On a Monday night in March, Jarir Bookstore in downtown Riyadh is bustling. Shoppers test out digital cameras and laptops, while upstairs they flip through paperbacks. At checkout, they can pick up a coloring book and the markers that go with it.

A walk around the back of the building, through unmarked doors and an elevator that smells of cigarettes, leads to corporate headquarters. From there, brothers Muhammad and Abdulkarim Alagil preside as chairman and CEO, respectively, over Jarir Marketing Company. It owns Jarir Bookstore, one of the most recognizable brands in the Gulf.

Alagil, 64, and his four younger brothers have built the company into a giant, selling Arabic and English books, office supplies, and electronics in 41 superstores in four countries, including Kuwait, Qatar, and the U.A.E. Jarir sells roughly half of Saudi Arabia’s laptops and a third of the market’s tablets.

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'When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? To surrender dreams - this may be madness,' says Cervantes in his wondrous Don Quixote.

Writing fiction is an act of faith. You have to believe that the seed of a story planted in the valley of your mind—if only given a chance to grow—will someday in the near or distant future, bear magical fruits. You must believe that the story you are working on--day in, day out for months, years--will someday connect with people you have never met, and probably never will. Like all acts of faith, this, too, is a journey that ventures beyond the boundaries of the self.

But writing fiction is equally an act of doubt. You will disbelieve and question and challenge yourself at every step along the way. You will be pelted with anxieties and panic attacks that come out of nowhere. It makes no difference whether you are writing your first book or fifth or tenth, you will still watch your soul bleed on the whiteness of the page. You will find yourself doubting not only your characters, but also your own skills. You might even ask why on earth are you doing this, plunking away at a computer keyboard or holding a leaking pen as though your life depended on it--though it won’t stop you, the darkness of your thoughts, you will continue writing, for how can you not continue breathing.

Writing is the waltz of faith and doubt. Both are sorely needed.

And you must dance this waltz, night and day, for as long as it takes.

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