The child in his mother's womb was aware of his connection to the universe. For him, everything in the universe was represented by his mother's voice, her body movements, and his own feelings within this small, warm world. He experienced all the sensations of pleasure and pain within this universe.
When he was born, he grew up and quickly developed a deep understanding of his surroundings. With the help of his parents, he gained a better understanding of the universe. He learned to recognize his name and language, and language became his primary means of expressing his feelings, thoughts, and needs. For this child, language was also a means of learning and asking questions. His vocabulary was simple, with only about 200 words.
When he entered school, he began to hear a new form of language - classical Arabic. In the third grade, his vocabulary expanded a bit, and he decided to write a poem. The poem consisted of only eleven words, a mixture of colloquial and simple, formal words. At that time, he couldn't express his emotional thoughts more fully due to his limited language abilities, but he was satisfied with what he had written. He continued to write short, simple texts that we can call "childlike" texts.
In fifth grade, his father bought him a collection of stories that included tales of prophets and classic stories. This child discovered the pleasure of reading and realized that he could live in another world and in another story if he opened a book and delved into its pages.
He continued to read children's stories until he became satiated with them and his appetite for reading demanded a higher level of books. His language improved, his vocabulary expanded, his imagination grew, and he developed a friendly relationship with the pages of the book.
He looked at his father's library and found a huge volume. He opened it and in the first story he read about Scheherazade and Shahryar, which astonished his imagination and he found himself in a world of beauty, fantasy, and words that took him back in time and allowed him to sail a little with these yellow pages.
This boy, who is now at the age of puberty, spent a whole year reading the volumes of "One Thousand and One Nights." His language skills were honed, his imagination developed, and he memorized poetry, read stories, and learned the art of correspondence.
After that year, the boy felt a hunger for reading and his writing became of better quality. After a period of starving for pages, he found himself in the library, like a child discovering the world.
There were many titles and authors he didn't know, so what did he choose? He chose the most famous ones, Nizar Qabbani and Gibran Khalil Gibran, and bought some of Qabbani's collections and five books by Gibran.
And so the journey began, a journey that has not ended to this day.
He read and read, and wrote some stories and essays that he later tore up because he was not satisfied with their quality. But after a year, he made a decision to write a novel. The novel took up his time, effort, imagination, and emotions. He wrote it but never published it because he felt after a year of writing that it was weak in quality and childish in expression.
And so this young man continued to read. When he went to university to study philosophy, he read the works of the great Greek philosophers, the medieval thinkers, and the major Arab philosophers. His reading continued, and his imagination became more abundant.
Inside of him, there is a tree that wants to grow and bear fruit soon.
Reading was the water that nourished his insides until the tree of writing grew in him to bear literature.
No one is born a writer. Writing is the effort of reading and contemplation. Writing is the effort of creativity.
After years of paper, and when war ground his country, Syria, death was in the market, the school parties, the Friday prayer, and in the sleepers' beds.
The tragedy was incomprehensible, and the destruction of an entire country was a shock from which no one woke up.
And when Syria's wound became a valley of pain and the howling of the days became a blame, he decided to harness his pen to carry the pain from the bloody reality to the paper, so that the words could be a sword used in the service of people and a pen that glorifies the resilience of the people.
A pen without a cause is a piece of wood, and paper without a struggle is a useless cup.
This young man was me, Maher Daboul.
At that time, I wrote my novel "A Fragrant Siege" to make the pen a moment of calm in the madness of death that spared no one.
In "A Fragrant Siege," I dedicated all my thoughts and imagination to depict what happened in Syria, and my main obsession was to be simple and realistic in describing the truth using a literary form that people could understand and reach the widest possible audience.
Writing was very exhausting, especially when you write about your own wounds that hurt you.
When I finished, the obstacle of publishing was huge, especially for those living in Syria and within areas where there is no library, so how could they find a publishing house?
The hardest decision was "electronic publishing." This novel was published electronically, and the surprise was that after two months of publication, the number of downloads reached a number that I never expected.
The novel continued to spread, and over time, it was printed.
I advise my fellow language enthusiasts and my literary brothers and sisters:
The dream starts with a step and ends with an achievement.
Take a step towards your dream, open a book about literature, read a novel, read a poem, and write and write.
You will not be a writer on the first day of your life. All of our books have mistakes, except for the Book of God, which is without doubt.
You need to polish your language through reading, develop your experience in life, and learn about history, life, philosophy, and religion.
You are not a writer if you do not come out from and for the people, stand at their concerns and struggles, and make your pen a spark that illuminates their night, so they can cross the road towards a higher civilization and a better life.
The most important advice is not to write to become famous; write because writing is a living act, and read because the ship of writing will not sail except in the sea of reading and contemplation.
By: Maher Daboul
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