteers, Last week was the first week of Fall. Let's celebrate by creating a fall bucket list along with a second list of things you want to do before the year ends. I do have two lists but for this blog's sake I'm cutting it down and combining them. 17 Before 2017/Fall Bucket List 1. Read all the books to finish my Goodreads challenge 2. Participate in Inktober 3. Do NaNoWriMo 4. Go to an open mic night 5. Practice calligraphy 6. Make a list of things you’re grateful for 7. Take a day trip and listen to your favorite Fall Mix 8. Take pictures of the changing leaves 9. Press leaves you collect in your journal 10. Mail your friends themed cards 11. Do some Fall Cleaning 12. Make plenty of “pumpkin” typos 13. Make handprint turkeys 14. Write two short stories 15. Decorate bedroom 16. Jump in a neatly organized pile of leaves 17. Take a walk through a park and try to catch falling leaves stay inspired, Fida

Hello Poetteers, It's time for my monthly recap! I look back at my goals I set in the beginning of the year and see how well I progressed. Reading I read two novels and a non-fiction book. My first read of the month was THE GIRL IN THE BLUE COAT by Monica Hesse. I was able to pick up THE ROSE AND THE DAGGAR, the sequel to THE WRATH AND THE DAWN by Renée Ahdieh. My non fiction read was THE DESIRE MAP by Danielle LaPorte. I'm currently reading The Problem with Forever by Jennifer L. Armentrout . Writing I'm working on a few short stories and poetry collections here and there. That's all I can say. Stay tuned in the coming months for more information. You can get a sneak peak about this in my newsletter . Personal I'm in a better place than I was 5 years ago. I am able to have and stick with my exercise routine. I'll say that I was able to accomplish most of my goals. I won't be sharing next month's goals in this blog post. I have a sepa...

Hello Poetteers, A couple years ago I created a poetry bucket list. At the time I accomplished two of them. I published two poetry books. I also co-lead a poetry workshop at a camp I went to. I accomplished two of the ten things on my list. Today I have accomplished half of my list. 1. Since then I published two more poetry books . 2. I've done live performances at the camps I've been to. I'm also doing some recorded pieces on SoundCloud . 3. I co-lead a workshop at one of those camps. 4. I made my first poetry short film this week and will be sharing it in the coming days. 5. If you have seen my tweets I am working on being a poetry editor. stay inspired, Fida

Hello Poetteers, It's time for my monthly recap! I look back at my goals I set in the beginning of the year and see how well I progressed.  Reading I read two novels, one poetry book and a non-fiction book. The poetry book is Lullabies by Lang Leav and you can find my review here . The Sister Pact by Stacie Ramey is a beautifully written story about tragedy and the life that follows after it. I love how art played a role in the story. The Storied Life of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin is by far my favorite book of the year, maybe of life. My non fiction book was Girl Code by by Cara Alwill Leyba. It is an inspiring read. I'm currently reading When We Collided by Emery Lord. Writing Before April came around I outlined a novel to write during Camp Nano. On the first day I looked at my outline and didn't like it. There were a couple scene that excited me and I worked on them. I reoutlined my story and it was decent but it still didn't spark anything in me. I mad...

Hello Poetteers, It's time for my monthly recap! I look back at my goals I set in the beginning of the year and see how well I progressed. Reading I  read four books and a story on Wattpad. My initial reading goal was 40 books but I upped it to 45 books. Dumplin' by Julie Murphy - four stars. Map of Fates by Maggie Hall - five stars. It is the second book in a series. It is better than the first book. I enjoyed the glimpse at other cultures and countries. I loved seeing the MC's growth. That plot twist really pulled at my heart! Where You'll Find Me by Natasha Friend - four stars. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton - three stars. Beautiful yet odd. I keep thinking of putting it down but I plowed through. I didn't feel there is really a tangible plot until last 100 pages. That was where it finally picked up for me and felt good/interesting. I loved that part. This story didn't work for me. My favorite characters ...

Hello Poetteers, It's time for my monthly recap! Look back at last month's:  January's Recap | Resolutions . Reading I read 2 poetry books, an anthology, a novel and a self help book. It is close to last month. It not as heavy of a read I'm still happy because I really love what I read. Writing I finished editing Louder Alone!! I finally came up with ideas for the four new manuscripts I want to write this year. I started outlining one of my ideas. Poetry One of my goals was to work on spoken word. I didn't exactly do that but it is close and similar. I am now on SoundCloud ! I have two pieces up already for you to listen to. I'm still keeping up with my color series on Instagram . Talking about IG, i think I finally got a theme for it. Personal Last month I was able to set in an evening routine. This month I tried to set a morning routine. The morning routine is called Miracle Morning that I read on the blog BohoBerry . If you haven...

Hello Poetteers,  I thought since I shared some of my relations with you I would share with you how it is going. This past month went well. As you can see from my past posts I've read 7 books. I'll see how this next month goes and maybe up my reading goal.  I spent the month reading through and light editing my wip, Louder Alone. This month i hope to do some more in-depth editing.  A personal goal of mine is to bring yoga back into my life and be more consistent with it. I heard of Yoga with Adriene and have done a few of her videos in the past. I saw she was doing a 30 day yoga camp and participated. It helped me so much and I see improvement in myself and it inspired me to want to continue with yoga.  I've been following Alex Beadon for a while. You should check her out. She has this energy that inspires and motivates me to focus and work on my passion.  Last but not least, I have a poetry series going on, on Instagram along with a ph...

Hello Poetteers,  I have a todo list app that sends me reminders and that lets me really plan ahead, so I just set it in to remind me every month to check in with my goals.  One of my goals is to cull goodreads tbr list. I had 1,200+ books. On day one I got it down to less than 800 books. On day two I finished culling my list. I got it to a total of 582 books, woohoo! My new goal is to keep my goodreads tbr list under 1,000 books. It makes me feel good to see a less daunting number and to know only the books i really want to read are on that list.  Thank you,  Fida P.S.  This may not help if you are also culling your goodreads tbr list but you can add my poetry books to your goodreads list. 

Hello Poetteers,  Happy New Year!! As you may or may not know, I’ve been blogging for almost 8 years. I’m surprised myself. One of my goals is to bring my focus back to my blog. As you may have seen, i’ve slacked off but check out my other social media to see where i’ve been.  My other writer resolutions are: Edit/revise LOUDER ALONE send it off to beta readers query it by the end of this year Along with Louder Alone I want to attempt to write 4 new manuscripts. Two of them I want to attempt novel in verse.  Read at least 40 books this year I want to read at least one classic Expand my poetry skill Try out calligraphy Work on Spoken Word I hope by the end of the year I can cross these off my list or at least be close to getting to cross it off my list.  Thank you,  Fida

Hi everyone, We are midway through NaNoWriMo. My word count is currently at 14k. In their recent email they asked about our resolutions for the rest of the month. My resolution is to let go of the worry of not reaching 50K. 2) to write consistently everyday (mornings work best for me). 3) to continue writing everyday towards my novel after this month is over and to continue to write after 50k, until the story is at the end. Love, Fida Check out my book, Her Treasures .

Hello Poetteers, Thank you Ava for getting me to think about the end of the year and my goals! Check out her end of the year goals . • Publish the book! I've been slowly doing the process throughout the year. It will finally be released on Thursday! • See success in merch store I recently opened a merch store and have new/more ideas for it but I have to see it go somewhere, mostly up, do to more. • Start a new project I got a new story idea brewing but I haven't written for a novel in a long while. Hopefully NaNoWriMo helps! • Finish my GR reading challenge My goal is 60 books but I'm six books behind. I hope I'll be able to accomplish it with my weekly trips to the bookstore. I have a couple more personal goals too. Yet I won't be sharing those. What are your goals for the end of the year, before the year ends? Thank you, Fida

Assalamu Alaikum sisters, As I hope you know, today is the first day of the new year in the Islamic calendar. We're already starting our 2012 ! Since Friday night and today I've been spending it writing poetry about nature and love. And working on my nano. (W)rite now, my total is 9,990 words. My goals for this new year: 1) write 1k each day for novelizing. Make poetry big, maybe start getting paid. 2) Exercise body: Yoga 30 mins each day. 3) Exercise soul, too! Pray all 5 prayers, fast, keep tongue moist Allah's name... (just keep improving as Muslim) 4) Be more outgoing and strong emotionally and physically. Stand up for what you believe. If frustrated be able to talk what really is on your mind (resource teacher does care). 5) Last but not least, love. (it's hard to explain, but Allah knows what's in my heart and if He wills, will make it come true sooner than I think). Have a great new year and may Allah bless us all! Ameen! (: -written ...

Hello readers, Today is New Year's Eve's Eve! Since New Year is just right around the corner, you know what that means. Time to write a list of resolutions. Here are a few of mine... Write more! Story ideas are floating around in my head. Need to get them grounded on paper, hehe. Don't lose my poetic mind. Keep writing those poems that suddenly have become a big hit on this blog. Because as I look back over the year of 2010 my poetry has improved; insha'allah it'll keep improving for the best. And of course post SOME of them. I do want to get published; that brings me to my next one... Write, edit, revise. Look around to see if there are some literary agents that might fit you. Then of course query, pray, and wait. Those are some of my resolutions, the others are more personal and for side of me you don't know. See you all in 2011!