It was very cheap, about €120 including flights from German (though I had to fly to Düsseldorf from London which added to my cost) and halfway through the trip it dawned on me why it was so cheap, though I should stress it was ‘cheap’ only in terms of the overall cost. The hotels we stayed in were certainly not cheap in any way. and breakfast and supper were included at every hotel.
It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, however. First of all we spent in inordinate amount of time on the sodding coach, being driven – I can’t remember in which order – from Marrakesh to Rabat to Fes to Casablanca and these cities are quite a distance away.
Yes, we were shown the sights but the purpose of the trip, which I suspect was subsidised by the Moroccan Tourist Board, was for us to buy stuff. So along the way we visited silversmiths and other metal workers, a tanning factory and shop, some kind of herbal chemist’s shop and that kind of thing.
Not a bad commercial idea, of course, and although I didn’t buy a sausage, I’m sure one or two Germans did. (I wrote several blog entries about it at the time which you can look up if you are interested.)
I mention it because on one night during the trip I had a very vivid dream which I realised would, could and, one day I hope will, become a long story. I dream pretty much every night and look forward to dreaming. Every now and then, although not at all regularly, I get an ‘anxiety dream’, which usually involves me being back at work and meeting all kinds of complications that I can never sort out or facing some kind of deadline which I know I cannot meet. But they are rare and almost always my dreams are entertaining, to me at least.
They are always lucid and vivid, but equally almost always they dissipate like smoke from a fire very, very soon. One moment after waking up you can remember the dream, then in a matter of milliseconds just parts of it, then snippets of it, then almost nothing at all and within a minute it is almost all gone. All I have left is one or possibly two mental images which, if I am lucky (though that is rare), are associated with some kind of ‘theme’ or idea which can help me at least try to piece the dream back together. I never can.
There are exceptions, however, and one night on that trip to Morocco I had a dream of which I could remember, if not all of the dream, the ‘salient’ point, the ‘theme’ or the idea underlying it which held it all together. And once you have that, well, you can – of could – at a later date simply build on it, making up stuff to ‘fit’ which is in keeping with the overall theme.
I mention it because on one night during the trip I had a very vivid dream which I realised would, could and, one day I hope will, become a long story. I dream pretty much every night and look forward to dreaming. Every now and then, although not at all regularly, I get an ‘anxiety dream’, which usually involves me being back at work and meeting all kinds of complications that I can never sort out or facing some kind of deadline which I know I cannot meet. But they are rare and almost always my dreams are entertaining, to me at least.
They are always lucid and vivid, but equally almost always they dissipate like smoke from a fire very, very soon. One moment after waking up you can remember the dream, then in a matter of milliseconds just parts of it, then snippets of it, then almost nothing at all and within a minute it is almost all gone. All I have left is one or possibly two mental images which, if I am lucky (though that is rare), are associated with some kind of ‘theme’ or idea which can help me at least try to piece the dream back together. I never can.
There are exceptions, however, and one night on that trip to Morocco I had a dream of which I could remember, if not all of the dream, the ‘salient’ point, the ‘theme’ or the idea underlying it which held it all together. And once you have that, well, you can – of could – at a later date simply build on it, making up stuff to ‘fit’ which is in keeping with the overall theme.
Last night I had another, and with a bit of luck I can remember the ‘theme’ of that as well.
. . .
In the past few years my reading has mainly been non-fiction and, because of this Hemingway bollocks I’ve become entangled with, about the old fraud himself. Note to purists and po-faced folk: I am not seriously suggesting Hemingway was a complete fraud and certainly not consciously. But he did break the Twelfth Commandment by believing his own bullshit. (‘Thou Shalt Not Believeth Thine Own Bullshit. And the Eleventh Commandment? ‘Thou Shalt Not Get Caught. Ever.’)
But having now completed all that I intend to write, the slog carries. The reason is that I realised I must now pretty much rewrite it all if I’m going to get it printed up to get rid of duplication – unavoidable if you are compiling a website of many pages in that no one will read the lot and certainly not in sequence.
I have read several other books, however, including some fiction, but I also read book reviews in the Sunday papers, or did at last when I still bought the rags, now I read them online.
It seems, to me at least, that the range of ‘subject matter’ considered suitable for ‘serious literature’ is very narrow indeed: if it’s not eco-dystopia warning about the disaster which awaits humanity if we don’t all immediately turn our radiators down a notch or two, or growing up Gay in The Gorbals (pretty much a genre in its own right, though it need not necessarily be the Gorbals but can be anywhere) there seems little else to write about or rather little else those who are ‘passionate about literature’ are prepared to take seriously.
Also getting a look-in, however, are by virtue of that condescending way we Brits have made our own – and apparently still unable to forget our ‘imperial past’ – are novels by ‘our ethnics’, that is men and women who are native to the many countries in the once ‘British Empire’ and which many Brits still feel are beholden to us. That they have always been able to stand on their own two feet and could teach us more than just a thing or two doesn’t occur to many in Old Blighty.
The trouble is that I am neither gay nor grew up in the Gorbals, and I find the continual agonising over ‘global warming’ and warnings that ‘we must do something now’ faintly ridiculous and oddly patronising – if you are not by now aware of what is happening to global climate patterns and the alleged reasons for it, you are either brain-dead or physically dead.
So any stories I might write will most certainly not be choosing to follow the well-trod paths of so many other bloody writers. And – though I shall no here be outlining how – some time ago I decided that the writing I want to do will essentially be of a different kind to stories.
I would find it difficult to outline it (and would be riding for a fall if I did try) but it is less along the lines of what you are writing about and more how you are writing. That seems – granted, in my exceptionally limited experience – to be oddly neglected. I suppose in some ways the principle echoes the knowledge that ‘nothing dates faster than this year’s fashion’.
Anyway, I had another such useful dream (and it was two nights ago now as I have only just returned to writing this entry. And I think I can remember the ‘theme’. Next thing: sodding get done! The best and only advice to give a would-be writer
. . .
In the past few years my reading has mainly been non-fiction and, because of this Hemingway bollocks I’ve become entangled with, about the old fraud himself. Note to purists and po-faced folk: I am not seriously suggesting Hemingway was a complete fraud and certainly not consciously. But he did break the Twelfth Commandment by believing his own bullshit. (‘Thou Shalt Not Believeth Thine Own Bullshit. And the Eleventh Commandment? ‘Thou Shalt Not Get Caught. Ever.’)
But having now completed all that I intend to write, the slog carries. The reason is that I realised I must now pretty much rewrite it all if I’m going to get it printed up to get rid of duplication – unavoidable if you are compiling a website of many pages in that no one will read the lot and certainly not in sequence.
I have read several other books, however, including some fiction, but I also read book reviews in the Sunday papers, or did at last when I still bought the rags, now I read them online.
It seems, to me at least, that the range of ‘subject matter’ considered suitable for ‘serious literature’ is very narrow indeed: if it’s not eco-dystopia warning about the disaster which awaits humanity if we don’t all immediately turn our radiators down a notch or two, or growing up Gay in The Gorbals (pretty much a genre in its own right, though it need not necessarily be the Gorbals but can be anywhere) there seems little else to write about or rather little else those who are ‘passionate about literature’ are prepared to take seriously.
Also getting a look-in, however, are by virtue of that condescending way we Brits have made our own – and apparently still unable to forget our ‘imperial past’ – are novels by ‘our ethnics’, that is men and women who are native to the many countries in the once ‘British Empire’ and which many Brits still feel are beholden to us. That they have always been able to stand on their own two feet and could teach us more than just a thing or two doesn’t occur to many in Old Blighty.
The trouble is that I am neither gay nor grew up in the Gorbals, and I find the continual agonising over ‘global warming’ and warnings that ‘we must do something now’ faintly ridiculous and oddly patronising – if you are not by now aware of what is happening to global climate patterns and the alleged reasons for it, you are either brain-dead or physically dead.
So any stories I might write will most certainly not be choosing to follow the well-trod paths of so many other bloody writers. And – though I shall no here be outlining how – some time ago I decided that the writing I want to do will essentially be of a different kind to stories.
I would find it difficult to outline it (and would be riding for a fall if I did try) but it is less along the lines of what you are writing about and more how you are writing. That seems – granted, in my exceptionally limited experience – to be oddly neglected. I suppose in some ways the principle echoes the knowledge that ‘nothing dates faster than this year’s fashion’.
. . .
Anyway, I had another such useful dream (and it was two nights ago now as I have only just returned to writing this entry. And I think I can remember the ‘theme’. Next thing: sodding get done! The best and only advice to give a would-be writer
