Tarek Zaheer

Writer on Fidalgo Island

Recent Posts

  • I Wrote the Query Letter First | Tarek Writes a Novel — Week 1

    I’m writing my second novel, and I’m aiming for a 90,000-word first draft by May 2027. To get there, I need to average about 2,500 words a week.

    Hi, I’m Tarek, this is Tarek Writes a Novel, and here’s how my first week went, starting September 7.

    My daily goals add up to 2,700 words a week: 500 each weekday, plus 200 total over the weekend. Weekends are family time, and while I do still try to at least write something, I want to keep the goal realistic, because my kids don’t care if I’m in the writing zone; they care about me getting them pizza. 

    Back to the goal: it was a strong first week! I stayed ahead of my daily targets almost the whole time. There was one dip when I cut a bunch of words, but I caught up over the weekend, and finished with almost 3,600 words, about 900 ahead of my weekly target.

    Before I wrote those pages, though, I did a lot of planning.

    First, I drafted a query letter. That’s the letter writers send to literary agents when they’re seeking representation, usually after the book is finished. One part of it is a short description of the story, a little like the copy on a book jacket. Writing this is a lot harder than it sounds.

    Writing that description before writing the book might sound backwards, but it forced me to answer a few basic questions: Who’s my protagonist? What does he want? What’s stopping him? What does he stand to lose? And how do his choices move the story forward?

    Those answers gave me the spine of the story. From there, I built a full outline using Save the Cat, a story structure that maps out major turning points. It’s useful for building tension and raising the stakes, which matters to me because this is an upmarket satirical thriller. I want people to keep turning the pages.

    As you can probably tell, I’m a plotter. Some writers are “pantsers”—they write by the seat of their pants and discover the story as they go. I’ve tried that, but I kept finding plot holes and having to stop to repair them. I’m much happier when I have an idea of where I’m headed.

    That doesn’t mean everything is decided in advance though. One of my favorite parts of writing is getting into a scene and discovering details I couldn’t have planned. I like knowing the larger shape of the story while leaving room for those surprises.

    The other thing I focused on this week was giving the book a clear inciting incident. That’s the event early in a story that changes the protagonist’s situation and pushes them to act. For example, in The Hunger Games, it’s when Prim’s name is drawn at the reaping and Katniss volunteers to take her place.

    In past stories, I’ve written inciting incidents that were a little fuzzy. When I couldn’t clearly say what set the story in motion, the pages that followed tended to wander. So I wanted this one to be easy to understand and early enough to pull the reader in.

    And, I’m happy to report it happens on page two.

    So that was week one: a query letter, an outline, a clear starting point, and almost 3,600 words. We’ll see how all that planning holds up in week two.

    Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.

    Tarek Writes a Novel is a writing vlog following the behind-the-scenes reality of writing a full length manuscript. I’ll be posting updates roughly once a week, talking about what I wrote, what worked, what didn’t, and the craft problems I’m trying to solve.

  • I’m Writing a Novel

    One of my favorite writing jokes is about the writer who finally finishes his novel after three years.

    He tells a friend who doesn’t write, and the friend says, “Three years? What took you so long?”

    Then he tells another writer, who says, “Three years? How did you do it so fast?”

    Hi, I’m Tarek, and I’m writing a novel.

    This video series is going to follow the process—what I’m working on, what I’m struggling with, what’s going well, and all the moments when I realize that the thing I thought I fixed last week is, in fact, not fixed.

    I’m making this series with three groups of people in mind.

    First group: readers. If you love books but don’t necessarily want to write one yourself, I thought you might enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at how a novel actually gets made.

    Spoiler: very slowly.

    The second group this is for is other writers. Writing can be isolating and lonely, and I hope this series can offer some sense of community—a chance to see how another writer works, what I’m learning, and which strategies are actually helping me move forward.

    And if you’re currently dealing with writer’s block, plot holes, sagging middles, or one of the many other joys of writing a novel, you can at least take comfort in knowing that I’m probably dealing with one too. Misery loves company!

    And lastly, this is for myself. This series will be part diary, part accountability mechanism, and part record of the emotional journey of writing a novel.

    There’s also a practical benefit to creating this record. As of this video (September 2026), accusations about writers using generative AI are everywhere. I do not use generative AI to write my novel, so I hope these videos will also provide a dated record of how this book actually came together: one draft, one problem, and one questionable decision at a time.

    About once a week, I’ll post an update covering what I set out to do, what went well, what went wrong, and where the manuscript currently stands. I’ll talk about everything from word count to plot and structure, and by the end of it, you should have a comprehensive list of all the things not to do.

    One note about this project is that this is actually my second novel. My first is finished but not yet published, and while I’m still working on getting it there, starting something fresh will be a nice change of pace.

    This novel will be an upmarket satirical thriller. I’m aiming for about 90,000 words, which works out to roughly 300 printed pages. If I can write 2500 words each week, that’ll get me a finished first draft by May 2027. I wrote the first pages on September 7, 2026, and I’ve added to the manuscript every day since. As of filming this, the streak is still alive.

    But more on that in the next video. For now, this is just an introduction: who I am, what I’m doing, and evidence that I am, in fact, doing this of my own volition.

    So thanks for watching, and if this sounds like your kind of journey, I hope you’ll follow along. Happy reading, happy writing, and I’ll see you in the next one.

    Tarek Writes a Novel is a writing vlog following the behind-the-scenes reality of writing a full length manuscript. I’ll be posting updates roughly once a week, talking about what I wrote, what worked, what didn’t, and the craft problems I’m trying to solve.