Sheik it

So, there I am in Wadi Rum. I have climbed down from the rock where I have watched the sun set behind huge monoliths of roll-topped sandstone, the spindly legs of camels throwing length shadows across the red sand.  I have drunk hot spicy tea from a tiny cup.I have eaten hummus and tabouli and lamb slow-roasted by being buried in an iron pot deep in the desert sand. We have gone for a walk in the dark to look at the stars, until J started frightening me with stories of djinn that had be jumping at every moonlit shadow, and scurrying like a desert rat back to the deep reds and brown of the rugs spread around a warm and fragrant fire.

And then, in what should have been the pinnacle of an otherwise gorgeous evening, the music starts. This is the moment. But can I remember a single thing from my Melbourne CAE belly dancing lessons? No. I get up and jig about for a little while, while a travelling companion to my left flails his limbs so desperately that I have to duck to stop him taking out an eye. I retire from the fray as soon as it is polite to do so, just one more frozen-hipped anglo in a very fluid desert.

Bridget of Arabia

As you are probably aware, dear reader, before I turned thirty I had not stepped off the shores of the Great Southern Land. It was primarily laziness that did it. Not that I was too lazy to travel, I was just too lazy to do the working and saving required to pay for the tickets.

Anyway, in 2006 the stars started falling over themselves in their keeness to align, and I found myself suddenly in possession of a silver frequent flyer card. Fancy. And that was before I moved to Europe. Since then I have been doing my best to take advantage of the incredible proximity of wonders.

I am still a bit of a nuff-nuff as a traveller, I must say, but its not for want of opportunity. In fact, as I sit here procrastinating about finishing the three jobs I must finish before I head South on Monday, I am actually thinking rather wistfully about the idea of a good long stretch of solid, stolid stick-in-the-mudness.

Imagine my surprise, then, when on Wednesday a charming young man called Simon from Wanderlust rang me to say that I have won an 8-day trip for two to Jordon, courtesy of onthegotours.

Really. I am not making this up.

What makes is triply stupendous, is that it looks like there is a good chance that we will be able to book in for a trip that coincides with a very special event. I am not going to tell you what it is, though just in case all three of you that ever read this blog jam the switchboard and steal our spots before we have been able to snaffle them.

Stay tuned!

Now all I have to do is figure out which continent my copy of 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom' is on....

Ghostly pursuits

To be honest, a ghost-writing workshop was not my first choice for Edinburgh Book Festival. However, being an aspirational little soul, I have not completely abandoned the notion that one day someone might actually PAY me to write something that I was going to write anyway. However much you tell yourself that whipping up a research document or conference report is a fine way to hone your writing skills, it hardly qualifies as "fun". There are people in the world who get paid for things they find fun. Its food for thought.

One such individual is sports journalist and ghostwriter Martin Hannan, who seems to make a pretty good living out of this ghostwriting lark. He's made a few quid out of NOT ghostwriting as well, thanks to the services of a good agent and smattering of canny contractual clauses. The moral of the story? Get a good agent.

There was much informative and entertaining discussion about the skills involved in writing someone elses voice. Many diverting factoids, as well. Did you know that Dick Francis's wife ghosted nearly all his books? I didn't. The need to sacrifice ego for craft was also noted, with due kudos going to Rebecca Farnsworth, Jordan's ghostwriter who, according to MH, has done a magnificent job of accurately capturing Jordan's pearls of wisdom in all their glory. With spelling. (Katie: "I talk into a Dictaphone and they go away and type it. I've got so many other things to do I couldn't sit there and type, plus I didn't pass English.")

I was getting quite excited. I've written for Ministers and senior executives, I thought. I can do empty rhetoric and vapid monosyllables with the best of them. A corporate voice is still a voice, however inhuman. In my head, I was half-way to being intimate friends with half the celebrities on the planet, trusted guardian of their images and secrets.

I was bitterly regretting that most of my idols were highly literate, and wondering what doltish stars I might be able to love, when a little fly in my fantasy ointment became apparent. We were asked to interview eachother and prepare a little ghost-written introductory paragraph to an autobiography, with a big glossy book on Scotland as the prize. One class member left early, and I had remembered Shelley Winters was in the Poseidon Adventure when no-one else did (long story), so I was to interview Martin himself. It was at about this point I remembered the inconvenient truth that I have never interviewed anyone in my life.

However, the bloke had just talked about himself for an hour, so I did have an unfair advantage. Nevertheless, I am enough of a suck not to want to seem like a twit to the teacher and well-established local journalist. With a ruthlessness born of desperation, I poked away at that most vulnerable of areas - childhood, family and religion, and within minutes he had helpfully confessed to seven years in the seminary training to be a priest. So there I had it, the Holy Trinity of popular autobiography, religion, journalism and football.

I left feeling rather pleased with myself, and with a big fat glossy book on Scottish history under my arm.

Recommended reading: The Ghost, by Robert Harris