Globsters, baldknobbers, and Wild West pterodactyls: I'm interviewed on the A to Z blog!

Hey folks. I'm over at the A to Z blog today talking about the A to Z blogging challenge. You'll hear all about cryptids, Ozark vigilantes, and where Clint Eastwood got his trademark grimace. Head on over and check it out!

Photo of the Chilean Blob, one of the more loveable globsters, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Blogging about travel and history in Iraq

Alongside my Iraq travel series for Gadling, I've been doing a bunch of guest posts for other blogs about my trip.

For Osprey Publishing I wrote about the Baghdad North Gate War Cemetery, where many of the British Empire's fallen from the First World War are interred. For A.J. Walker's blog on medieval history and archaeology, I wrote a guest post about a medieval castle in Iraq. Over at The Adventure Blog I've written about the ancient Arab city of Hatra. I also wrote about Exploring Medieval Baghdad for Black Gate Magazine, which published my historical fantasy novella The Quintessence of Absence.

So head on over to these sites and get some good free reading, otherwise this Iraqi kid will ride his ancient lion over to your house and eat you!

Writing advice from Joe Bob Briggs

While researching an article about drive-in movie theaters I came across the website of Joe Bob Briggs, a big drive-in movie fan and former host of Monstervision. He has a great post on his blog about what it takes to be a writer. basically: write, write, write! You can see the post here.

You may have noticed some more activity here on Midlist Writer. While I've been focusing more on my Civil War blog, I'm keeping this blog open for occasional bits that don't fit in over there, so keep checking out both Midlist Writer and Civil War Horror!

What makes a great character

A recent tweet led me to an interesting two-part article about "What makes a great character". This is on the blog Yummy Men, Kick Ass Chicks, a paranormal romance blog. In this article, several paranormal romance authors talk about what makes a character compelling. While I have no interest in their genre, good writing is good writing and I found the advice worthwhile. Check out part one and part two.

The Reader's Digest version: characters are interesting when they are multifaceted and flawed. Pretty much all the authors said this. They also said a whole lot more, so if you're a writer, or simply interested in how your favorite characters are made, check these posts out.

Tell my boss to send me to Afghanistan

As many of you know, I'm a travel blogger for Gadling, the world's most popular travel blog. I've done several series on adventure travel, including one on taking a road trip around Ethiopia, and another on living in an African city. I did another on visiting Somaliland.

In my more than 20 years of adventure travel, I've never been to Afghanistan, and it's always been at the top of my list. I visited Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province in the 1990's and spent several pleasant weeks among the Afghan communities there. Afghanistan's long history and varied cultures would make a great Gadling series. . .

. . .but I can't afford it. So I need your help. If you'd like to see a boots-on-the-ground series on Afghanistan written by yours truly, tell Gadling to be my sugar daddy. I'll write about culture, history, and daily life, all the things the news ignores. I already know an adventure travel company that can take me there. If enough people vote, maybe Gadling will send me!

Please leave a comment at this link, telling Gadling they need a series on Afghanistan.

[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

I've added an RSS feed for Midlist Writer

On the lefthand column of this blog you'll see I've added an RSS feed. While I'm not writing in Midlist Writer as frequently as I used to, due to working hard on my Civil War blog and preparing my Civil War horror novel for publication, I do occasionally post stuff here of writerly and personal interest. Don't miss a post! Subscribe to my RSS feed! And thanks for reading!

Armies of the Adowa Campaign: a sneak peak at my next book

Sorry for my silence on this blog. I've been busy getting another blog about my Civil War novel up and running. I'm happy to say it hasn't even been a month but I already have nine followers and more than 1,100 hits! Here's hoping that my novel, A Fine Likeness, will be equally successful once it comes out in September.

My family and I are in Oxford for our customary summer of research, hiking, and seeing old friends. As usual, I popped into the offices of Osprey Publishing and chatted with the editors about my current projects and possible future ones. I also got an advance copy of Armies of the Adowa Campaign.

The folks at Osprey did their usual awesome job with the layout and the maps. I also have to tip my hat to Raffaele Ruggeri for his excellent and precise illustrations. When I was researching the book and assembling instructions for the as-yet-unassigned artist, one of my main sources for Italian uniforms was a book Mr. Ruggeri illustrated. I was very happy to hear he was taking the project. It made my instructions almost unnecessary!

The book includes almost fifty rare photographs from the Italian archives, and some of my own photos I took while exploring the battlefield.

For more on this project, check out two posts I did for the Osprey blog. Part one was about researching in Ethiopia, and part two was about researching in Rome. Check them out for insights into the ups and downs (and even dangers) of researching military history!

Starting a new blog

As regular readers of this blog know, I've been shopping around my Missouri Civil War horror novel, A Fine Likeness, for some time now. This was a finalist in ChiZine and Dorchester's Fresh Blood contest but because I was traveling in Ethiopia I wasn't able to garner enough votes to win.

Well, I've decided that with the Civil War sesquicentennial already upon us, now is the time to publish this, so I've going to self-publish with Kindle Direct Publishing, Createspace, and Smashwords. A Fine Likeness will be published in September.

I've started a blog dedicated to the book and its series called, unsurprisingly, Civil War Horror. I posted there today about why a professional author is self-publishing on Amazon. I hope you'll join me on this venture into the uncertain world of modern publishing.

Adding pages

Hi everyone! Yes, I've been silent for a while. It's been a combination of lots of work, getting focused on my Harar book proposal, and a bit of early summer laziness.

One change you'll start seeing here is pages, which you can access via the tabs at the top of this page. These pages link to various books and articles of mine in the Web. I've put in pages for Adventure Travel and Archaeology, and will soon add Civil War, Missouri History, Harar, Medieval History, and Miscellaneous Writings.

I like the Pages option for Blogger. It's almost the equivalent of a free website!

Back in Oxford

After three days in Madrid, just time enough to shake the Ethiopian dust off my boots, I'm writing amidst the dreaming spires of Oxford. Now this is culture shock!

We're up here for the Easter break. My family and I come up to Oxford every year at this time and also for the summer. I research in the Bodleian Library, my wife works at the astronomy department, and my kid goes to school and improves his English.

Visiting Harar, Ethiopia, for two months has left me a bit behind. I have a lot of emails to catch up on, edits for my book on the Adowa campaign waiting for me, plus I'll be chatting with the good folks at Osprey Publishing about more book possibilities when I visit their offices this week. I also need to finish my Harar travel series.

In the longer term, I'm working on a book proposal about Harar. I'm looking at its history and culture, and how the Hararis want to take advantage of Harar's UNESCO World Heritage status to develop tourism. Tourism is a mixed blessing, and I'll be looking at how an increasing number of foreigners are affecting this once-isolated town.

Of course I'll also be spending lots of time with my family, lounging in parks in the beautiful English springtime, going for at least one party night in London, and who knows what else! I love adventure travel, but being back in the First World has its advantages!

Settling down in Ethiopia

Hello from Harar, Ethiopia! This blog has been a bit silent lately because I’ve been in the Horn of Africa. The Internet in Ethiopia can be a bit slow and unpredictable.
Just like my last Ethiopia trip, I’m having a great time. I just rented a room in a traditional home in Harar’s medieval Old City and am writing an Ethiopia travel series for Gadling. I’m also working on a book proposal. In other Ethiopia news, Osprey Publishing published a blog post I did on researching the Armies of the Adowa Campaign book in the northern Tigray region. Less adventurous but no less fun was the research I did in Rome. See you soon!

Preparing for two months in Ethiopia

In ten days I'll be on a flight to Ethiopia. This will be my second time in the country. Last year my wife and I did a big road trip in Ethiopia for our tenth anniversary and I also did a side trip to Somaliland.

While that last trip was more of a survey of the two countries, this time I'm focusing on just one place--Harar. This medieval walled city in eastern Ethiopia has a unique culture that's a mix of the many different societies it has interacted with in its role as a major trading center. I'll be studying its culture and history to write a long series for Gadling as well as a book proposal.

So what am I doing to get ready? Not much, actually. On this sort of trip you just have to let things happen. My contacts in Harar will help me with my research and it's such a friendly place that I know everything will work out fine, more or less. I'm doing a lot of background reading, of course, sucking up every bit of information I can on the city and region. Sadly, there's not as much in English as there should be for such an important city. That's where I come in.

I'm also not worrying about the subject matter of my book proposal. I know it's going to be about some aspect of Harari culture, but I haven't decided what. While I have dozens of ideas I'm going to follow the advice of a Harari friend and let the subject choose me. Who I meet and what they teach me will shape my book. When a writer goes into a major project, it's best not to have too strict of an idea where it should lead.

My best travel writing on Gadling in January

Here we are in February already! The year's started off busy for me, with a deadline looming for my next book, a trip to Ethiopia coming up, and a lot of blogging for Gadling in the first month of 2011.

At the beginning of the year I was finishing up my series on Extremadura, Spain, where my family and I went for the holidays in December, including a fun article on the castles of Extremadura. I'm a big fan of castles! I also did a few articles on Egypt, including the stunning news that the government is closing Tutankhamun's tomb in order to save it from deterioration. The following week they reversed their decision and said they won't be closing it in the near future but it's still in the cards. Egypt also demanded that New York take care of Cleopatra's Needle of give it back. Egypt was again in the news when some rioters broke into the National Museum and destroyed two mummies.

I also did some opinion pieces, one on why travel writers need to stop stereotyping Africa, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and how I feel about the burqa.

Perhaps my most popular post, and certainly the one that generated the most controversy, was on about a hotel that got fined for refusing a gay couple a room.

In all I did 40 posts. Not bad for a month where I didn't go anywhere!

Good advice for writers

A while back I interviewed fellow midlist author Kathryn Meyer Griffith, who gave some insights into her 25+ years of work in the business. Now she's given another interview over at Dasef Central, a fun blog I'd never stumbled upon before. There are so many it's easy to miss the good ones!

Check out this interview for some great writing advice from someone who has been at it longer than many aspiring writers have been alive. Like me, she doesn't gloss over the bad stuff. For example, "I’ve had publishers go bankrupt. . .in the middle of my book editing, had a book pulled (after the final proofing, cover done) six weeks away from going to the bookshelves, agent dumping me, long stretches – 9 years once – when I couldn’t get anything published anywhere and a hundred other fears. Awful covers, awful editors. Cruel reviews. On and on. Too many to list here. Never writer’s block, though. So now nothing scares me….much."

Ouch! Been there, survived that. I like the comment about writer's block. I don't get writer's block either. So head on over to Dasef Central and check out what it's really like to be an author, and then come on back here for more midlist grumbling. We love our job, really!

Best travel writing on Gadling in October

Halloween has come and gone, and here we are in November. As I look back at my Gadling travel posts in October, they aren't as adventurous as they were in September, what with my trip to Rome, but it was still a pretty good month.

I did a series on travel in Yorkshire that turned out to be popular. This was my first press trip, courtesy of VisitEngland and Welcome to Yorkshire, and it was an interesting experience. I'll be blogging about what it's like to go on a press trip next week here on Midlist Writer. It's a controversial subject, and I'm not 100 percent in support of them, but hey, at least I got to spend three nights in a haunted hotel room.

More on that later. As usual I did a variety of posts on archaeology, including a possible solution to the mystery of Silbury Hill and proof of Chinese trade with Africa before the Europeans. I also wrote a piece on favorite hiking spots near Madrid. Other random posts included an aquarium that's hiring a mermaid and a weird Japanese ESL video a friend sent me.

So check out my feed on Gadling. You'll even see a scientific explanation of why airline food sucks and some advice on what to do in a Muslim country during Ramadan!

And if you want adventure travel, check out Don George's series on Peru.

I'm interviewed on "Live Your Life Well"

Andy Hayes, managing editor of the excellent travel blog Live Your Life Well, has interviewed me about my twin loves of history and travel as part of his ongoing Travel Experiences Interviews. Hop on over there to hear me blather on about ancient monuments and achieving dangerous childhood dreams. Make sure to poke around the rest of the site too for other neat articles including one on candy around the world and a very cool piece on visiting Peshawar.

So what does the above photo have to do with all of this? Well, nothing really, but it brings back good memories of traveling in Somaliland. This guy is an Oromo, an Ethiopian people, but he works in the Somaliland capital Hargeisa as a street vendor making tasty samosas. So. . .an Ethiopian cooking Indian food in Somaliland for a Canadian??? That sort of randomness is one of the things I love about travel!

Looking back on this week's posts I notice that there's been a lot of self-puffery. So let me puff someone else for a change, fellow Madrid writer Sue Burke, who just had a short story published on Daily Science Fiction called Zero Hour. Check it out. It's only 900 words so you can take a look while the boss isn't paying attention.

Green Ethiopia

Today is Blog Action Day, a day every year where bloggers focus on a single issue. This year the issue is water so I'm sharing some of my images of the lush uplands of Ethiopia.

Wait. . .Ethiopia? That place where there's only deserts and starving children? One of the things I love about being a travel writer is exploding myths. The central Ethiopian highlands actually get a fair amount of rain and are green and fertile. This is one of the reasons that there's been a civilization there for thousands of years. These shots were taken in the Amhara province about a hundred miles northeast of the capital Addis Ababa.
There are a lot of villages in this region. Overpopulation is one of Ethiopia's main challenges. There's not enough land and when there's a bad year many people go hungry.
There's water in this stream, but Ethiopia experiences periodic droughts. There was a big one in the Eighties that was exacerbated by a vicious civil war in which both sides burned each other's crops. These two factors led to the great famine that we all remember from TV. Sadly, those images were so seared onto our memories that people don't think there's anything else to this country.
This shot was taken just west of Addis Ababa and shows a family threshing teff, an Ethiopian grain that goes into making that tasty injera bread you might have tried. Teff is a nutritious grain that fetches a high price on the market, although it requires labor-intensive cultivation. These guys are making their cattle walk around on the grain in order to separate it.

For more on my trip to Ethiopia, check out my series on Ethiopia travel at Gadling.

I have a reader in Burundi

One of the coolest things about being a writer is that you never know who's going to end up reading your stuff. As I mentioned in my post about what the blogger stats page tells you about your blog, I'm getting readers in all sorts of places. I get a lot of hits from Moldova for some reason, even more than the United Arab Emirates where I actually know somebody. (you still do read this blog, don't you Abha?)

Now I've gained a reader from Burundi. This small East African nation has only 8 million people, a third less than Greater London, but I've still managed attract a reader from there! I wonder who it is? Perhaps one of these students from Burundi's "Back to School" program?

Writing, especially for the Internet, gets you a readership that cuts across class, race, age, and geography. I was just chatting with one reader who is a World War Two veteran, and now I'm wondering about this mystery Burundian. This poses an important question for writers: when your audience is so vast and varied, how do you write to them? I'm thinking that while you do have to have certain parameters of style and subject in order to maintain regular readers, in general you just write the best you can, promote your work, and let your readers pick you.

I wonder what the next country will be to appear on my stats page for the first time. . .


Student photo courtesy the United Nations via flickr. Flag photo courtesy Pumbaa80 via Wikimedia Commons.

Best travel stories on Gadling in September

Well, this is actually a listing of my best travel stories on Gadling. The other bloggers put up a ton of great content in September, so before I review my own work of this past month, I'd like to give a big shout out to Andrew Evans and his amazing series on travel in Greenland. Check it out because it blows my own contributions out of the water. Greenland is one of the places I most want to visit, so I'm incredibly jealous that he's doing this series and not me.

Now back to yours truly. As usual, my Gadling posts reflect where I am in the world. At the start of September I was in Durham, a cathedral town in northern England. I also got to visit England's oldest Anglo-Saxon church. From England I went to Italy, where I wrote a series titled Vacation with the Dead: Exploring Rome's Sinister Side. I looked at saint's relics, tombs, catacombs, and Rome's obsession with death. My favorite of these sights was the weird and disturbing Purgatory Museum.

In addition to these features I did more than a dozen short news pieces. By far the most popular was a report on how some airport security were caught using full body scanners as porn. It had to happen sooner or later! More interesting to me was a piece I did on the discovery that a youth buried at Stonehenge came from the Mediterranean. Perhaps he's an ancestor of mine and the travel bug is genetic?

So there's my Gadling work for September in a nutshell. It's a fun job that keeps me writing daily. This was also the month that I passed 200,000 words blogging for them!

My thoughts on my page 99

As I mentioned in my post on What the Blogger Stats Page tells You about your Blog, I like to check out the data relating to Midlist Writer. In my last post I presented page 99 of my novel and asked for input. More than fifty of you read the thing but only one person left a comment. That just goes to show how many lurkers there are on the average blog! I'd really be curious to know what my readers in Colombia and Latvia think of my writing.

Anyway, thanks for the input, Sioux.

This scene shows our young band of Confederate bushwhackers riding through the woods of mid-Missouri after killing a Unionist civilian. They had never killed a civilian before but did it because they were told he was a spy who had gotten a local secessionist hanged. There's more to this, of course, and the ramifications of their actions power the rest of the novel. It's interesting that this page shows Jimmy, one of the two protagonists besides Union Captain Richard Addison, in an entirely passive role. He's usually in charge of the bushwhacker gang but he's so stunned at what they've done that he's momentarily given up trying. He will be given another chance to step back and wash his hands later in the book, and his choice will determine the ending.

So is this a good page? Well, it does have tension, and gives a bit of insight into some of the characters, but I'm not entirely happy with the Southern dialect. That's a tricky thing to get right, especially the Missouri dialect. Plus I have to put it back into the 1860s. It's something I'm still working on.

So. . .if any of you lurkers out there want to post page 99 of your novel on your blog, feel free to put the link in my comments section. I'll be sure to read it and give my two cents' worth.