And Our Next Stop Will Be....Bhutan

On monday I defended my creative writing thesis, my second novel called The Tiger-Wolves Stop to Drink. For the last three years, my mind has been absorbed in the situation in Burma and Thailand. But when you care about the people of a certain country, the tendency can be to become trapped in a routine that leaves other parts of the world left off the travel itinerary.

So, in search of new material, I'm considering a plethora of destinations that, like Burma, might somehow captivate my imagination and inspire a new book. Because Bhutan is relatively closed to foreigners, I'm automatically drawn there. It's a post-colonial faux-pas to talk about these places as quaint or primitive, but at the same time, countries like Burma and Bhutan are as close to time-traveling as a human can get. Unless you somehow have access to Superman's cape...

Other countries I'd love to see:

Pakistan

Syria

Lebanon

Colombia

Ethiopia

Where Will Life Take You?

As a writer, I'm always trying to capture the mood, tone and vibrations of the place I write about. My new novel The Tiger-Wolves Stop to Drink attempts to recreate so many of my visual and sonic inspirations and convert them into words. Ultimately, what I hope to leave the reader with is a mental experience similar to that of watching a movie. But all in the subconscious of course. And with a bitter, pine-scented after-taste...

If this all sounds a bit strange, take a look at Bruno Aveillan's amazing travel-inspired video for Louis Vuitton....and picture that in words....