I've been thinking about keeping a blog for a while now. Not just because I think I should start writing again, but also because I've been thinking about writing an autobiography. But to start writing a book I someday hope to publish, I thought I should see if I can actually write well enough to keep an audience first. I need to know if my story is interesting enough for people to actually wanna pay for it and read it or not. And I need to write down my thoughts somewhere before they actually turn into a book (If they ever do that is). So I am gonna keep a blog. I still don't know how often I wanna write and what I am gonna write exactly, but I do know that I wanna write about my life: the life of an Iranian girl brought up in Iran, born soon after the revolution, seen the war, lived the aftermath of the change of regime, been religious, turned against religion, been a social activist, unintentionally got involved in politics, been caught by the secret Islamic police, voted green in the last parliamentary elections, was in Iran for the few months after it, and finally found a way to get out of the country for a temporary period of time. Not that this is a special kind of life, or this girl is a special kind of girl; I am a typical Iranian born in the 1360s (1980s). My story is not special in that it is unique, that's not why I am writing. I am writing this story to first understand my life myself, to maybe help myself fight this depression I am in now, and then to give a picture of the kind of life we live in Iran (of course for the interested). Since coming abroad, I have been surprised and sometimes shocked at the things westerners associate us with. I have talked on and on trying to tell them the picture they have of us is very distorted. Now I want to take the time to paint a picture of the reality I have lived. It might help some people understand our way of life in Iran, or it might just go unnoticed, but help me figure out where I am and where I stand in this world and life of mine.
It might be worth mentioning that the thought of writing an autobiography first entered my thought when I had a course by this name at uni. We read many life stories for that course, and I wrote a paper about the autobipgraphy of a call girl. This made me think why do these ppl feel they have something interesting to share with the public? Esp the book we discussed in class about a woman who had had a sexual affair with her own father and then had felt this to be a good topic to write a book about. I thought if they feel they have something to say that people would be interested in, why don't I talk about what I have seen and felt in life?
I was and am quite unsure about what exactly to put in and what to leave out. I don't want to censor anything. After all self-censorship is what I ran away from when I left Iran. But many of the things I want to share concern other people, and esp my parents. So I have decided to write under a pen name.
Listen to me! I am making a big deal out of this and I haven't written one single worthwhile thing yet.
Right, I'll shut up now. (Gotta learn to stop rambling)
Will start with my first post tomorrow
