An Unwitting Journey of Faith
Omar Mouallem on his travel memoir “Praying to the West: How Muslims Shaped the Americas”
Hi Bleeders!
I’ve been prioritizing the f*ck out of my memoir-in-progress, yet it’s so slow going. But that’s been my big discovery recently: It doesn’t have to be fast; I just have to show up as scheduled and trust that, eventually, it will come out right. Judging the process, especially its speed, does not help. And as I learned from our latest guest, sometimes you need an extra year or two to crank out your masterpiece.
In the episode, Omar Mouallem explains how he leveraged his work as a ghost writer to write his passion project for a major publisher.
As Omar Mouallem wrote his historical travel memoir Praying to the West: How Muslims Shaped the Americas, he struggled to tackle that subject matter without finding a new relationship with the religion he'd grown up with and apart from. Omar unpacks his whole book writing and publishing process, from getting his start as a ghostwriter to the editing process with Simon & Schuster, how he landed his book deal, why he selected the subject matter, how he found extra funding to cover the many trips he had to take around the world, a genius hack for getting extensions, and more.
This episode truly has it all — Omar even spits a rhyme from his rap days.
Here’s a little preview (and valuable takeaway):
“In the book proposal process, try not to get caught up in the comps part of it, which is like the comparative books. This is a nonfiction thing, but I also think that when you’re putting together a proposal or a query letter for a novel or a work of fiction, the publishers expect you to compare them to other books and kind of make a case for why the market deserves your book or wants your book. The reality is the market is a crapshoot, and nobody can really predict what’s going to be a successful book or not from comparative titles. The creative nonfiction writers that I work with at King’s University — this is the thing that causes them the most amount of anxiety. And I’m here to tell you it’s one of the least important parts of your book proposal, in my experience, and I say this because I didn’t have comps in my book proposal. And that book sold.”
Where I write:
I'm asking each guest to give us a peek behind the scenes. As referenced in the interview, Omar does have a cool office! I’m obsessed with this double-screen computer and highly functional personal creator studio.
Episode links:
🏃♀️ Follow Omar on Twitter @omarmouallem and Instagram @omar_aok.
🛒 Order Omar’s book, Praying to the West: How Muslims Shaped the Americas.
💻 Check out Omar’s website for more about his writing and other work.
✍️ Take a workshop through Omar’s online creative writing school, Pandemic University.
🎧 And, of course, pop in those earbuds and listen to Omar Mouallem on Crafting Historical Travelogue Memoir “Praying to the West: How Muslims Shaped the Americas” on your favorite podcast platform.
Online reading about writing:
Write or Die Tribe: Matter of Craft with Nada Alic - Barrie Miskin interviewed Nada Alic — author of the story collection, Bad Thoughts, which I now have to order — about writing routines, her favorite pieces of craft advice, and carving a path as a debut author. I’m holding this little nugget of wisdom near and dear to me right now:
“The process of writing your first book is so long and difficult and boring that you have to consciously decide that it’s the most important thing in the world. You have to be intense and dramatic about it. You’re up against so many forces, both internal and external, that are either actively working against you or indifferent to you, so you need to have a religious devotion to your work and trick yourself into thinking it’s a worthwhile endeavor. You must maintain some kind of romance with it. Believing in something you cannot see yet is not for the faint of heart or the cynical or the fearful. Guard it, make space for it, and treat it with deep reverence and care. It will do the same for you.”
WIRED: Why It's So Hard to Catch Your Own Typos - Nick Stockton explains why we’re actually being very smart when we fail to catch our own typos like dummies. He offers this tip: If you want to catch your own errors, make your work as unfamiliar as possible by changing the font, background color, etc.
How to Get Published: A Book’s Journey From ‘Very Messy’ Draft to Best Seller - Way to go, Jassamine Chan! The School for Good Mothers sounds awesome. I found its publication story (told by Kate Dwyer for NYT Books) very inspiring, especially the part about landing dream agent Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, who said, “I just couldn’t look away from that clarity of vision.” That’s exactly why I’m digging in for another rewrite instead of rushing to start querying before I’m 100 percent ready.
What I’m reading (besides our wonderful guests):
Animal Farm by George Orwell - I keep wanting to call this Animal House lol. I’m trying to revisit high school classics that I missed because I was taking classes at the local community college instead. And just like that… I understand decades' worth of pop culture references to this book.
A thread of MFA hacks without the price tag:
Until next time, HAPPY BLEEDING!
So… ROLL CALL! 🗣️
What’s your September writing goal? Share it with me (and the group), so we can hold each other accountable.
Let’s connect on social media! I’m at @courtneykocak on Twitter and Instagram. For more, check out my website courtneykocak.com.