Just back from my trip to Europe. Had an amazing residency at Triopetra, on the south coast of Crete. I wrote about 12K words, so it is only the early stages of the book to be called These White Shadows, but I also drew 12 illustrations and pretty well developed the main structure for the book. I had originally planned for one of the modern day characters to have grown up in Spain, but Crete actually provides a better framing for this character and so I changed the story around to make this work, and did background research in the Mount Kedros area of Crete to accommodate these changes. I was particularly interested in the village of Kria Vrisi, just a few kilometers from where I was staying, which was razed to the ground by the Germans during WW2 in retaliation to resistance efforts.
As one can see, the landscape is stunning.
I also, while in Europe, went on to give a highly appreciated plenary talk about my experiences writing this novel and focussing on elements of the story as revealed by my process. The recording of this talk will be viewable online.