A writing residency – Morocco and a Room of One’s Own

It strikes me suddenly on the back walk to the studio after dropping my daughter at her Arabic class, that I have not really taken the time to truly bask in the fact that I am finally in Morocco. It has been sixteen years in the making, a dream that has festered, floundered and flourished in many different forms. Now finally it is here, or more, correctly, I am here.

I take stock and look around at the buildings. I’m finally here. Cobbled streets and tiled walls. I managed to make it work. Men in their heavy djellabah’s, hoods pulled forward against the cold, women their headscarves pulled tight. Hard to believe. Fruit sellers unwrapping their stalls for the day. Feels surreal and real at the same time. The street widens and, wait, no fruit sellers...oh shit I’ve walked straight past the studio and now I have to turn around and go back a block without it looking like I’m a complete and utter idiot.

A friend posted a comment on my Facebook wall the other day to the effect that – I love your pictures of Morocco, remind me again, why are you there? The short answer is that I’m here to do a writing residency with Green Olive Arts, a collaborative arts space in Tetouan, northern Morocco. Or in other words, a thinly veiled excuse to go somewhere that I’ve longed to go for many years. Morocco has always seemed like a tantalising luxury, somewhere I’ve wanted to go but could never ‘justify’ (as if travel really needs to be justified!). Somehow a writing residency, finally legitimised the process.

But really, why do a writing residency? Books get written at home just as well – as my three previous efforts have demonstrated. You don’t need any special tools, or atmosphere (freezing garrets are highly overrated…) So why expend so much money and energy and effort going somewhere new?

For me a writing residency serves a number of purposes. Part of my current novel will be set in Morocco so obviously firsthand research is a bonus. This novel looks too at the issue of people smuggling; a practise that draws people up and down the continent, many trying to take that last final leap into Europe from Morocco’s coast. I’m hoping to connect with people who have made the journey this far and then attempt to infuse my own writing with the integrity of their stories.

Coming here too is a great way to shake up the observation skills not only allowing me to draw material from my surroundings, but also to shine a light on the internal creative process. When you see the same thing day after day, it’s harder to imagine yourself in a brand new world. This experience is a bit like shaking a kaleidoscope and seeing what new shapes will form. In the same way too it gives your emotional platform a jolt. There is nothing like arriving in a new country with all of it’s challenges and joys, to provide new avenues to access those feelings within. Add to that the opportunity to connect with creative people beyond your usual world – to explore their sources of inspiration, to see what they are producing and learn how they approach their craft.

A residency too is a rare luxury for a writer. It is an opportunity to step out of the seclusion of tapping away day after day. It is an opportunity to have a precious dedicated space in which to create. Yes, books get written in bed and on trains and in lofts and at kitchen tables, but occasionally it is wonderful to have a space dedicated to what you are doing, not to mention people whose focus it is to facilitate that creative process. I confess in the early days of my residency I found that disconcerting – to realise that I had people whose purpose was to facilitate my writing. What a gift!

I suspect too that there is something of a process of trying on the mantle of professional writer for size. This year will see the publication of The Chicken Thief by Penguin Books, which has been something of a pipe dream since I first started writing the book back in 2005. And at the end of last year I completed the sequel to that book and am now working on the third. Thus the timing of this residency seems fitting.

So I am here. Each morning I sit down at my desk, in a room of one’s own and I write, and watch with great pleasure as another book unfolds to the sound of traffic, and the vegetable sellers below. And when I get up from my desk I remind myself to bask in the journey that brought me here and carries me forward, and to make a mental note of my surroundings so I don’t get lost…