Wax off! Or, How to write a killer log-line.

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem

Assalam alaikum wr wb, all my brothers and sisters. Peace and mercy be on our calloused fingers and every part of our tired but hopefully happy bodies.

I’ve been studying the oft-ignored of logline-writing.

I have basically stopped ignoring it.

The Black Board has been my Mr. Miyagi in this process.

I have culled together the main things we should remember when we write log-lines from the various sources listed at the Black Board.

1. Start with an interesting character, give him/her a high-stakes want and make the obstacles against them practically insurmountable.

I think it’s worth unpacking each of the terms mentioned above.

An interesting character

Who would be the most fascinating person to put in this situation? Usually the most fascinating person has the steepest learning curve.

When mentioning the Protagonist, give them just one well-chosen adjective.

Don’t include their name.

Only mention a maximum of two characters in the log-line, preferably Antagonist and Protagonist. More than that and it just becomes confusing.

This applies even to an ensemble piece, such as Bridesmaids or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

A high-stakes want

The highest stakes are usually derived from the five primal human needs – hunger, survival, protection of loved ones, sex and revenge.

None of these need be interpreted literally and more than one, I imagine, can occur in the same script, while carefully making sure the plot doesn’t become too muddy.

Peeples has the following log-line:

Sparks fly when Wade Walker crashes the Peeples annual reunion in the Hamptons to ask for their precious daughter Grace’s hand in marriage.

Wade obviously wants to have sex with Grace,  or wants to continue having sex with Grace, by showing his commitment to only having sex with Grace.

The Peeples’ family, I imagine, are trying to protect their daughter Grace from Wade.

Two competing wants = hopefully a funny and juicy conflict.

This segues nicely into the next crucial part of a log-line

Antagonist/obstacles

Do not ever have a passive character to whom things just ‘happen’. This is a fault not just in the log-line but in the entire story concept. The character should be the engine of action in the story.

He or she does something, something happens, they react by doing something else, probably still oblivious to their fatal flaw.  Something else happens. And so on until the Protagonist learns a new behaviour – or not.

Make the conflict external, even if it is internal. Let the Antagonist take a shape of some kind.

The character’s flaw is exacerbated, rendered life-threatening, by the obstacles the Antagonist puts in his/her path.

Again life need not be interpreted literally. Death can occur even when all your bodily functions are still working. As anyone who has ever stood in line at the DMV knows.

Hence the conflict forms the dramatic through-line of the logline.

Subplots should not be mentioned.

2. The logline should indicate the set-up, set up the main conflict of Act 2, and hint at the problem that will be resolved by Act 3.

This is by far one of the most useful things I’ve learned from the resources on log-lines.

Let’s look at the Peeples logline again:

Sparks fly when Wade Walker crashes the Peeples annual reunion in the Hamptons to ask for their precious daughter Grace’s hand in marriage.

Let’s re-arrange it so it mimics the 3-act structure of the movie.

When Wade Walker crashes the Peeples annual reunion in the Hamptons, sparks fly when he asks for their precious daughter Grace’s hand in marriage.

It’s much less elegant and a little confusing, which is probably why they went with the previous structure.

Act 1 set-up: When Wade Walker crashes the Peeple’s annual reunion in the Hamptons….

The Hamptons = lots of money.

Wade Walker = probably not so much money.

The use of the word ‘crashes’ means that he’s not expected and probably, not welcome either. Conflict already built in.

Act 2:  ”…sparks fly when he asks for Grace…” This is the engine of conflict for the bulk of the movie.

Act 3:  How will we know whether Wade is a loser or a winner in this movie?

Answer: We’ll know if he’s allowed to marry Grace or not.

Once you have all these ducks in a row, you can fiddle around with them to make a cleaner prettier sentence.

3. What are the genre expectations based on this log-line?

The genre is one of the key aspects of marketing a movie and one of the first questions in a production executive’s mind when he views a coverage report.

A lot of dark comedy log-lines I wrote initially were misunderstood as thrillers.

I’ve found using ‘funny’ words and an ‘ironic’ tone might help.

Yep, I’m still researching this one, mostly in the comedy genre, because that’s my jam. Will let you know.

4. You can diagnose a lot of script problems at the logline stage alone. 

It’s amazing what an incredible diagnostic tool a log-line is.

In the forums on the Black Board, I’ve been alerted to lackluster antagonists and protagonists, a lack of a clear goal, and various other more secondary, but still very important considerations.

Such as there are too many weird things going on (sci-fi).

The device that connects everything together just isn’t working (sci-fi again).

And various other common-sense questions that don’t arise when you think you’ve discovered a brilliant concept.

For example, in Harry Potter, why didn’t they use the Time Turner and just jolly well  go back in time and kill Voldemort?

5. Slice-of-life log-lines operate according to different rules.

Slice-of-life movies do not translate their internal goals into external goals.

Christopher Lockhart uses the example of Love Actually:

A varied group of Brits struggles with the pleasures, pain, and power of love during the Christmas season.

…and Gosford Park:

During a weekend jaunt at a British country house, servants – who must keep order and protocol – struggle to please their aristocratic employers until a murder threatens to disrupt the balance.

According to Lockhart, these stories should be defined by a time ( as in Christmas in Love Actually), place (Gosford Park) or historical event (Bobby) and the theme should not be presented didactically.

6. You only got 25 words! 

…but I’m sure, in the age of Twitter, that isn’t too big a deal.

7. Start with a spark of an idea and keep adding elements to it. 

No one is born a fully formed adult having already discovered their vocation and values in life.

So it goes with loglines. Rarely do they come out fully formed.

They start out pure, innocent and sweet in the form of a story concept, a angel that strikes you with its wing in the queue at the supermarket.

For example, “a lawyer who cannot lie”, “Othello in high school”, “Othello in Indian politics” (these three are high-concept because they can be summed in a few words), “racial tension in LA”, “a family road-trip to a beauty pageant”.

The conflict, the stakes, the wants and the needs, all come later as you let the thing sit around for a while, gathering form.

When it graduates college, you’re good to go! (I know I’ve stretched that metaphor way too far.)

Much love and peace,

The Happy Muslimah (in a nutshell)

I hate movies; or How to eviscerate an idea

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem.

Photo by Bruno Hamzagic

Assalam alaikum wr wb,

So help me God, I hate movies.

Day after day, week after week, I watch trailers, I look at posters, I scan the cinema listings hopefully, looking for something worth watching.

Nothing.

Less than nothing.  A slap in the face. A grab for my wallet.

I’m not interested in franchises anymore. I’m not interested in movie stars. I’m not interested in explosions.

I am not interested in shock, awe, blood, gore. I am not interested in laughter or tears. Those are empty emotions and can be triggered by practically anything I pull up on YouTube.

I would like a story.

How do you define a story?

A story means something to you. Not to me, the viewer, the ticket-buyer, the audience member, the cat-caller. To you, the story-teller.

Why do I love listening to my parents tell stories? Because they are joyful in the telling and I can see it in their faces. And through that joy, I begin to understand their values, their experiences, their beliefs, however different we are.

As we began to stop telling each other stories, I understood them less and less and we fought more and more.

The fact is, story allows me to empathize in a way that no other medium has achieved.

That is why I hate everything that is in the cinema right now. It’s a blatant insulting play for profit. It desecrates story and the power of the human spirit.

I don’t mean to say that stars, explosions and high drama are bad things. I think they just have to be used in the right way.

I loved Michael Clayton. It showed a veneer of real filth underneath a sterile world. It showed two men coming apart at the seams. Yes it had George Clooney and Sydney Pollack in it. But it was a great story.

I loved Ides of March too for much the same reason. It seemed real to me.

I follow the work of Ryan Gosling, not just because he’s an incredible actor, but mainly because he has a knack for picking exceptional projects. There has not been one movie of his that I’ve seen that I’ve not enjoyed and that I wouldn’t watch repeatedly and that I wouldn’t badger my husband into seeing.

Fo’ rizzle.

So why am I ranting on a Monday morning?

I’ve been generating ideas for The Quest 2013.

There’s plenty of literature on how to test a concept for the marketplace. I particularly recommend Save The Cat’s program of market research.

The question is – how do you know if a story concept is right for you? How do you gauge your level of passion for it? How do you know that it’s touching some deep dark place rather than simply treading tired old ground?

This isn’t just about generating the passion to go the long haul with each project. It’s about having a product at the end, that no matter what happens, you can be proud of. Because you poured your heart and soul into it. Because you told the truth, no matter how much it hurt.

That sort of energy will sustain a career, in my opinion, and that’s what I’m cultivating.

To that end, I’ve been asking a lot of questions about each idea.

As a viewer:

1. Why would I watch this movie? What elements would make me book that ticket in advance?
2. What elements would make me avoid this movie? What makes me shriek much like I did above?

These two questions allow me to really get to the nub of what sort of experience I want as a movie-goer.

As a writer (this is the clever bit):

1. In what ways is this idea within my comfort zone of my abilities, interests, previous writing experience, etc?
2. In what ways is this out of my comfort zone in the same ways?

It’s maddeningly simple, but for me, it’s helping me shape a story that’s been knocking around in my head for months now.

More importantly, it’s helping me commit to that story. Because I know why I’m writing it. Even if the telling is mediocre and the reception is poor.

Let me know what your thoughts are. And for God’s sake, if you’re a filmmaker with a movie that means something, please tell me about it. I’m starving for something real.

Wasalam and Fee Amanillah (in other words, Godspeed),

The Happy Muslimah

My brother said I wasn’t pretty OR 6 reasons why I write

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem

Assalam alaikum wr wb, dudes and dudettes (I remember having a particularly vicious argument with my brother years ago about whether a slang word such as ‘dude’ could even have a feminine form. As you will see, my brother and I have had many vicious arguments over the years.)

Alhamdulillah. Praise be to God. I am about waist deep in a second draft of my feature film.

Alhamdulillah the second draft has been SO much more fun than the first.

With the first draft, I wept everyday as I put my characters in the most painful situations I could think of. I was moody, irritable and depressed, a feeling compounded possibly by having just moved to Sri Lanka and just gotten married.

And not getting much sleep due to the mosquitoes.

And having to become accustomed to unfamiliar-tasting foods.

And unfamiliar sights, sounds and languages.

But that’s a story for a different time.

Every day, I waded into a deep river of painful memories. It’s a wonder how potent memories can be. Whenever I remember the first time I saw my husband, I get the same butterflies in my stomach I got then. My cheeks still flush and I feel unmoored, but in a good way.

Bad memories show up in my body too, just as potently.

Without giving away too much…my screenplay is a tale of lost identity and gained family. I’m aiming for funny, shocking, odd and hopefully very alive, the kind of movie I’ve always wanted to see, and the kind of movie I hope women everywhere will resonate with.

Because frankly all I want to do is to give every woman in the world a big hug. Brothers in humanity and Islam, you too have my utmost respect and compassion.  Since I don’t have big enough arms, I am settling for giving you a piece of art instead.

As rewarding as writing this piece has been, it’s also been quite draining and especially at the beginning when those pages were blank, utterly terrifying.

Scott from Go Into The Story asked a great question a while. At the time, still reeling from the agony of my first draft, I had no real answer. As the story begins to gather more form in the second draft, I feel an answer taking shape.

To quote my friend Sarah – as always, bear with me.

I write because:

1. Story telling is a part of human DNA.

As long as I can remember, my family has delighted in stories, whether they were soap operas, police procedurals, sitcoms or movies. As long as I can remember, my family has loved a good laugh. At their own expense or at the expense of others.

The best stories were the ones my parents told. Like memory, the telling of the story transported them back and they relived everything and re-felt everything. It was a powerful thing to witness. Plus, my parents are blasted entertaining storytellers. Drama and interesting characters seemed like quotidian elements in the Sri Lanka of their memory

2. I often feel lonely.

I grew up the youngest by many years. By the time I was old enough to have a mature conversation, my brothers had already left for university. I spent most of my teen years feeling like an only child.

The movies made me feel less lonely.  They were populated by characters playing out their lives of which I was either a nasty voyeur or silent but essential part. I prefer silent but essential part.

3. Movies gave me reassurance.

Movies often reinforced to me that I was worthy of love, regardless of whether my hands were scissors or if I was a head-scarf-wearing Turkish girl abandoned in the back of a Nazi taxi-driver’s cab.

Movies told me if I put my mind to it, I could accomplish anything. Sure, the characters on screen didn’t look like me. But they seemed like me. And that was enough.

That brings me quite nicely to my next point.

4. My brother said that I wasn’t pretty.

I was about 9.

I can’t remember what we were arguing about. I think that there was no one on screen that looked like me.  Even then I could see the danger of only seeing faces devoid of color on screen. It can distort your view of your human privilege.

I think I said something like, “Why can’t someone like me be on screen?”

And my brother said quite readily, “Because you’re not pretty.”

That stung more than a little. It still does. You know. Memory.

But I am amazed to tell you that I also remember something else – I knew that he was lying. I knew that I was drop-dead gorgeous and hecka fascinating.

So was he.

Pretty much everyone I’d ever met up until that point, male or female, old or young, dark-skinned or light, I had liked.  Everyone I’d met, I wanted to play with.

It was only much later that I was conditioned to hate myself.

And that’s when I realize someone like me needs to be on TV. Someone like me needs to show up on the silver screen. God knows how many 9-year-old girls hear, “You’re not pretty,” and believe it. Not cool.

I realize now why I’m always angry, why I’m always fighting some grave injustice and why my characters are always fighting something. It’s my brother’s fault! I knew it!

5. Writing allows me to look at things that are too painful with a little distance.

Writing helps me put myself in the shoes of someone else and forgive them. It lets me dive into a memory by giving my emotions to someone else and thus not hurting myself too deeply. It’s a good way of putting away my ego and allowing someone else, namely my characters, to figure things out. More often than not, they are a whole lot smarter than me.

6. Writing lets me have a happy ending, even if life was not that kind.

Movies tell me that it’s all going to be okay in the end. The movies that I like anyway. That everything will eventually make sense in the end. That there’s an internal logic to this mad world and I can’t possibly see it because I’m in it.

How about you? Why do you write?

I realize now that this is also a post about why I love movies.

Much love and beauty to you, my beautiful readers.

Wassalam and Fee Amanillah,

The Happy (and beautiful) Muslimah (Mashallah!)

Bee in my bonnet – Mama

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem

Assalam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatahu, sisters and brothers,

So I recently saw lauded horror movie Mama at the cinema with my hubby. It was a much-anticipated event for him, a much-dreaded one for me. See, I don’t like horror movies. I don’t like being scared. The better the movie, the worse trouble I have sleeping.

Anyway I went because I love Guillermo del Toro and I wanted to see what his protégé had learned.

Apparently not very much. Here is my review from a screenwriter’s perspective.

The Good:

Beautifully shot. I’ve never seen death and desolation treated so lovingly. Two gorgeous kids that anyone with a heart would root for. Most of the characters had clear histories and clear motivations.

 

There’s some great usage of the good ole horror movie staple, the vagina indentata – if you don’t know what that is, I’m not sure you want to look it up.

I can’t fault structure or pacing. But as always, there are a few things that I can fault.

The Bad:

To reference Blake Snyder, this is one of those Monster in the House movies. The house in question could be a nation – as Independence Day. It also could be a spaceship, as in Alien. The Monster could be a jilted lover, as in Fatal Attraction. Or a shark, as in Jaws. Many variations, but the plot points tend to be the same.

I said above that most characters had a clear motivation. The one exception was Mama. Did she want the children for herself? Did she want her own baby back? We, of course, never get a chance to sit down and chat with the woman but various characters in the movie misdirect us – and that’s really irritating.

However the biggest bugbear I have with this movie is the fact that Mama, the MONSTER, has our sympathy right from the first five minutes. She saves two adorable little girls from having their heads blown off by their not-so-adorable father. We’re immediately on her side.

Later she shelters and feeds the children. Again, we’re with her on that one.

We can’t possibly be frightened of a thing that has a five-year-old giggling. However ugly she is, she can’t be that bad a ‘person’ – so to speak.

Yes, there is a sense of gathering dread as she becomes more and more violent. But we still jolly well don’t know why. Again, super-irritating!

[SPOILER ALERT]

Towards the end of the movie, Mama has a chance to kill both human guardians, something that Victoria, the more expressive of the two kids, keeps warning against. She does not. She simply roughs them up a bit.

We sympathise with the monster – she has a heart still, however long ago it stopped beating.

We also lose the prime element that makes a horror movie a horror movie – namely the horror. If we don’t fear for the protagonist’s lives, there is simply no primal identification with the story.

That made the ending quite weak when it could have had so much power.

Towards the end of a movie, we figure out what she might have wanted, too late and too ambiguous to add potency to the previous 80 minutes.

And another irritating thing – why did that stupid psychiatrist go into a haunted wood cabin all by himself in the night-time without an extra torch? Hasn’t he ever watched any horror movies?

[END OF SPOILERS]

Anyway, I came out of that film feeling mildly dissatisfied. What was great about the short was the insinuation that two little girls were fending off their actual mother who had turned into a zombie/cannibalistic creature.  There’s nothing more primal than your mother wanting to eat you.

In this movie however, the girls were only mildly scared of Mama, if at all.

Will try and review some movies that I actually liked soon.

Bah.

Khayr insha Allah.

Wassalam and Fee Amanillah,

The Happy Muslimah

The Rest and Relaxation Protocol

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem

Assalam alaikum wr wb, peeps.

Once again – not feeling great.

It’s not more of the same. Was feeling good then had a sudden turn of weather.

What does feeling bad feel like to me? In a word – exhaustion. My head hurts, my stomach and chest hurts. I feel like a rubber band stretched too tight. This has been happening far too often lately and I think Allah (Subhaana Wa Ta’aala) is telling me it’s time for a change.

I think Allah (Subhaana Wa Ta’aala) is trying to tell me to slow down and live with more intention. Intention is not scrabbling for power in the darkness, smacking away every human being that comes close. Intention is grabbing what you got and going after it.

Problem is, I don’t know what I got and I don’t know what I’m going after.

In other words – I haven’t planned my year yet. I know – it’s February.

As I said before, I hate planning. I hate disappointing myself.

But I’ve recently shifted my perspective on planning. Planning is simply a tool to help me show up with – you guessed it – the right intention insha Allah. If things go well, Alhamdulillah (thank God)! If not, thank God! Perhaps something better will fall into place.

Better late than never.

May Allah (subhaana wa ta’aala) help me get over my allergy to planning. May He make my week of rest and reflection productive and inspiring. May I be set up practically and spiritually for the rest of the year. Ameen!

May Allah (subhaana wa ta’aala) grant us success in this life and the next.

Peace out.

Wassalam and Fee Amanillah,

The Happy Muslimah.

Insights from the THR Actor’s Roundtable

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem

Assalam alaikum wr wb!

I haven’t been feeling excellent this past week, so I’ve engaged the Rest Protocol for a few days. That said, I know that I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks when I promised myself in the New Year that I would post every week.

I’ve crossed a few milestones in the writing front: I’ve finished the first draft of my second feature and have made a decision to go on the offensive in getting a produced credit. No news yet, but watch this space for the trials and well, trials.

And I watched Django Unchained. Most new releases might be good but forgettable. The Hobbit was good. Jack Reacher was good.

Some irritate me a great deal. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was one of them. Flight was one of them. Django Unchained didn’t irritate but boy, did it…disturb me. I’m only going to write about the ones that stir up something deep. Something I might tell my children about. Okay?

Sometime ago I took some notes on the THR roundtable of actors (I know, I know, I’m a screenwriter).  Listening to them, I realized actors are spiritual siblings to writers. We’re both trying to create something out of (almost) nothing. If anything, actors are under more pressure – they have to look good. No one expects a writer to look good; in fact, it’s surprising if they do.

Here are my observations:

1. People remember kind people. Be kind.
2. The pressure and the manic energy is what make you interesting.
3. Mercurial rises in fame leads to mercurial people.
4. Fame doesn’t change your life much (according to one actor, I can’t remember which).
5. Fame makes people react to you differently. Your whole reality might shift.
6. Fame affects your ability to go unnoticed in a crowd and this in turn might affect your ability to observe.
7. Female actors have it tough over 40. Do a sister this solid – write a female character that’s over 40.
8. Talent will always have work.
9. I’m brown, Hijabi and a woman. I need to work double and triple hard to prove myself.
10. What is communicated comes from the inner self.
11. You attract what you fear.
12. People identify even with villains and antiheroes as human beings, not as villains.
13. What we say and what we give to young people is powerful.
14. Fear and conflict sell.
15. Read Journey to the East by Gandhi.
16. Filmmaking and screenwriting is not what you are. It’s an expression of who you are.
17. Filmmaking with people who are not thrilled to be there, whose lives are stake is nearly always a draining experience.
18. Prep for acting is a lot like prep for writing. You get to know the background of the people, the work they do, etc. But the magic can’t be ‘prepared’ for. It comes from somewhere else. The unexpected stuff begins to arrive when you’re open to it.

Hope you enjoyed the above, guys.

Wassalam and Fee Amanillah,

Sabina.

My friend Fear and 2013

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem

Assalam alaikum wr wb!

Man, it’s been a wild year huh?

Early January this year, I went to a cousin’s engagement. On our way back to Colombo, my family’s car got hit by two buses. That’s right. Not one. TWO.

Isn’t that wild?

Alhamdulillah, everyone walked away from that accident.

I got a good knock on the head, though, which resulted in a dramatic swelling of my face as the blood from my head injury fell down into my eye sockets.

The effect my face had on people was hilarious. I scared children and made women cry.

I look back on that incident and I have to say, not only am I grateful, I am terrifically happy.

As odd as it sounds, we couldn’t have chosen better timing and a better location to have a disaster. Our entire family was on that same road home.  From wherever they were, they all turned around and came back to aid my mom and dad.  I can say with utmost certainty; there are far worse places to have a mild concussion.

I can’t remember much of the 12 hours or so after the accident and even in the weeks after, as my brain recuperated, my short term memory was a bit wonky. My big brother (who specializes in emergency medicine) said there’s nothing to worry about; I probably felt drowsy.  Thinking back, waking up in the middle of conversations just adds to that hilarity of the situation.

But my parents were not that amused. They were fully conscious, terrified and anxious.

The capital-F Fear has lasted a bit too long. It’s been almost a year now. My father is still frightened to drive, thinking he fell asleep at the wheel that day. He tells me, “I’m too old to drive. I am too tired. I am too distracted. ” The Fear cripples him.

Why was I capital-H Happy? Why was he Afraid? Was it because I was unconscious? Was it because I was naive? Was it because I simply didn’t care?

Recently I have been quite fearful myself. A recent social engagement left me crabby and shaking.

I have been watching my ‘I am’ statements recently and found there is a shocking prevalence of a kind of self-smack talk. “I don’t like new people. I am not good with new people. I am not good with unfamiliar situations. I am a nervous person. I am a shy person.”

I thought of something else I’d learned recently.

Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become. My father always said that. And I think I am fine.

I’ve heard this many times, but honestly it’s only made sense now.

These fearful thoughts have probably become my character. A photographer once told me she was surprised that I am a comedian because I was so timid.

“Like a mouse?” I thought at the time. I wasn’t angry; I was just sad that my Fear was so evident. Still I managed to have a kick-butt photo shoot.

On the morning of that social gathering, I sat very still and quiet and listened to my thoughts.

I was frightened of other people. I thought they would hurt me. I thought they would prey on my vulnerability. I thought they would bully me.

Good Lord, where did these horrid thoughts come from?

I’m not going to blame anyone else. I’m not going to blame some monolithic culture for branding a tiny South East Asian woman with stereotypical qualities.

Wherever they came from, they must be stopped. Because I don’t want to ‘become’ frightened. I don’t want my destiny to be shrinking away in the corners of rooms, waiting for someone to notice me and being scared when they do.  Allah Subhaana Wa Ta’aala is my Protector and His world is too big and too beautiful Mashallah.

I’ve learned that my friend Fear doesn’t leave when asked. He doesn’t leave when yelled at. And he doesn’t budge, even if you tell him to go back where he came from.

I have started changing my thoughts consciously. I’ve started to turn “I am shy” to “I am hopeful”, “I am thoughtful”, “I am observant”, “I am peaceful”. Nothing wrong with not talking. When you listen you learn so much about so many new things. When you consciously listen, it takes a bit of hard work. You have to shelve your ego and give the other person the space to express themselves. I’m still trying but Alhamdulillah it’s a richly rewarding experience.

The day of the accident, I was happy because I wasn’t alone. That day and all the days after that, every time I woke up someone I loved was there. It was like the world’s best Facebook picture slideshow.

And the only person who was hurt was me and I knew it wasn’t that bad. You know when something inside you is changed forever and Alhamdulillah that didn’t happen that day.

That particular week, I was just grateful for every single silly little thing, from my parents to TV, from boiled eggs to pain medication, from hugs to the wind, to beautiful confusing Sri Lanka to lovely and infuriating Dubai.

Hopefully insha Allah in changing my thoughts, I will change my character. Hopefully insha Allah I will nurture peace, whether my friend Fear is with me or not.

That, more than anything, is my intention for 2013 insha Allah.

Have a blessed year. Have a blessed life insha Allah!

Wassalam and Fee Amanillah.

The Happy (and fully healed) Muslimah.