I dreamt of being a star professional football player at the World Cup. At night I’d change into a superhero and tackle the most dangerous villains. Pfffff, what are you supposed to do with such impossible dreams? A writer. It still sounds odd to me. And now as a writer at Crossing Border. It’s actually worked out quite nicely after all.
A Jack-of-all-trades, but master of none, I could still mess things up again.
I’ve always loved reading, but there wasn’t an ounce of me that thought about embracing a fateful life of writing.
Back in the day after school, I’d do the most wretched little jobs to be able to earn a little something extra. Sowing leeks for a grumpy farmer, gardening for a half-blind old dear, who, on closer inspection, wasn’t that blind after all. Some restaurant experience washing up, being a kitchen porter and then a waiter. All this overly enthusiastic carry-on took me away from my studies. I’ll save you the little part-time jobs, because that’s when it becomes truly pathetic.
I got tired of it and decided to make a drastic decision. From now on, I only wanted to do a job that really suited me.
A friend was working as a security guard and was boasting about all the great things that he did there. Frying up an egg in the mornings and then having a leisurely breakfast reading the newspaper. He’d spend the rest of his day watching films. His sex life prospered too because he even took the ironing to work with him.
Could it really be? A job where you could spend the whole day reading? I applied to a security firm that very same day and a couple of months later, I was sitting in complete seclusion at the port with a pile of books next to me. I felt like a king and was pretty chuffed every time I’d digested another tome.
Fiction is the best. The unbridled fantasies of writers that readers will put their whole lives on hold for, just to know what’s going to happen on the next page.
And so it began, with a book that was read too quickly. To kill time, I decided to put my daydreams down on paper. I soon acquired a taste for it and decided to write short stories with crazy people and crazy dialogues. At the end of the day, I binned all my little writings.
I hadn’t even published a novel, but I still felt like a writer. I resolved to start my first novel and finally be rid of that Jack-of-all-trades, master of none tag. Writing went well, some days were easier than others. But the writing meant that I was spending less time reading. It was like persistently cheating on my girlfriend with a new flame.
Ayoub was born and I became Ayoub. I was living in a world that naturally I knew well. I wrote my daydreams down and another silly sheep came around. I sent the sheep off and an enthusiastic publisher left me a voicemail.
A writer thinks everything is a matter of course. That’s why everything ends so badly for so many writers. Writing just happened to me and maybe I should also just see it as a matter of course. Though I hope that things don’t end the wrong way for me. My first novel got published and I decided to go back to my girlfriend again. It didn’t take long though until I found another new flame. Hopefully, many more new flames will follow, so that I can retire later to a real harem.