“Write hard and clear about what hurts.” – Earnest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
Dear Fellow Warrior,
Spring has arrived. Through another difficult winter and the blessing of another Ramadan.
And I know I have not written for several months now. This is actually the first blog post on Chronicles of a Warrior KQueen, the first one of this new year.
I guess I am still transitioning, still figuring out life, still fighting for the dignity of work. Still transforming into the person I am fighting to become.
There is always a lot I want to write here.
But I still find myself looking for belonging or community in other spaces. Obviously because people are there. I thought that giving up Facebook and Instagram would help me revive this platform for myself, more consistently. But I find that it only moved me to other spaces where there may be a chance for an established audience. But that doesn’t seem to come. And I know where I have gone wrong.
I stay as professional as possible on LinkedIn. But because I no longer have Facebook, I have transitioned some writing there that I would not normally write, had I still kept that space, or fostered this blog space some more. I write on Twitter/X, but it seems that those who follow or value my words, do so briefly and then suddenly disappear.
And so my posts similarly become just as fleeting… when there is so much meaning and depth behind them…
I save them, so I can repurpose them for my blogging and writing elsewhere, possibly here, my Medium account, or my Substack Notes/Newsletters, where many posts continue to be delayed. Possibly for the future essays, articles, and book passages.
Sometimes I use X as a testing ground to see if any of my words may gain some traction… enough to keep or expand into blog pieces. But I fear it only makes me feel more pain from invisibility. It seems that the algorithm generally doesn’t like authenticity, vulnerability, and long-form writing.
I write anyway, because I need to for myself. But I realize, if I am really not being seen anywhere, then why not just write here? Why not keep my blogging going, especially when I am still building my voice, platform, and style… especially when I already have this space permanently… This website, my primary space that I developed online, runs multiple domains, even my professional space, and now a website for my Painting Heals initiative (which I intend to migrate to a better web host, domain, and platform at some point). But that is the home for now.
Writing is the writer’s oxygen. But I notice, I do need a space that allows me to write freely, without any plan. Without any title or reason. I have tried to make that space here. But this isn’t a space that people visit… and it is less likely to gain visibility today.
Amid all this reflection, I would be remiss if I did not honor the past ten years with Chronicles of a Warrior KQueen. Yes, it has been 10 years now.
To be precise… it was February 16.
Ten years ago, on February 16, I pressed publish on my first post on the Chronicles of a Warrior Kqueen.
It was initially called, Elsa the Warrior KQueen. I was searching for an outlet where I could hone my writing voice, namely a more creative outlet, while also pursuing my PhD.
I remember the feeling more than the words. There was an urgency for a space to speak my truth, to articulate the challenges connected to mental health and the intersectional injustices… There was a need for belonging (which continues). A need to place something in the world that was mine…my voice.
I did not have a strategy or a clear brand. I did not have an audience waiting. My audience, for the time being, was my community on social media. And it may not have been the right audience. But I definitely had a voice that refused to disappear… No matter how difficult it was to nurture and sustain it, amid the stigmas, I was fighting to both endure and cure.
Unfortunately, I did at times neglect this space because I was sucked into social media as the primary way to share my online writing. And because perhaps I felt like an imposter even in this space that I was building.
Last year, I left the space where this blog had its first audience… Facebook. I wrote about it in a previous blog post. I am no longer active there, but my account and the archive remains, as it was nearly 20 years.
Leaving that space turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. I faced a type of withdrawal syndrome, and I was often sad and angry, and resentful of my so-called “community” for not “seeing me” and my true value. How can you stay and continue in spaces like that, among friends and family who should have your back, but choose not to?
Naturally, I saw what was happening, and you don’t need a social science PHD to understand the social dynamics. There were too many comparison games, an insane amount of jealousy and evil eye, and I felt very underappreciated and epically, gravely misunderstood, largely due to the sensitive topics and the confessional writing, as well as the attempts to celebrate myself publically as a form of self-empowerment, which as we know is largely misconstrued for unconventional, authentic women of color, especially in her South Asian and Muslim communities.
My output did not match the support someone of my background and talent would receive, if it weren’t for the unspoken intersectional biases and injustices. I attempted to “cure stigmas,” and unfortunately, the stigma for speaking on the matters and sharing my story actually backfired. Instead of increasing awareness, it caused more stigma and invited more evil eye. Sometimes I feel it was because I wasn’t someone without shortcomings. I wasn’t particularly charming or appealing personality-wise… but this is what women do all the time. We try to find flaws within us to explain what is happening to us… when the barriers are most likely societal, cultural, and structural.
In my case, my spaces were not ready to welcome a voice like mine. There was definitely stigma and bias.
Sorry, but I have to be clear and honest. And I nurtured this space for the clarity and the honesty that is necessary in writing that genuinely hurts.
I knew I deserved better. We are allowed to say this, especially as women. And I still believe my “writer’s tribe” is out there, somewhere.
Over the past decade, this space has held me through precarity, exclusion, racism, illness, unemployment, gatekeeping, injustice and invisibility. Both at the micro/personal and macro/collective levels.
It has witnessed heartbreak and hope. It has honored my faith, anger, tenderness, defiance, inward revolution, and resistance.
There were years and years when I wrote into silence and heard nothing back. I kept going. I imagine I will keep writing into the silence.
Ten years of continuity through all of that is no insignificant endeavor.
Most people do not sustain anything for a decade unless it is core to who they are. My PhD was almost 10 years ago, and the work continues, however, amid great fragility and uncertainty.
But that tells me something about this space, especially as it was born in the middle of my PhD program, 10 years ago…
This is definitely not an obituary for the Chronicles of a Warrior Kqueen. It is a milestone. And it a reminder that I am still very much in the beginning, with so much more to add to the Chronicles.
There have been many moments, especially recently, when I have contemplated stopping this blog and wondered whether I should continue here in this space. But then I realize it may actually continue to be important to keep writing in this space, and keep my vulnerable writing and updates consolidated here instead of the other spaces where it isn’t appreciated anyway.
There were moments when I also wondered whether the Warrior Kqueen was costing me something. All of what this space was about. Whether it made it harder for me to matter in academic or professional settings. Whether feeling “othered” or marginalized in these spaces for trying to be a “whole person” was perceived or real.
Whether being many things at once made managing these other systems more difficult.
The writing was never the issue. My age was never the issue. A long-running archive of thought and faith and politics and self-examination was never the issue.
The tension lives in structures that prefer single lanes. Clear boxes. Institutional signaling. Confidence without visible struggle. I have rarely been one lane. I have honored many threads at once. I have witnessed how that actually creates friction in spaces that prefer simplicity.
Chronicles of a Warrior Queen became the place where I metabolized pain into language… Where I practiced voice…. and in some ways… where my ethical spine formed. Where future books, essays, and talks began in fragments.
I thought I was building my own platform... a spine for my creative work and all that stuff that falls in between, the intersections of creativity, academia, and professional life.
There has also been grief. The grief of not finding the writers’ tribe I imagined I would have by now. The pain of feeling rejection from my old communities that could not make space for the Warrior KQueen.
I often wonder how these ten years could have produced more visibility.
But I see that season differently now. This is part of growth. Sometimes you are writing ahead of your world..the ecosystem you inhabit. I take inspiration from many great writers who were not appreciated during their lifetimes. The revolutionaries.
And sometimes honesty, integrity, authenticity, and vulnerability take time to find their people. Work ripens before it gathers.
I am 41, now. I will be 42 in July. I feel clearer, wiser, and stronger than I did at 31. And far less interested in asking permission, even through the grief and pain.
But I am still learning how to process not being given the permission, approval, and positive reinforcement to show up in my writing as my whole self. Essentially the social capital that makes it easier to sustain our writing efforts.
I intended to share this 10-year anniversary post on Feb 16, the actual 10th anniversary of posting my first blog post here.
A few years ago, on World Suicide Prevention Day, I reintroduced the Warrior KQueen, a post that is currently the featured post on this blog.
I have now started a second newsletter on Substack, Sword Dispatch: The WkQ Letters, in the effort to try to drive traffic here, but that too feels a little fragile and unsustainable given all the priorities in the moment.
And with this new chapter, after one year of wearing hijab, I was finally able to change the welcome photo, to honor that inward revolution. More on this journey soon!
I am certainly not oblivious to the fact that it never really caught on... the branding, the purpose, the mission, the voice behind this blog….For self-empowerment, transformation, inclusion, belonging, intersectional feminism, and intersectional justice...etc…
Too much purple and pink, perhaps. Most people in my life just didn’t get it. That does hurt, and I have to grieve it. I believe that people will be willing to care about the things that you care about if they genuinely care and love you. It is a very harsh and painful reality to accept. And I learned after leaving Facebook and Instagram that my voice, the voice of the Warrior KQueen, the Warrior KQueen herself, was not someone people cared about or loved in those networks. Which ultimately means they did not love me…. this Warrior KQueen.
What do you do when you realize something like that? I had been navigating a depression on top of a depression that already existed. But through it all, I know that writing has always been the art of resistance… and I must continue to persist and resist.
I realized how incredibly courageous it was to even begin this endeavor.
I also see how courageous it will be, even more, to continue my writing efforts… it will hurt in every dimension… spiritually, physically, emotionally, etc…
Ten years in, this feels less like proving myself to a world that never understood me… and more like owning what already exists.
And more can emerge from all that exists.
The other day I was at the library…. my favorite place…
It used to inspire me… surrounding myself with books, imagining that one day, one of them might be mine.
But as time passes, I find myself feeling more and more anxious.
I paused my job applications and thought about everything still in progress… all the writing that has yet to be completed, beyond the scholarly articles still fighting for a home…
So I made a list. Every book project: My memoir. My father’s biography. The two books connected to my dissertation. My creative work, a novel, a book of poetry, the “letters” from the Warrior KQueen.
The letters that I write to you, as Dear Fellow Warrior.…
I had been contemplating for a long time now, that it needs to become a book. This space, however invisible in a relatively abandoned blogosphere, deserves to become a book.
But the list consisted of 9 books. Praise be to God. My favorite number.
And as I looked at that list, it hit me… SubhanAllah, this is enough. More than enough for a lifetime.
There may be more one day as life progresses. The list will grow, of course, as it always does for the writer. As it has for me, the past 5 years especially. But if I am able to bring these nine into the world… projects where so much has already been written, already lived and felt… then that would surely be a fulfilling life.
Nevertheless, Alhamdulillah, there is purpose here.
This is what keeps you going even when things are tough. Purpose.
That’s one certainty. Writing a book isn’t a dream anymore. I am living it. And I am someone who appreciates the journey more than the result. As my PhD will always remind me.
But it has to be one by one.
I can’t live all 9 lives at once. Perhaps that’s why it’s been slow.
And as long as each of these books progresses alongside my reading, reflection, and understanding of the greatest Book ever gifted to mankind… I think, InshaAllah, I will be okay.
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Last night, I was at another favorite place…one that I have talked about often here in the past 10 years… Busboys and Poets, a restaurant and bookstore, where I often go for inspiration, a place where I would muster up the courage for open mic poetry nights.
The very first poem I posted on this blog, Invisible, was, in fact, the very first poem I shared at an open mic night at Busboys and Poets, in November 2009, just one month after I first moved to Washington, DC, to fight for my dream of living, working, and studying in the Nation’s Capital. That dream may now have changed or taken a detour, but I will leave that conversation for another time…
Walking around the B&P bookstore, I came across this book, and I needed to take a picture of it…
It was a book that honored Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutions. And it was published in 2022. I have been writing here on the Chronicles of a Warrior KQueen about the inward and outward revolution since 2016. It felt like another symbolic reminder for me that this was, in fact, a promising and visionary endeavor. And that I do need to keep writing… And it can be possible to see one of my 9 books on the shelf here in this very bookstore one day…
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There are also a lot of lessons in my writing journey online. I wasn’t consistent enough. I relied too much on a particular audience that wasn’t really the right audience for this kind of writing. You never know until you do…
But I didn’t write for my audience or any type of audience. Even as a confessional writer and memoirist, we still try our best to write for others. There is a way to write about your story while inviting others to reflect on theirs, people from all walks of life. I am still trying to understand and master this.
Wholeness will always be the primary goal. I will always advocate for stepping into spaces as our whole selves and allowing us the intellectual freedom to grow personally and professionally.
But time and wisdom allow us to see how we can hold different voices for different spaces without losing ourselves.
It must still be one voice. The mastery comes in the tailoring, not in the tone-policing or losing one’s true voice.
The Warrior Kqueen preserved me in many ways. It has held the parts of me that other rooms could not see. It keeps me in conversation with myself when external affirmation remains scarce. It watches me fall…lose… and continue.
Ten years is a long time to stay with your own voice…
But I am grateful for the girl who pressed publish without certainty 10 years ago. I am grateful she trusted that her words deserved air to breathe… and room on the blank page. She did not know how much she would need this space. She only knew she could not stay silent.
And she learned that not everyone appreciates a silent woman.
This is a different season. More deliberate… grounded… and intentional about what is shared and where.
The story continues. And even if it is archived, it will come back to life. There is still so much to be written, and whatever gets shared with the world, all my creative and academic work, the book projects, the scholarly articles, I will remember that the courage to put the words on the page started here…
The Chronicles of a Warrior KQueen.
and with all that’s pending on my blogging platforms, here, and on Substack and Medium, as an indie writer, I must start here again.
Thank you to all who stayed with me on my journey in this space, all those who read my words… As I always say, thank you for giving my voice a chance.
I plan to keep going.
At this time, I can only take it day by day…. do my best in planning for the days ahead, and just be grateful that God has blessed me with another day to write everything hard and everything that hurts…
Sharing this moment around my one-year anniversary of embracing the inward revolution during my pilgrimage to Makkah, and one-year of reclaiming the crown (my Hijab), feels particularly special. I hope to share my posts on that journey soon…
A halal cheers to another 10 years of the Chronicles of a Warrior KQueen.
I hope you had a strong start to 2026, and happy Spring.
In Solidarity, Peace, Warmth, and Blessings,
Your sister, Dr. Elsa, Warrior KQueen
“She wasn’t looking for a Knight. She was looking for a Sword.” – Atticus
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Thank you for reading and engaging!
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