Some of my good friends who were writers disappeared. Others are still inside Syria and there are others who are refugees. I'm worried about those who disappeared. I don't know anything about them now. They just disappeared like that after the war started, while I was living in the United States.

I'm homesick. But I cannot go back to Syria. I lost everything. And I'm against the Syrian regime, so there is no way to go back. I'm really homesick.

When you have a goal to reach, you will be strong automatically. And you will be patient automatically. If you don't have a goal, your life will be a disaster. You will lose yourself and you will lose your soul.

To see your country being destroyed from afar - it's very hard to only watch and do nothing. My writing is the only way to address my feelings about this disaster and to at least try to find a solution as a writer. I know I have limits. But I have to do my best as a writer.

There's a lot of sympathy, but some people in America don't care. They think Syria is a very faraway place and that it's none of their business.

I left most of my stuff there in my apartment in the suburbs of Damascus. My apartment was completely destroyed by a bomb in 2013. I lost everything there. I cried not only for losing my apartment and my belongings, I cried for our whole people. I feel really sorry for the people in Syria. My apartment or my property is a very, very small part of this big disaster. Syria looks like hell today. It's completely hell and chaos.

I'm writing a novel about the Syrian war. It will be completely different from my short stories. I have to address my feelings directly because I cannot avoid the war. It's something in my soul, in my blood.