Five years ago, I sat on a couch in a brand new house I'd just bought with my then‑boyfriend, opened my laptop, and wrote a scene.
I can't tell you what possessed me. I just had an idea: what if someone could remember everything—from the moment they left the womb to the day they died? No memory left untouched.
I wrote the scene from a baby's POV. Cool in theory, but impossible in practice. How do you write a POV for a character that does not yet know how to speak, read, or write? It would need to be rooted in some magical realism for it work. Is this a world where everyone knows everything from conception, if not, why is this baby so special? The background work to make that believable was… a lot. So I let it go. I put it in the archives.
But the itch stayed.
It was COVID. I had time. So on January 2, 2021, I started again. The concept changed as well. What if someone could remember everything–and they were used as training data for an AI model to help people make better decisions? Better idea.
I wrote 1,000 words that day. The next day, another 1,000. Six months later, I crash‑landed a first draft at 104,000 words.
I celebrated. I had written the coolest shit ever. (Also: this was pre‑ChatGPT, so I didn't cheat!)
Then I sent it to a few friends. The feedback? Brutal and correct. Underdeveloped characters. Logical potholes. My female characters were one-note. Plotlines that went nowhere. A glittering mess.
I dug in anyway. I revised for months. By early 2023, I had my query package—letter, synopsis, sample pages. I was ready to be the next NYT best seller, as my now‑fiancé (now husband) hyped me up.
And then the rejections arrived: Interesting concept, but your sample pages didn't meet expectations.
Conceal, don't feel. I told myself I was a bad writer. But I also knew exactly what wasn't working. Too many extraneous scenes. Not nearly polished enough. The idea had heat, but the book didn't.
So I stopped. For almost two years, I didn't touch it. My husband would ask. One day, my love, one day.
When I finally opened my laptop up again, I read my last draft front to back with fresh eyes and realized a simple truth: Saad, a baby can't read.
I was so focused on making cool concepts, backstories and plots to try to explain it all, but it convoluted the real story I was trying to tell.
So I cut that crap out. Removed 30,000 words. Focused on the real story: What if a model could whisper to you the secrets of success, but it forced you to stay in the closet?
Now that's a story.
But that wasn't all that needed fixing. I rewrote the main character to be someone readers would want to spend a whole book with. I added voice. I also added another POV to play against it (though technically it's the same person! Curious what I mean? Check out the next post!).
In the end, I rewired scenes so they actually moved. I cut the darlings that were only there because I was proud I'd created a cool backstory. And somewhere in the middle of all that, the pages started to breathe. My sample readers noticed too.
Now, after five years, I'm ready to get back in the trenches and put this book into the world again—this time with a story that sounds like me.
I'll share more about the rewrite, the submission process, and the inevitable wins and face‑plants here. If you want to follow along, subscribe below and say salaam. I promise not to make you read anything from a newborn's POV.
Thanks for being here.
—Saad