a writer, theoretically

sumayyah ⟡ fantasy writer, collector of hobbies, procrastinating bookwyrm ⟡ on ao3 as songofswiftsunrise

[kaatiba]

A Writeblr Intro

sumayyah - 30s - muslim - canadian

i write fantasy and poetry, i love ask memes and tag memes, and i run a literary society for muslim women with my mom. you can follow me on substack, instagram, or my site! for fanfiction, follow me on ao3 as @songofswiftsunrise, which is also my sideblog.

my general writing tag is #kaatiba.writes and my book review tag is #kaatiba.reads

i have several wips, but the most active ones are...

the storyteller, the djinn, and the prince - a muslim-themed* fantasy series

*aka recognizable practices and beliefs, without fictionalizing my religion in which Hira joins a hopeless quest to rescue a child from the djinn who have taken him, Intisar refuses to give into despair, Raoul is tangled in a web of love and loss, and there are many stories. also referred to as Legends of Mourra, volume i is a loose retelling of 1001/Arabian nights, while volume ii will be a gender-swapped retelling of aladdin set in the same world

rivener - post-apocalyptic fantasy

a completed novella that i'm essentially writing a longer au of (or, more professionally speaking: revamping and expanding). in which Wren is a woman with a ruinous ability, Kai is an enslaved wolf shifter, and circumstances conspire to have them relying on each other for survival. featuring an anti-hero main character, supernatural abilities, discrimination and oppression, the search for freedom, and its inextricable link to healing.

oracle - alice in wonderland retelling, isekai, dark romance

in which Sage is an Oracle who isn't, Alyss is a Saviour turned Tyrant-Queen, Cat is an agent of Chaos, and the kingdom of Miraré stands on the edge of doom Oracle is a very loose retelling of Alice in Wonderland and its sequel. it’s an idea i've been playing around with for years (nearly as long as The Storyteller, The Prince, and the Djinn).

you may also see references to Glitch, a novel about a cyborg, a shapeshifter, and a virtual realm that may or may not be carnivorous; Reaper, a novel about a psychopomp, a ghost, and a lich king; Bo and Eve, a gender-swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast where Eve refuses to break the curse; and an as-yet unnamed contemporary romance set in a resort in the Bahamas.

[quietwingsinthesky]

like the betrayal’s always going to be worse if they cared about you and it didn’t matter. someone discards you because they didn’t give a shit, then you can be angry about that, you can feel vindicated in that, you can get over it. but if they can look you in the eyes and say “I love you. I would make the same choice again.” You will never sleep peacefully again, is all.

[quietwingsinthesky]

“I thought they cared about me, but they were lying this whole time.” <- tired. boring. removes all the nuance of this relationship to make it easier to move on from.

“I thought they cared about me, and I was right, and every minute they were there for me, every time they said they were proud, every laugh we shared leaning against each other bruised and breathless, all of it was real. and they still left me behind. They could put their love aside. I couldn’t.” <- insane. will never leave you alone. reminds you that even the worst people are still people and can still care about even the ones they hurt the most and that undoes neither the harm nor the love.

[nixscriptum]

May flower ( moon. )

[nixscriptum]

[tildeathiwillwrite]

WIP Intro: The Hunter, the Myth and the Cure

Procrastinating on chapter 3 revisions and tag games by making an intro for this WIP lol

Tales from Valaria Masterpost

WIP Masterpost

~~~~~

Title: The Hunter, the Myth and the Cure

Genre: High fantasy, dark fantasy, noir, gunpowder fantasy

Audience: YA-Adult (TV-14+)

Tags: #thtmatc #the hunter the myth and the cure #draven cozenson #octavian de silv #reese takari

Stage of the Writing Process: Revisions

Synopsis:

Valaria is in turmoil. An outbreak of lycanthropy has swept across the planet, halting trade and sending everyone into panic. The elves have closed their borders, the Draigo have barricaded themselves into their strongholds, and it is left to the humans to quell the plague before the infected kill or spread the disease to the entire population.

Ten years after the outbreak, the plague is somewhat handled. Draven Cozenson is an infamous lycanthrope hunter, someone tasked with tracking down werewolves and putting them down before they can infect others. While on a job in the vast forest known as the Fells, he discovers a strange elf trapped beneath a frozen lake.

Octavian de Silv has unknowingly been imprisoned for a decade, held in a magical stasis the likes of which are unheard of. Still reeling from events that concluded a decade before, he is forced to get his bearings in a world vastly different than he remembers.

Reese Takari is trapped. Not just by the walls of the place where she was taken, but also by the fear of what would happen to her father if she takes any opportunity to escape. And now she's trapped by her value as a subject for unknown experiments.

The search for an antidote or a vaccine against the outbreak is ongoing. Researchers are desperate, and ethics have long been tossed out the window. Magicians roam freely, no longer afraid of Draigo agents hunting them down for wrongdoing. Perhaps it will take a new---or rather, old---perspective to turn the tide. Or, more likely, perhaps not.

[kaatiba]

💘? :)?

oh hey its been a hot minute! how're you?

💘: give us a huge spoiler

ohhhh i'm so so tempted to be very evil. hm. how evil though? and for which wip?!?! (you will not believe how long i sat here, being stumped about which spoiler to give and how) In Oracle, Sage falls into a book and changes the plot by falling in love and saving someone meant to die. This is not the spoiler. The spoiler is that he never fell into a book in the first place.

ask me about my wips!

[bebewrites]

hey bebe! 💙 and 💔?

💔 did this one here!

💙 how has the idea changed between starting it and where it is now? sorta mentioned in a different post, but in more detail, it started out as a standalone idea. i'd never finished a first draft of anything (and still haven't lmao) because my brain always gets carried way and turns things into a series and it all just becomes a lot. so i thought, i'll try working on just one simple story and see if i can finish it. so, of course it turned into a series and i have yet to finish anything lol.

it started out with this idea: instead of true love's kiss or a vow of true love breaking a curse, the fmc makes a vow of love to herself and that's what breaks it. that's still very much the core of the story! but it's also about self love, accepting your past mistakes, letting down some walls and allowing your friends help you, and overcoming what other people think of you and accepting that your true self is your real power.

in terms of the whole series, there are four kingdoms and four types of elemental magic, so ideally, i'll do one book that focuses on a kingdom and a magic. (i still have a lot of planning to do here, so this could change quite a bit.) and then because of *the night veil* being part of the curse in the first book, there will be some kind of *veil* that must be torn down in the other books too.

[kaatiba]

💜💞

thank you!! let's talk about....Oracle, a wip currently buzzing frantically in my brain.

💜: where are you in the writing process?

i'm percolating. i read The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow recently, which has a similar presence but VASTLY different execution and it has given me many ideas, many feelings, and MUCH inspiration (i recommend The Everlasting to anyone who likes historical fantasy; tragic, yearning, romance between a female knight and a cowardly scholar; time loops and time travel; questions of faith and freedom of will; the power of storytelling; and stories that dive into imperialism, fascism, nationalism, and what it actually means to be brave, to love, and to be loved while facing oppression under a regime).

💞: which future scene are you looking forward to writing?

hm. i think when alyss discovers that she is a character in a story, and not a real person at all, and has no free will, and never has, and is doomed >:}

ask me about my wips!

[kaatiba]

💚 💙 💜 💕 for the ask game :)

ilyyyyy! i'll be answering for the storyteller, the prince, and the djinn as it's the only one i'm actively writing words for lately

💚: how long have you been working on it?

1 million years. that's what it feels like anyway. the very first idea for it sprang from a discussion between my dad and me when i was like...12? and then i actively began working on it...sheesh...many years ago. i think i was around 16. so 15 years, give or take!

💙: how has the idea changed between starting it and where it is now?

there's been SO many changes but in the end i've sort of circled back to that first idea given to me by my dad, which was that i should write about a group of muslim characters travelling the world, having adventures and fighting djinn. currently, it's about a group of characters travelling to the world of the djinn to rescue a prince. for quite a long time i'd imagined SPD as this huge sprawling epic with romance and civil war and betrayal and the decline of a dynasty and a prophesied prince reclaiming his homeland from imperialist colonizers....but honestly that felt like too big a story for me to write with my current skill level and historical knowledge, and i wasn't committed to learning what i would need to to do that story justice, so i narrowed it down in scope. i love the current iteration a lot, even though i do still sort of miss the enormously grand tale i was aiming for before.

💜: where are you in the writing process?

1/4 of the way through the first draft! 26k words so far!

💕: what has your favorite scene been?

favourite scene currently written: my MC finding out somebody is dead and not coping with it at all favourite scene i have yet to write: my ML being put in a situation where he has to choose between being obedient to his lord and captain or abandoning the woman he loves >:}

ask me about my wips!

[oh-no-another-idea]

WIP Acrostic Tag

Thanks for the tag, @pertinax--loculos! I know it's been a hundred years, but I've been keeping it this whole time and I'm thrilled to finally be ready to fill it out. :) My word today is CRACK.

C. Careful not to set off the horn, [Michael] leaned over until his forehead was resting on the wheel. The lava inside him cooled slightly, a blackened crust blanketing the molten flame.

R. “Relax,” Jacob said. “That’s how I grew up too. We all like our Chinese food, remember?”

A. “Aw man,” Jacob said. He scooted a little closer, like a little kid too excited to sit still. “You wanna tell me about it?”

C. “Can you call Michael for me?” Nick made a left turn aggressively. “Let him know?”

K. “Kidding. It was for ovens.”

@pluttskutt @thewriteflame @artdecosupernova-writing @winterandwords @space-writes and anyone else who'd like to join, your word is CLIMB <3

[folkfashion]

Armenian jewelry, Armenia, by Phoenix Tour

[inanauthorsworld]

writer wip asks✨

❤️: what’s the working title? 🧡: what were previous working titles/ideas? 💛: what is the title based on? 💚: how long have you been working on it? 💙: how has the idea changed between starting it and where it is now? 💜: where are you in the writing process? 🖤: what are your MC names? 💔: give a brief character bio of your 3-5 MCs ❣️: which scene has been hardest to write so far? 💕: what has your favorite scene been? 💞: which future scene are you looking forward to writing? 💓: is it part of a series or standalone? 💗: what genre is it in? 💖: are you planning on publishing it? if so, how? 💘: give us a huge spoiler 💝: who has your favorite character arch? give a brief summary 💟: how is your style different in this work compared to previous ones? has it more shifted for the story or just developed in general?

[kaatiba]

i was stressed about work yesterday and it put me in a crummy mood, so i made Hira face a devastating loss on the heels of hope and it really ramped the story along

[redstonedust]

its good to acknoweldge the hollowness of revenge but sometimes you really do just need a story about someone who gets hurt and then kills and kills and kills and kills their enemies. its cathartic, babey.

[nixscriptum]

[scribeherself]

Normalize being viciously protective of your writing time. that’s MY hour. that’s MY sacred ritual. that’s when I get to hang out with MY little guys who live in MY brain. you cannot have it. I will defend it with my life.

[mediterraneum]

Bedouin Chief and Family 1920(?), Syria.