Category: Books
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Researching Armenia’s Most Comprehensive Travel Guidebook – By Bicycle
There’s another purpose to my in-depth bicycle tour of Armenia, which is also a nice development for my occasional career as an author: I’ve been greatly honoured with the task of researching and writing the next edition of the Bradt Travel Guide to Armenia. This British publication is the only dedicated English-language guidebook to Armenia […] Continue reading →
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How To Create A Gorgeous Travel Photobook That Engages & Inspires
Step 1: Do Something Inspirational I don’t mean inspirational for anyone else; I mean for yourself. Creative juices run swiftest when you’re truly inspired. Seek out what moves you most and allow the process to take you places you didn’t know existed, literally and figuratively. Continue reading →
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Images From The Journey: Introducing the official #Janapar Photobook
Whenever I head out on an adventure, I constantly find myself wondering why it took so much thinking and dithering before actually doing it. This still happens after years of experience. “It’s so easy just to do this! Why didn’t I do it ages ago?” The same thing happened with the photobook that I’m launching this […] Continue reading →
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The Weave Of The Ride (or, Janapar from Andy’s point of view)
In the summer of 2007, my best mate Andy Welch and I set off from my front door. We’d called our expedition ‘Ride Earth’, and were all set to cycle round the world. But the experiences that followed changed all we thought we knew about, travel, adventure and cycle-touring. Weave Of The Ride, Andy’s own […] Continue reading →
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Are Book-Writing And Film-Making The Same Thing?
Subjects are nouns, their actions are verbs, their appearances adjectives. A sentence is a single shot, while a paragraph is a sequence of them. Paragraphs are built into chapters, and sequences are built into stories. Then chapters are assembled into books; stories into films. The viewfinder is my vocabulary. The focus ring and exposure dial are […] Continue reading →
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Writer’s Blog: On Adventure Travel Literature
Why write a book anyway? There seems to be a welter of expedition and adventure literature hitting the shelves at the moment, along with a growing surge in high-profile expeditioning. Continue reading →
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Writer’s Blog: The End Of The Beginning
It took quite a bit longer than expected, but suddenly, yesterday, I felt that the end of the book had appeared on the horizon. The hope is to finish the first draft within the next few days. Without much idea of how it would turn out, I began writing three months ago, shortly after returning from […] Continue reading →
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Writer’s Blog: Searching In The Dark (Or, What Was It About Again?)
I’m making great progress, on the face of it. I’ve written 31,000 words — almost half the word-count of the average novel, according to some. I feel that I have made headway into the meat of the process — the ‘middle’ of the story, as it were. Continue reading →
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Writer’s Blog: What’s On A Long-Distance Cyclist’s Bookshelf?
You generate a lot of free time on the road. To observe, to create images, to think. Often it’s nice to simply empty your head entirely and think of nothing at all. But I have been able to do a ton of reading in my tent at night, during lazy lunch-breaks, while waiting for friends to […] Continue reading →
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Writer’s Blog: With All The Enthusiasm Of A Beginner
I sat down a few days ago and began to write. I wrote and wrote and wrote. The words flew from my mind faster than I could get them down. Before I knew what had happened I’d committed six thousand words to manuscript. And I was happy with all of them. Continue reading →