Midlist Writer: My Travel Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

Friday 2 January 2015

My Travel Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

As my regular readers know, I'm an avid traveler. Living in Madrid makes it easier, but various things have kept me from doing much travel this year. I have three main threads in my writing career--travel, history, and fiction. For the past ten years all three have had their ups and downs, and in 2014 travel writing was definitely in a down.

The year started well with trips to Tangier and Belgium. Then the travel assignments dried up and besides our usual family trips to Oxford, there wasn't much of anything. I did manage to slip in two more trips to Tangier, but that's it. This is the first year that I can remember where I didn't go to a new country. I'll have to remedy that in 2015. Call it a New Year's resolution.

So where could I go? I recently discovered there's regular flights from Madrid to Algiers, so that's a possibility if I could drum up some freelance. Hungary and Egypt are also possibilities. I'm sure my career will throw me some curveballs as usual, so who knows where I might end up?!

5 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...: Hope you get to travel someplace cool!; 2 January 2015 at 14:32
Sioux Roslawski said...: You listed where you could go. But I'm curious. Where WOULD you go, if an editor said, "Sean, you can write about whatever spot you'd like to...and it's on our dime"?; 2 January 2015 at 15:09
Sean McLachlan said...: Sioux:

Big on my list right now are Sudan, Iceland, Afghanistan, and Mali. Of course I wouldn't mind going pretty much anywhere if the editor is paying, lol!; 3 January 2015 at 00:55
Donna Volkenannt said...: What an exciting life you live. Here's hoping your travels take you to many more exciting places in 2015!; 3 January 2015 at 11:53
Bob Sanchez said...: I'm impressed with your travels. May the new year bring you even more great adventures.; 5 January 2015 at 09:16

The Case of the Purloined Pyramid

The Last Hotel Room

He came to Tangier to die, but life isn’t done with him yet. Tom Miller has lost his job, his wife, and his dreams. Broke and alone, he ends up in a flophouse in Morocco, ready to end it all. But soon he finds himself tangled in a web of danger and duty as he’s pulled into scamming tourists for a crooked cop while trying to help a Syrian refugee boy survive life on the streets. Can a lifelong loser do something good for a change? A portion of my royalties will go to a charity for Syrian refugees.

Warpath into Sonora

Arizona 1846: Nantan, a young Apache warrior, is building a name for himself by leading raids against Mexican ranches to impress his war chief, and the chief’s lovely daughter. But there is one thing he and all other Apaches fear—a ruthless band of Mexican scalp hunters who slaughter entire villages. Nantan and his friends have sworn to fight back, but they are inexperienced, and led by a war chief driven mad with a thirst for revenge. Can they track their tribe’s worst enemy into unknown territory and defeat them?

Radio Hope

In a world shattered by war, pollution and disease. . . A gunslinging mother longs to find a safe refuge for her son. A frustrated revolutionary delivers water to villagers living on a toxic waste dump. The assistant mayor of humanity's last city hopes he will never have to take command. One thing gives them the promise of a better future--Radio Hope, a mysterious station that broadcasts vital information about surviving in a blighted world. But when a mad prophet and his army of fanatics march out of the wildlands on a crusade to purify the land with blood and fire, all three will find their lives intertwining, and changing forever.

Refugees from the Righteous Horde (Toxic World Book 2)

When you only have one shot, you better aim true. In a ravaged world, civilization’s last outpost is reeling after fighting off the fanatical warriors of the Righteous Horde. Sheriff Annette Cruz becomes New City’s long arm of vengeance as she sets off across the wildlands to take out the cult’s leader. All she has is a sniper’s rifle with one bullet and a former cultist with his own agenda. Meanwhile, one of the cult’s escaped slaves makes a discovery that could tear New City apart. . . Refugees from the Righteous Horde continues the Toxic World series started in Radio Hope, an ongoing narrative of humanity’s struggle to rebuild the world it ruined.

The Scavenger

In a world shattered by war, pollution, and disease, a lone scavenger discovers a priceless relic from the Old Times. The problem is, it's stuck in the middle of the worst wasteland he knows--a contaminated city inhabited by insane chem addicts and vengeful villagers. Only his wits, his gun, and an unlikely ally can get him out alive. Set in the Toxic World series introduced in the novel Radio Hope, this 10,000-word story explores more of the dangers and personalities that make up a post-apocalyptic world that's all too possible.

Trench Raiders

September 1914: The British Expeditionary Force has the Germans on the run, or so they think. After a month of bitter fighting, the British are battered, exhausted, and down to half their strength, yet they’ve helped save Paris and are pushing toward Berlin. Then the retreating Germans decide to make a stand. Holding a steep slope beside the River Aisne, the entrenched Germans mow down the advancing British with machine gun fire. Soon the British dig in too, and it looks like the war might grind down into deadly stalemate. Searching through No-Man’s Land in the darkness, Private Timothy Crawford of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry finds a chink in the German armor. But can this lowly private, who spends as much time in the battalion guardhouse as he does on the parade ground, convince his commanding officer to risk everything for a chance to break through?

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Friday 2 January 2015

My Travel Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

5 comments: