I'm moving blogs!

As you might of noticed, this blog has been a bit quiet of late. That's because I've revived my old Midlist Writer blog. While I still write Civil War stuff, and the sequel to A Fine Likeness will come out in the next couple of months, I've been writing more post-apocalyptic fiction lately, and recently started a novel set during World War One.

So this blog no longer fully reflects what I'm doing. I'll keep it up to repost announcements and anything Civil War related, but if you want Sean McLachlan's blog, go to Midlist Writer.

People won't be naked in the apocalypse

That caught your attention, didn't it? I'm kicking off my virtual book tour for Radio Hope with a guest post over at Alex Cavanaugh's blog, where I'm tackling the tricky question of why in all those post-apocalyptic books and movies people won't actually be dressed in rags. In fact, the apocalypse will mean we all get to dress better.

Head on over and say hi! I'll be doing several guest posts for blogs over the month of February. Stay tuned.

This shot of the lovely "Monster Guards" hanging out at Bulgaria's Extreme Film Fest 2011 courtesy podoboq.

Teutonic Treasures and Archaeology

When I'm not blogging here, I often do guest blogs at other sites. Recently I did a post for the Black Gate blog on The Church and Treasury of the Teutonic Order, Vienna. Black Gate is a leading fantasy magazine that runs a great blog on all things genre. Last year they published my fantasy novella The Quintessence of Absence, which you can download as a free ebook.

I'm also now the "Archaeology Expert" on the The Scout Project, a fun blog run by former Gadling coworker Libby Zay. It covers all sorts of subjects and encourages readers to go out and explore for themselves. She just interviewed me about my archaeology career.

Expect to see more from me on both these blogs in coming weeks!

Should I get on Google Plus?

Can anyone give me a good reason to get on Google Plus?

More and more of my blogger buddies are getting on it, which makes it so I can't comment on their blogs. Other than that, is there any reason I as an author should join, or is it just another social media timesuck?

Writing a novel in November

Yesterday I signed up for National Novel Writing Month. I'll be working on my post-apocalyptic novel Radio Hope. You'll be hearing more about that novel in coming weeks and more from me on the NaNoWriMo forums! Most of that stuff will be over at my new/old blog Midlist Writer. I'll be keeping this blog open for Civil War and Wild West stuff.

Anyone else here going to do NaNo? Connect with me at the NaNo site. My handle is just my name: Sean McLachlan. We're going to need each other's support!

Check out the new Midlist Writer blog!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm shifting my blogging emphasis over to my other blog, Midlist Writer. I'll be keeping Civil War Horror going to cover its core areas of the ACW and Wild West, but my main blog will be Midlist Writer. I'll be posting several times a week over there and will be able to embrace a broader focus on things like writing advice, travel, and National Novel Writing Month.

I always felt that this blog was too narrow for some people. In blogfests I got the impression that the title made some readers skip me. A more general blog, which still reflects the interests of yours truly, may appeal to a broader audience.

Hopefully you'll be interested in following that blog. Also, check out the redesign and tell me what you think. I'm open to suggestions. And yes, it needs some more color. I just haven't decided what yet!

I'm a winner in the 2013 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition

I'm happy and humbled to announce that I'e won the 2013 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition, taking the gold in the Personal Comment category for my article Video Games with a Refugee, part of my Iraq travel series on the Gadling travel blog.

The annual competition is sponsored by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. Winners of the awards, the most prestigious in the field of travel journalism, were announced Oct. 21 at the SATW convention, held this year in Biloxi, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This is the 29th Lowell Thomas competition and drew 1,257 entries. Judges were members of the faculty at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

In honoring my work, the judges said: "Is it possible that we can have our hearts broken while playing with a child? The author demonstrates that it is. In this extraordinarily touching piece, Sean McLachlan recounts a hotel lobby visit with a Syrian refugee, 9, who wants to play video games with him. In one short piece, he delivers the pathos of the Syrian conflict with the innocence and joy of a child. This crisply written piece is not weighed down by sermonizing. Its impact comes from the story, sharply told."

This made my week! Oh, and I big shout out to my friend David Farley, who won gold in the Short Article on Travel for his article “Mama Knows Best” in Afar magazine!

Need some blogging advice

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm almost done with my next Civil War horror novel. After it's done it goes to my crit partners and I'll start working on a new project.

I'm doing National Novel Writing Month for the first time. November is generally a bad month for me because I usually have a nonfiction book deadline in December. This year I don't, so I'll take the plunge and write a short post-apocalyptic novel that's been stewing in my brain. After that, I'll be in Tangier all December finishing up my novel set there. It's contemporary fiction. After that I'll probably work on a World War One action novel called Trench Raiders, which may turn into a series a bit like Jack Badelaire's Commando series. If I can be half as good as he is with the action genre, I'll be happy.

Anyway, it may be some time before I get back to Civil War fiction. My two books are linked but stand alone, so there's no pressing need to write another, although eventually I will.

Which brings me to this blog. While I intend to continue with it, my writing queue is drifting away from its core subject matter. What to do? I'm thinking of reviving my old blog Midlist Writer. I can give it a much-needed redesign, trot it out as my NaNo blog, and use it as my main writing/travel/randomness blog, keeping the Civil War and Old West stuff on this blog. Or perhaps I can feed that stuff onto Midlist Writer as well so I don't have to double up blog posts on those days?

Does that sound like a good idea? How do I make the switch without losing followers? Anyone out there done something like this? I need your advice! Oh, and I'd love the input of the larger blogger community, so if you could link to this question on your own blog that would help me a lot.

Civil War Horror tops 100,000 hits!

My hit counter told me yesterday that I've gone past 100,000 hits! Thanks for reading, everyone!

This isn't the only place I can be found on the Internet. I'd love to connect with you beyond this blog. We can talk books on Goodreads, follow each other on Twitter, and you can see all of my news and online articles on my Facebook fan page. If you want to chat privately, feel free to email me at the address on the sidebar.

And if you're looking for help promoting your work, check out the How Can I Help You? page on this blog.

Done with the A to Z Blogfest

This April I participated in the A to Z Challenge, in which more than a thousand bloggers wrote posts related to every letter in the alphabet. I kept to my usual themes of the Civil War, Wild West, and adventure travel, with a bit of high strangeness thrown in for kicks.

I did every letter except X. My excuse? I went on this caving expedition and I couldn't think of anything anyway.

Of course, the point of the blogfest isn't really to do all the letters, it's to meet other bloggers and have fun. Mission accomplished. Check out my blogger profile if you want to see some of the blogs I like to read. While many are related to the subjects I write about, some are completely different, and that's fun too.

Indie Life: How I use social media in my writing career

Today I'm participating in the Indelibles Indie Life blog hop. On the second Wednesday of every month we talk about various aspects of being an indie author, and luckily the A to Z blogfest is dedicated to the letter I today.

Social media is part of my life as a writer. I blog, both here and for Gadling, the leading travel blog on the web. I also have a Twitter feed and a public Facebook page.

I do set up certain limits to my social media presence, however, because I recognize that it can only do so much for my career and can easily become a waste of time. If you look at my feeds you'll notice that I don't use them as often as some people, and have fewer followers than most.

The main reason for this is that I don't play the "follow me and I'll follow you" game. I don't see a point to that. I want followers who are actually interested in my writing, and I only follow feeds that I'm genuinely interested in. Even then I don't read them on a daily basis. I simply don't have the time. And even when I do read them I only comment when I have something to add to the conversation.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm trying to get beyond the indie author's echo chamber. While I love my fellow indies, our community runs the danger of being a closed one. That's one of the reasons I'm also getting more into Goodreads. I like the conversations on there and I think it offers a great way to connect with readers.

You might also want to look at my post on Twitter for writers.

Caving in Spain

I've recently gotten back into caving. I did a bit of caving a couple of decades ago in New Mexico and Missouri and now that I'm living in Cantabria, one of the best regions in the world for caves, I've joined the local federation and am getting back underground. Here's me squeezing through a little hole that slopes down to a ledge over a cliff, hence the rope. Below is a shot from the same cave of some of the great formations you can see.

Being a travel blogger for Gadling, anytime I do anything even remotely interesting it gets turned into an article. You can read about my adventures in Cañuela Cave and Coventosa Cave at these links.

Guest blogging about my time in Iraq

Yesterday I was over at the Post Modern Pulp blog talking about my time with the various armed forces during my trip to Iraq. I also have a post on the Osprey Publishing blog today about some curious Ottoman artillery I saw in Baghdad. There are plenty of interesting photos in both of these posts.

So check them out, or my buddy here will level his machine gun at you. Also check out my Iraq travel series on Gadling.

China has taken over my domain name!

A couple of months ago I let my subscription for the domain name seanmclachlan (dot) com lapse. I wasn't getting nearly as many hits on that website as I do on this one, plus I was dissatisfied with my hosting service, who could never get the graphics-light website to load at a decent speed.

Shortly after my domain name became available it returned, this time with different graphics and entirely in Chinese! Google Translate shows it to be a real estate website. It's not very well done and I think they're just squatting on the domain hoping to sell it later on.

Who's behind this? I'm thinking it's the People's Liberation Army, who have been accused of lots of cybercrimes lately. That's too bad, because I really like their propaganda posters, like this one from World War Two. Whoever is behind it, Chinese domain squatters are on the rise.

Luckily my old domain name has been going down in the Google Ranks. Search for "Sean McLachlan" and it used to come up first. It's now in the middle of the first page.

This blog, however, doesn't show up until page 5. I've added my name to the header and the metadata, something I should have done from the start, and I'm adding my name to the tags for each post.

I could still use some help. If you have the time, share this story on your own blog, using my name, Sean McLachlan, as the hyperlink back to this blog. Let's get my blog to be the first thing that shows up when you search for me, or at least on the first page!


Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Writing a new travel series on Estonia

As I mentioned earlier, I spent all of last week on assignment in Estonia. I've started a travel series on Estonia on Gadling, the travel blog that sent me there. As you can imagine, the northernmost Baltic state was pretty snowy this time of year, although unusually mild--only 0C or 32F.

Anyway, hit the link and follow my adventures as I explore one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe, visit old Soviet military installations, and explore secret tunnels underneath the capital!

Military history of Tangier, Morocco

So much has been going on this past week I forgot to mention that I did a guest post over at the Black Gate blog about Exploring the Defenses of Tangier. You'll see lots of pictures and info that didn't make it into my Tangier travel series I did for Gadling. Head on over and check it out!

Tangier was an inspiring place with a lot going on. I'm thinking of taking a solo trip there later this year to work on a writing project. See you back here tomorrow with Wild West Photo Friday!

Reader news for February 19

My readers have been pretty busy lately. First up is Shelly Akron, who has just come out with the print version of her ghostly novel Secondhand Shoes. To celebrate, she's made the ebook version free! She's also hosting the Run Away Bride Give Away and Blog Party on Feb. 19th, 20th, and 21st. You could win a 15 dollar Amazon card or an autographed copy of Secondhand Shoes.

Tyrean Martinson recently came out with Champion in the Darkness, book one of her YA Christian fantasy series The Champion Trilogy.

At the beginning of the month, Jack Badelaire announced that he was finishing up the draft for Commando: Operation Bedlam. This will be the followup to his awesome Commando: Operation Arrowhead, which I reviewed here. It will come out this spring and it's on the top of my to-read list.

David Meyer, author of Chaos, has finally restarted his Guerrilla Explorer website, one of my favorites. It features "mysteries of history, lost treasure, strange science, cryptids, conspiracies, forgotten lands, and explorers." Welcome back to the blogosphere, Dave!

Are you a reader of this blog and have some news to share? It doesn't have to be writing related. Drop me a line at the email address to the left and I'll add it to the next Reader News!

How can I help you?

I like helping out fellow creatives, probably because I've received so little help of my own and so I know how hard this life is. If you're a follower of this blog, I'd be happy to have you as a guest blogger.

I've had several guest posts in the past and they generally get a large readership. I'm getting an average of 300 hits a day now and I announce every post on Facebook and Twitter. This blog is focused on the Civil War and the Wild West, with occasional posts about travel and history in general. If you have something you think might fit, I'd be happy to host you. If your book doesn't fit, I'm happy to take posts on writing as well, although I don't want to do too many of those since I want this blog to be outside the Indie Authors' Echo Chamber.

You don't even need to be a writer! Have you visited an interesting historic site and want to write it up? Are you are photographer? Wargamer? Reenactor? As long as it's related to the focus of this blog, I'm listening.

If you just want to make an announcement, drop me a line at the email in the lefthand column and I'll include it in my semiregular Reader News posts. I'm working on one for early next week if you have anything you'd like to share. It can be about writing, history, archaeology, adventure travel, etc.Book announcements are most welcome, but don't limit yourself to just those!

Guest blogging and headed to Estonia

Yesterday I was over at Alex Cavanaugh's blog doing a guest post about that greatest of challenges for the adventure traveler--the squat toilet. Head on over and learn how to handle this tricky device.

I should have posted about this yesterday but I was crazy busy. One thing I had to do was arrange my next trip, and next series for Gadling. In mid February I'm headed to Estonia. That's right, I'm hanging out for five days in one of the Baltic States to cover their annual ice sculpture festival. It will be my first trip to the region. Should be fun!

Photo of Tallinn courtesy Wikimedia Commons. My own photos coming next month!

Finishing up my Tangier series on Gadling

I'm pretty much done with my Tangier series on Gadling. As I mentioned before, my wife and I took a five-day break from the Christmas holidays for a romantic getaway in Tangier, Morocco. I wrote it up for Gadling, of course. Hit the link to see all the posts.

I'll probably do one more this week on visiting the tomb of Ibn Battuta, the great Arab traveler. My friends think I'm well traveled for having visited 33 countries. Ibn Battuta visited 44, more than 500 years ago! It was an honor to see where this great traveler was laid to rest.

Most of the photos are by my lovely wife, a Spanish astronomer who is responsible for getting me to move from Missouri to Europe. She even got this shot of me after I had become part of the Sultan's harem. She's very understanding.