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5 april 2018, it could have been me

What I must admit is now a long time ago, I planned to write a book, which I got about one-third through. I started on my amstrad, but did the most part on a sleek black laptop I bought way ahead of time before I went to budapest, my base for a magical year and a half buzzing around the most incredulous countries of eastern and central europe working with students. Though most of my writing took place (and as it stands now is set in) my next big stop in life (the middle-east being wonderfully conducive to writing), the book is undoubtedly about that time in my european ancestral home. A bit late to the party, I've just read jonathan safran foer's everything is illuminated. I thought it was good, but not that good. More importantly, I read it thinking this was the book I could have written. Only better, I'd like to think, though probably not. I could have written it, perhaps, had I stopped doing everything else and stuck with that for a year, as I could have done then. It is or would be, of course, part-biographical, drawing on a very rich stock of adventures and emotions, which make me smile even now just to begin the remnants of remembering. I've started the novel many times. The current opening is "there was nothing she could do but wait..." though the real one is probably midway through the first chapter, "it had been a summer of love...". Oh, what could have been. Or, can I dream, may yet.