Travel Tuesday: Tetouan, Morocco

As regular readers of this blog know, if I'm posting about Morocco, I must be going there! That's right, I'll be spending the next ten days in Tangier working on the second Tangier mystery novel. The first, Tangier Bank Heist, will be coming out in mid-October.

So here are some shots of the medieval medina of Tetouan, a fine old city a short drive from Tangier. For more on Tetouan, see this article I wrote.

In the middle of the day, the streets are pretty abandoned. . .

. . .except for games of medina football!

Here's a somewhat warped rooftop panoramic view.

Another Writing Retreat in Tangier

It's been a while since I've traveled to Tangier to do some writing, so I'm going to remedy that by heading down there for ten days to write a mystery novella. That's right, I intend on writing a 30,000 word novella in ten days. That's only 3,000 words a day, and without the distractions of the Internet or ghostwriting, I should be able to do it.

So what's the mystery about? Well, that will remain a mystery for the time being. All I'll say is that it's set in the International Zone period, when from 1924–1956 Tangier was run by several different European nations plus the United States. It was a wild and somewhat lawless place, and a great spot for my detective to make a living. The action will take place shortly after WWII so I can use many famous residents in the supporting cast, such as William S. Burroughs and Paul and Jane Bowles. Should be fun.

If you want to see what Tangier looks like, I'll be regularly updating my Instagram account.

See you when I get back!

My Travel Year: A Look Back and a Look Forward

This past year has been pretty good for travel with me. I went to Egypt twice, spending a total of six weeks there to start my Masked Man of Cairo neo-pulp detective series. I made some great friends, explored Cairo more thoroughly than I did when I was first there way back in 1991, and got to see the pyramids again. Always a plus! I also had an all-too-brief trip to Tangier. I've been to that city a dozen times now and it still relaxes me. It's a quick and cheap getaway from Madrid, being only an hour's flight away, and I always seem to get a lot of writing done. You see, I hardly ever go on a real vacation. All my trips are work trips but enjoyable anyway. As usual, my family and I spent Easter and the summer in Oxford as we do every year. I get lots of research done at the university library.

So what's in store for 2018? More Egypt, certainly, and perhaps a trip to Fez, a fascinating Moroccan city I still haven't explored. For Egypt I intend to go to the western oases, which I have never seen, and perhaps up the river again to revisit the sites around Luxor and Aswan. There will be the usual trips to England and around Spain, and perhaps a few other short trips. One trip I and my family would like to do is a visit to Paris. A good friend lives there and my son is taking French in school, so he can be our translator. And who knows what else 2018 will throw at me? We shall see.

Off to Egypt!

Two of the five Abusir pyramids

Today I'm off to Egypt for another three-week writing retreat. During the last one I worked on The Case of the Purloined Pyramid, the first in a series of neo-pulp detective novels in the Masked Man of Cairo series. This time around I'm going to continue the adventures of Augustus, Moustafa, and Faisal in The Case of the Shifting Sarcophagus.

I'll be visiting friends and old haunts in and around Cairo, and seeing some new sites as well. The main one will be Abusir, a V Dynasty pyramid field that was built by the pharaohs after the Giza plateau filled up in the IV Dynasty.

I probably won't be blogging much, but I will be posting regular pictures and updates on my Facebook author page and my Instagram account.

Stela from the tomb of Ptahshepses (vizier under the pharoah Nyuserre)

Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons. My own pics coming soon!

Off to Egypt to write my next book

I'm off to Cairo tomorrow for a couple of weeks to work on my next novel, a neo-pulp adventure story set in Cairo in 1919. I write about it and the setting at length in this Black Gate post. While I won't be on much social media, I will be updating my Instagram account daily, so you can follow along with my exploration of Cairo and the surrounding area. You don't have to have an Instagram account of your own to see the pictures.

Special thanks to blogger buddy Lexa Cain for lots of tips on Egypt. Check out here blog for some interesting insights into the country.

Photo of the pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara from Wikimedia Commons. Everyone always shows Giza but this was the first pyramid, c. 2648 BC!

Back from Morocco!

Hello again! I just got back from my writing retreat in Tangier. I spent a month living in a house I rented close to the Casbah, the old palace of the Sultan. The project was a novel called The Last Hotel Room, set in contemporary Tangier. I got about a third of the way through the first draft. I could have written more but finances dictated that I do 28,000 words of a ghostwriting assignment as well.

The work went well and I had a great time making new friendships and renewing old ones. I also got to be part of the Muslim New Year’s celebrations and travel around northern Morocco a bit with my family, who came down for part of the time. I’ll be talking all about it on this blog and over on my usual Wednesday posts over on Black Gate.

Today, though, I have a million things to take care of. November is going to be a busy month, including a research trip to England; releasing the third in my Trench Raiders series, No Man’s Land; starting a newsletter; plus I joined the Insecure Writers Support Group! Look for a post on that this week. See you soon! Photos of Morocco to come once I get them transferred off my phone!