During my freshman year, I started this blog in order to write. I made the decision after my first semester in engineering. I wanted a simple name to represent this journal. As such, TheseAreMyWritings was born.

Then I wrote on this blog for the next few semesters.

I wrote on it intermittently during my freshman year. I had a yearning, a longing, to express something that was unclear to me at the time. And so I tried doing it, here and there.

In my first semester of sophomore year, I started writing on this blog 3 times a week. I had a dedicated schedule now – Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I believe. I wrote poetry, shared my thoughts, and produced very short stories (I mean, they’re more prose poems than short stories, but whatever, I wrote stuff). Throughout the semester, I developed my writing more and more. I had ideas relating to the corporate lifestyle, abandonment, lack of consistency. I tried writing these ideas, but conveying them was difficult. There is a very fine line between embuing meaning into the fabric of a piece and flat out losing the reader due to not grounding them enough within a piece. Truly difficult stuff. And it all begins with a blank page and a semi-idea of what I want to say.

Second semester sophomore year, I started taking poetry more seriously. By now, I had stopped writing 3 times a week. I got a book by Stephen Fry to introduce me to poetry (its forms, rhyme schemes, meter, etc.) because I wanted to know the tradition before endeavoring in it further. By March 2021, I had begun writing my own poetry in a new style. I broke out of the style I had developed in the previous semester, and by now I was more direct. I was more confident, even though literally nothing changed in the course of a few months. I had gravitas, and so, I utilized it. Now, this gravitas was unfounded. I wrote bad pieces. But I was trying something new, breaking form, and a hint of something began to show – I began writing like I’m in a dream. I don’t know why this happened but it did. I remember I had this poem about a sloth and a wolf, and the sloth defecated, and it was this really strange thing, but I enjoyed writing it. So I wrote some more.

April and May were more of the same. June, I wasn’t active. I wrote some weird poetry. I was reading poetry too, from an anthology, and I was trying to imitate the best writers while creating a style of my own. The strangeness then sunk into my own personal life. And so, I was writing strange poetry about myself now, my past. But I wasn’t active on the blog. This all remains in the vault.

Throughout July and August, I wrote on the blog every day for 30 days. And this time, I also used visual aids to strengthen the pieces. These pieces have been different from most other things I’ve written. They were raw retellings of encounters, memories, thoughts, and the stanza breaks were pretty weird. These 30 days were my writings for my own personal journal, I’d say. A form of therapy. I wasn’t trying to do anything other than be honest. I wrote like no one was watching.

Junior year, I became more honest. Began my creative writing minor. Had actual poets teaching me, and I was learning with other poets as well. These people had a different eye for things, always looking for what’s behind the scenes. Now, I was reading more poetry, taking everything in. I only wrote 6-7 pieces this semester.

During winter break of my Junior year, I begin writing more. I’m in Colorado and I write a few pieces.

I go back for the Spring semester, and here is when things begin to pick up pace. This year, 2022, is when things have begun to pick up pace. Junior year, second semester, I take Intermediate Poetry and I fall in love with the craft. I go for it. I wrote, perhaps, 40 pieces this semester, and the quality improved. Of these 40 pieces, a good amount of them was actually presentable. I showed it to my professor. I got good feedback. I was told I was good. I was told I could be published. So I thought, well, I’m writing, why not publish. I met with JK every week, revised poems, wrote more poems in my free time. I was writing whenever I had the chance.

This summer, I wrote some more. Currently, I’m still writing.

I’ve retold all this backstory to basically say that I will rarely be writing on the blog now. I’ve learned that the best writing comes in to me solitude, and that sharing my thoughts here isn’t ideal. I crave this solitude, cherish it. I like writing something and then throwing it in the garbage. And I want to keep that feeling with me. This blog served its purpose, and I’m still going to keep it up. I’ll pay the annual fee because I want to remember it as a stepping stone. And it can serve as a portfolio with time, perhaps. But my best pieces come to me alone, and I don’t need the pressure of writing something to post online. I’ll be writing for myself. I have all the gravitas I need. I can take my time. But just because I’m not posting here does not mean that I’ve stopped writing. In addition, it is not ideal to have my own dedicated space for writing outside of what people use. If I want people to have easy access to read what I write, I should have an account that is easily accessible. My Twitter account for my writings is @nasser_alsinan. That area allows more freedom, more connections. And I like writing by hand.

By now, I’ve written hundreds of poems. I’ll continue to write more. And every now and then, I might pop up here, but I will not be writing on a schedule.

Thank you to everyone who has read TheseAreMyWritings.

The last thing I posted on this blog was on December 2, 2021, “From: To,” which would eventually shape my thoughts for the Colorado Window video tape. Even though I haven’t been posting anything, it does not mean that I have ceased writing. Last semester I probably wrote the most out of any semester, combining my meetings with JK and my ENGL 407 class (Paige). In total, I may have written 50-60 poems and a short story (~11-12 pages).

So this is where the update for the blog comes in. What do I want to do with the blog? If I’ve been writing, why haven’t I been posting anything on the blog?

The blog began as a personal project on a late December 2019 night in Canada after I was brought back to writing thanks to an uneventful semester. My aim at the time was to just have somewhere to write and share what I write. I didn’t have a long-term vision for the blog. It was simply a place for me to share my thoughts and writings. On that front, it has achieved its goal. There are ~160 posts here spanning a couple of years. As such, it will continue to function like that. If I feel like I have something that I want to write and share instantly in this digital journal, then I will do so. I have about ~150 unfinished drafts on the blog. I might publish those later. This is basically the official update on how the blog will function.

Ok, so I’ve been writing, why not publish things here? Well, the pieces that take a long time to write (memory marmalade) and require extensive review, in my opinion, should be published in a place where more readers could easily access it. That place is an academic journal/magazine. Publishing those pieces on the blog would rob the piece of the merit it may be able to receive in a journal. In addition, publishing in a journal would allow me to network with more writers, which is the aim at the moment. So, the natural next step is to be published (just not self-published). If I post something here, it can’t be published. Journals refuse to publish anything that has been published anywhere on the internet, and even though they most likely would never find this blog, I still want to respect that rule. My best work won’t be here. It’s going to be either published in a journal or left in the vault. Natural sequence of events: write a good piece -> get published -> enlarge network of writers -> connect with more readers. Writing, at the end of the day, like other forms of art, is just about connection. Who can you connect with?

I thought about making the blog a place where I write on the daily. However, that’s just not how the blog was meant to function (and that’s not how I want it to function), and if I’m publishing on the daily, it’ll only be tidbits of what I’m thinking, and it will most likely be in relation to something that happened that day. It’s self-reflection on a small scale. Big-scale self-reflection cannot be done daily. It needs time to develop and then become a piece, and such a piece, I believe, one that has taken considerable time and effort to craft, as I have just stressed, deserves a place in a journal rather than my own personal blog. This all depends on what my goal is, and right now, it’s just to branch out. Get people to read what I write. Get more feedback. Connect with more people.

I don’t expect people to go out of their way to visit this blog to read what I write, so I also made a Twitter account. Daily tidbits will be there. That’s an unfiltered, unedited train of thought sort of thing, which is to be expected from daily writing. My purpose there is, as I said, to just reach more people, and social media is a tool that makes that easier. It’s a good daily activity. Helps make each day unique, in a sense, instead of everything just being a flowing stream. Account linked here.

I have sent a couple of the pieces that I have written this semester to journals. I expect to be rejected by all of them. But that’s okay with me. Until then, though, the 50-60 poems per semester will remain in my vault, and the only writings that I will provide will be those on my Twitter account and perhaps the occasional blog post (I just made “idle” public. This was written Spring 2021).

Newspaper on my feet.

a ramble

Hello.

February 2021 was a weird month. A couple months back before February, my younger brother taught me how to ride a bike, and by the time February came along, I was riding it every morning. My alarm would ring at around 9 to 10 AM, and I would ride for perhaps 30 minutes. When my brothers usually rode the bike, they liked to go and visit different places in the city. They’d go wherever the wind dictated, riding along the corniche and in small street corridors. I, however, just went in a circle around the block. I would go in circles every day, seeing the same scenery, riding through the same route. And I would be listening to either Japanese jazz, Japanese piano, or some form of alternate hip hop. These were new realms that I was exploring here, especially with Japanese jazz, but I loved the personality that I was hearing. This was different. Music to be appreciated. As you can tell by now, the music characterized this month as it has helped in painting a vivid image of my bike rides. Whenever the tempo would rise, I would always pedal as fast as my legs allowed me.

After I would finish my ride, I would go back home, take a quick shower, and then eat my breakfast. My daily breakfast consisted of 4 unseasoned boiled eggs and a bowl of cereal. All this I would eat while watching an episode of any 20-minute style TV show. TV shows with episodes that are over 40 minutes long should not be consumed while eating. They drag on and they usually end with cliffhangers, so it’s pretty enticing to watch another 40-minute episode and become a couch gnome.

Then I do the usual stuff. I watch my lectures, study, eat lunch later, study some more, lay in the living room, talk with my family, perhaps read a book. Sleep.

This was February 2021. All of it. It was routine. But you know how memories are stored for absorption? They stay in hiding, and then for one reason or another, jump out once they have fully become a part of you? Once you are the memory? That is what happened with February. And I am writing about it now, for one reason or another.

I have to write about my own life. What else do I have to write about? Sparkling water? This is memoir-esque. Enjoy it.

a poem

I wrote this piece today. It’s a pretty long one. I think it fits the blog. I will also post it as its own piece in the poetry section. Titled “From: To”:

From: To

When you are early it is natural to hesitate.

I remember, looking, again, at the sky,

and finding only its death. The dead are a guide.

Because, the people, when I ask them, they stay silent.

They are silent by their own choosing, their fists boiling

with air. That is what they tell me, but I hesitate to listen.

Deep inside, not within me, not within you, but inside,

I think there is something. It is difficult to glimpse,

like a flower in a vase. It often pauses, watching

the surface’s empty fabric. But that fabric still holds

something. When I ask the people, they wonder what

I am boiling with. There is no road here, only a few

stragglers too proud to wander. They have agreed

that if the stone does not move, they will become the stone.

These are the curtains behind which stands nothing.

These are the lights burning my nothing. I am uselessly jittering

like sparkling water. Jumping from: to: nothing,

again, deep inside the people’s throats. Falling

from the ground due to rushing and twisting steps.

The same ones twisting into the sky’s death,

coloring the sky black, mute, not nothing,

but the presence of serenity. There is,

within its valley: peace, chaos, shadows.

But am I am still anxious, still self-stirred

with boiling. Still unaware, perhaps willingly,

of sprouting excessive wonder. Unaware

of the spilled ink spoiling my fabric.

The people, they shall not speak. Expecting them

to speak is death. One of them said: Please, what

are you looking for here? I do not have it. Said

there is a stone worth watching. After living a life,

you may write a ten-line poem, and then live. You,

What are you doing? Listen to me when I listen to me.

I am a guide. Do I not fathom

that the dead cannot speak? Do you –

do you not fathom what you have to do?

See – from: to: here: to wander, profusely

sitting, cutting my legs shall they run.

I want to walk and glance at lamp posts. To listen

to the breaking of a biscuit within a cup of tea,

watching it, behind the glass, slowly descend

to the bottom, and stay there. To circle previous circles,

forgetting and remembering, observing the slow

melodies guiding, with soft hands, the eternal

search of finding forever. To look at the changing sky,

until it becomes a home, reading its warm pages,

cleaning its carpets, until there is more to see,

more to glimpse at the tearing seams.

Give me a chair. Let me sit.

I have written 30 pieces in 30 days. It has been a lesson in consistency and personal reflection. Thank you to everyone who has been reading, especially to those who have been reading daily.

I need your feedback now. It is exceptionally difficult to judge a piece you have written and not miss something. I need feedback. If you liked a piece, tell me. If you hated a piece, tell me. Tell me anything and everything. I will learn from this feedback and revise my pieces, my style, my pictures, so it’s essential. I have personally learned that writing every day, finding a new personalized idea on the daily, is incredibly difficult and requires much effort. It’s something I have enjoyed doing, but I am unsure if it is something I will continue doing on the blog. I may revert to writing daily in solitude, and publishing pieces on the blog that I believe are worthy of your time. I need to say more, but that’s for another time. I need time.

I have written 74 pieces this year, 30 coming this month. That’s about a piece every 3 days. There is much to be learned.

Thank you for reading.

the flashing lights, the grand feast.

Festivities in action, a celebration

of We’re Major Now. To the stands

now. Explosive extravagance like

the plague.

.

the circus crew invite me to

their tents. Bizarre freakish

bonanza. They tell me that

stupid clowns are funny.

.

there’s happiness in my

paperback. Dreadful

steps climbing over a

slippery hill. Once again,

going again. We’re Major

Now. I walk barefoot in

the Search. I’m no Stephen King

writing crassly about wiping

my ass with poison ivy. I beg,

grant me the graceful death of the Stoic.

.

midnight explorer, take silent flight.

Go to your room. Show me the

potbelly protruding from under your

shirt like you deserve it.

.

this Palooza is dedicated to you!

from yours truly, the one and only…