Tag / Creative Writing

by Fadi Zaghmout

Writers and blank pages


It is true what they say about writers and blank pages. As I wanted to start writing my next book yesterday, I sat in a cafe and opened the laptop, opened a new document on pages, and had a full blank page staring at me.


30 minutes later it was still blank. Thoughts racing in my head, how to start? where to start? the scene, the line?


60 minutes later it was still blank. Thoughts wrestling in my head. Which to eliminate? Which to keep? what sounds promising? anything exciting to start with?


90 minutes later it was still bank. I started to worry. Am I unable to start a new book? or the idea of the new book is all wrong? it is an ambitious project that I won’t be able to complete? Did I lose my magic?


At that point I had an idea to explore. Wrote first line, then deleted it. Rephrase. Rephrase again, and again. Don’t be too critical I tell myself, I continue, finishing a paragraph. The idea becomes clearer, it branches into other ideas, putting it into words, shaping it up, the character has a voice.


120 minutes later I had 3 paragraphs written. I am pleased about the beginning and the direction I will take in the book. I stop writing and feel excited about the next session.

Photo Credit: ASHLEY EDWARDS

by Fadi Zaghmout

Behind the White Veil: Interview with Fadi Zaghmout


Interviewed by Tala Abdulhadi, posted on OC Magazine

Name: Fadi Zaghmout

Date of Birth: June 15th, 1978

Degree: MA in Creative Writing and Critical Thinking

Job: Information and Communication Technology Advisor

Currently Residing in: Amman/Jordan

Languages Spoken: Arabic and English

OC: How has your Creative Writing degree helped you develop as a writer?

FZ: The course had a critical thinking side where we read lots of critical essays. We had four main modules. I would say that the psychoanalysis module was my favourite. There is much to learn from Freud in terms of creative writing; ambivalence, the double, the uncanny, mourning and dealing with loss are some techniques I have developed. I also learned to cut down unnecessary words, and to focus on showing rather than telling.

OC: What inspired you to write Aroos Amman (Bride of Amman)?

FZ: Our heavy legacy of social values that is making our lives harder than it should be, as well as the social obsession in marriage and its effect on the lives of youth in Jordan.

I understand that marriage is a means to regulate sexuality, yet and while exaggerated in importance, the institution of marriage in Jordan is pretty limited. We have no civil marriage that recognises inter-religious, non-religious or same sex relationships. Women are expected to be virgins, and preferred to be young, along with so many other silly constraints. It also reinforces patriarchal society where it is expected that the man to provide a home and cater for all of the wedding expenses and post wedding daily financial responsibilities.

OC: Each character in Aroos Amman seems to have its own identity, socially speaking. How would you describe each narrator in terms of identity?

FZ: Laila is the achiever; a woman who plays it right, does what society expects from her and excels in it. Salma represents women who struggle with the social obsession with marriage. Hayat is a social victim who is forced to break out the social boundaries, whereas Rana is the contrary of Laila. She follows her heart rather than playing it by the rules. Ali represents individuals with two sides; one that is highly appreciated by society (being a man) and one that is highly condoned (his homosexual desires).

OC: The works of authors are always reflective of the writers’ own lives. Which character is most reflective of you? How is that?

FZ: I think there are different parts in each character where I somehow reflect myself.  For example, I’d like to think that I am visible in the positivity, determination and honesty of Hayat, the rebellious and adventurous nature of Rana, and the activist social sensitivity of Salma.

OC: Why do you choose to write your novels in Arabic, but blog in both English and Arabic?

FZ: My blog tackles issues of gender and sexuality, and therefore gained more support from English reading audiences. When I read Arabic newspapers, especially local ones, I rarely see liberal voices that call for individual and sexual freedom. That is why I started using Arabic on my blog. I also realized that my English language is in not good as my Arabic. I can express myself much better in Arabic. I don’t think that I am capable of writing an entire book in English.

OC: What is the basis of your decision regarding which language to use when writing your novels?

FZ: I think it has to do more with my level of proficiency in the language. I am a native Arabic speaker and can express myself much better in Arabic. In addition to that, I am writing for an Arabic audience and publishing in an Arabic market.

OC: How did you come up with your latest short story It Was Just A Kiss? What messages were you aiming to send while writing it?

FZ: I had to deliver both a critical essay and a creative piece for my dissertation. For the critical part, I did a psychoanalysis read for the father/son relationship in two prose; The Kite Runner by Khaled Al Husseni, and When We Were Orphans by Ishiguro Kazuo, studying how a father figure affects the death drive of the son. I tackled the subject from a gender identity perspective.

The creative part had to be related. I thought of reflecting the father/son relationship into a mother/daughter one. Instead of a dominant manly father as in The Kite Runner, I came up with the character of this mother who is overly feminine.

OC: When should we expect your next novel?

FZ: I am hoping for a release date in September or October of this year (fingers crossed).

OC: Could you give us a brief description of your upcoming new work? Is it similar to any of your previous works in any way?

FZ: Sure I can. I would say it is different than Arous Amman. It tries to read a future where science can control the aging process and prevent dying from old age. On one hand, we have this huge shift in the paradigm of death while on the other hand we still have the same other variables that make us human beings. It is called Janna ‘Ala Al-ard (Heaven on Earth).

OC: If you had the choice of changing one thing about Jordanian society, what would it be?

FZ: I would heal the relationship between men and women.

OC: What advice can you give to aspiring writers?

FZ: I would advise aspiring writers to question everything around them; to deconstruct common truth, belief systems, social values; to be creative and bring us new stories that we haven’t heard before. That doesn’t mean writing a novel is an easy task. It requires discipline and dedication. There is no time to waste worrying about things. So just write, write, write, and worry later.

Fadi’s Top 5 Books:

Angels and Demons Dan Brown

The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follet

The Passion of New Year Eve Angela Carter

1984 George Orwell

The Kite Runner Khaled Al Husseni

Favorite Artist: Elissa

Favorite Movie: Halla’ La Wain

Favorite Dish: Fattet Makdoos

Favorite Author: Dan Brown

Dream Vacation: Seychelles Islands

Best Birthday Gift: A book with many white papers and a hard cover with my name on it to start writing my first novel.

Favorite Dessert: Knafeh

Guilty Pleasure: Bread

Most Embarrassing Incident: Once I was shopping and met an acquaintance. I said hi and we talked a bit. When I was ready to leave, I wanted to say goodbye. I approached him as he had his back to me. I poked his back, and he turned. He turned out to be someone else. I said bye and left!

Pet Peeve: Laziness

Your Biggest Fear: Death

by Fadi Zaghmout

“It Was Not Just A Kiss” a short story developed for my MA


It was not just a kiss

It was not just a kiss

I wanted to explore the father/son relationship for my MA dissertation. My MA was in Creative Writing and Critical Thinking, and thus the dissertation required two parts: a critical essay and a creative piece. For the critical essay I did a psychoanalysis read for the effect of the father on the death drive of the son. I chose two prose to compare: “The Kite Runner” for Khaled Hosseini where there is a dominant father figure, and “When We Were Orphans” for Kazuo Ishiguro where the father is absent. And for the creative piece, I reflected the findings of my critical read of a father/son relationships across the gender access to develop this short story “It Was Not Just A Kiss”.

The critical work is pretty long (around 10,000 words). I had to read lots of theoretical work. For a father/son relationship, I found no better place to start than exploring the notion of the castration complex and understand the formation of the super ego and the ego ideal. I stumbled upon many interesting findings that would be hard to sum up here in this article. I’d say the main conclusion was reading the castration complex in terms gender imposition, and applying Anna Freud’s theories of the ego’s defence mechanisms against aggression. If we consider gender imposition at a very young age a form of aggression, then that explains the castration anxiety that arises. Aggression, when comes with an authoritative figure, it gets internalized in the super ego and becomes self-inflicted. It continuously fuels the rise of the anxiety levels in the psyche, especially when the super ego is so strong (influenced by a dominant father figure as in the case of Amir in The Kite Runner).

On the other hand, and reading Freud, I understood that the psyche adheres naturally to the Pleasure Principle in order to lower the incremental excitations. That usually happens when the sexual energy is discharged, or when we are hungry and eat. It is the natural feeling of pleasure when a need is met. But what happens when the excitations of the psyche reaches to a very high level that can’t be handled by the normal psyche mechanism of the Pleasure Principle? I could read that the psyche then resides to painful measurements in order to sustain its stability. That’s for me what explained Freud’s death drive. It is the turning point where the human behaviour turns destructive. It is the point that Freud calls “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”.

In his essay “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, Freud only branches to assume a different set of drives when he fails to identify a compulsion to repeat among the sexual drives. I don’t think that he looked clear enough though. I could read a compulsion to repeat in the sexual act of gender assertion. According to Judith Butler’s theory of Performativity, gender is the continuous stylisation of the body. It is a repetitive process that aims to please the ego ideal. The fact that I could read a compulsion to repeat in the sexual drives that have the same characteristics of the one Freud explains in his essay means that we can go back and assume only one set of drives; the sexual drives that turn destructive!

Instead of an overly dominant father figure as in “The Kite Runner”, I portrayed an overly feminine mother in the short story. The daughter, like Amir, struggles to meet up with the gender identity of her ideal. Unlike Amir, where the values of a masculine society backs up the qualities of his dominant father, the daughter faces an ambivalence of emotions facing a society that loves and hates abundant femininity. In the story, I place the daughter in a situation that heightens her castration anxiety and leads her to fall into the madness of her death drive.

Writing the short story after doing the critical research felt great. It was like having the blueprint to build the characters on. That is the essence of the MA that I did and the wisdom behind combining the creative and the critical into one complimentary course at Sussex University.

When I arrived Dubai’s airport last monday, they asked for my original visa which wasn’t there in the airport. My brother had to drive all the way from Abo Dhabi to hand it in. In the meantime, waiting for more than 3 hours, I thought of checking out the kindle store. I decided publish “It Was Not a Kiss” on Amazon and see how it fairs. It is my first attempt to use the platform and thus I don’t think that I was very successful. A week later, 5 copies have been sold so far. I would say it has mainly to do with the lack of availability of the kindle story in the middle east where most of my audience live.

If you find the notion of the story interesting, and wants to check it out, you can find it here: “A Short Story: It Was Not Just A Kiss“.

and if you find the critical essay interesting and would like to read it, you can email me and I can send you the file.

by Fadi Zaghmout

My last day in Brighton


Brighton's beach

Brighton’s beach

It is my last day  in Brighton. When I first arrived, a year ago, I was kind of excited about doing my MA. Few days after my arrival, I was homesick and crying in my room. I don’t know why, but I was very stressed out back then. There were several things that I had to take care of but couldn’t figure out immediately. I had to complete my registration, open a bank account, figure out my classes schedule, figure out transportations to the city, buy a new laptop, get a phone card, and configure the internet connection on my phone and ipad. Everything felt so damn difficult, and not knowing anyone, I felt very lonely.

I thought that things would get better once I start attending my classes, but it actually got worse. I was there, sitting in a class of psychoanalysis with around another 14 students. They all looked young, European, and smart! They all had a bachelor degree in English Literature whereas mine was computer science (from Jordan’s university long long time ago). I never studied Literature, and had no idea what ‘critical thinking’ means. I was excited about the creative, wanted to read and write fiction and improve my writing skills. I didn’t really understand the nature of the course before joining, and I take full blame of that. It is split between the creative and the critical. Now I see the importance of it. But at that time, when I started reading different critical essays, I used to understand little, and in class, I used to stay silent, trying to understand the course of discussion and the different accents of the students. The fact that they could read different dimensions of a text which I could barely understand its meaning used to scare me out. Even the silent ones, whom I initially thought were less smart (like me), felt to be brilliant once they spoke up!

Two to three weeks down the line, I remember sitting there thinking to myself. I left my family, my friends and all the people who I love. I left my comfortable life, the sense of achievement I had back then after the success of Aroos Amman, and my well paying job. I left all of that to become a student again, at the age of 34 walking down the campus around 18-22 students and some postgraduates in their early twenties! I thought that I left everything for nothing as I became convinced that I am not getting much of the course and that there is no way that I could make it and pass. The thought of withdrawing from the course and the scholarship crossed my mind.

I was wrong. I learnt a lot. I had to endure several months till the end of the first term to gain back some confidence in my ability to make it. I enjoyed reading psychoanalysis and utopian/dystopian novels. I enjoyed the discussions that took place in classes even though I remained shy from participating in them. I thought that I had done a good job for the term papers and was happy to pass. On the personal side, I started to develop some friendships and became less lonely. I figured out everything I needed to live here and felt less stressed. Still, for few months, I used to open up my eyes at night hoping to see myself back in my room in Amman.

My visits to Jordan helped a lot. I went back for few days in late October to participate in Seven’s play. I went back for a month on Christmas holidays and another month for the Easter holidays. Those were refreshing times where you realise that things are still the same back home and that I haven’t lost anything. Though now it feels the year has passed very fast, the first couple of weeks felt like years for me.

I am usually a happy person and I don’t indulge myself in stressful thoughts. That’s why I couldn’t understand the way I felt at the beginning of my arrival here. I fought for this scholarship for many years. I dreamt about doing my MA in the UK. I was bored after many years of working and needed a break. I loved reading and writing and was looking forward to a year full of it. It was everything that I wanted. But it also turned into ‘be careful what you wish for’, and all I wished for was going back home.

Fast forward, I am going back home tomorrow, and I am happy about it. Things have gotten much better here for me. I developed some good friendships that would last for life. I met some amazing people whom I’d always love and remember. I learned many things; I could feel an improvement in the way I think, talk and write. I am not sure if I could say that Brighton became to feel like a second home, I do love this place now and I know that I am going to miss it. But what I am pretty sure about, and can say it in a full mouth: there is nothing like home 🙂

I am happy for getting done with my MA and returning back home. I am gonna miss so many people here, but excited to see lots of other waiting for me.