Our author this month, joined the Air Force after school and trained as a pilot, moved to the west coast and discovered mountains, making a name for themself as an exploratory mountaineer. Then restless, he transferred to the Navy to captain ships. After dabbling in few other things, he has gone back to writing, and after publishing four nonfiction books on boating in two years, he turned to fiction.
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Early in World War One, a young Canadian soldier is wounded and trapped behind German lines. With quick thinking and ingenuity he evades capture, then deeper into enemy territory, he meets a young woman who recently lost her father and brothers to the war. She wants him to help her escape over the mountains to her family roots in Switzerland, and he's torn between following his heart and honouring his sworn duty.
Interested to know how this story came to be or the author's challenges of writing it? Read on to know more.
What sparked the inspiration to write the story?
In my collection, I have two letters returned from Ypres in 1915, marked Posted As Missing. The soldier was from Canada's British Columbia Regiment, where after my retirement in 1981, I was a member of the officers' mess. Among my fellow members were veterans of the first gas attacks at Ypres in 1915, and I shared a lot of drinks and words with them.
What inspired you to start writing on Wattpad?
I was using Amazon's WriteOn when they shut it down in 2017, and having an idle account on wattpad, I migrated here.
Budding authors face countable hindrances, what hindrance(s) did you face the most?
Since I was first published in 1968, all of my writing was nonfiction. So, when I started writing fiction in 2015, my hurdles were to ease back on the formality and to overcome my obsession with reality and accuracy. My writing is still deeply researched and reality-based, though it now has a softer edge.
What according to you sets Military Fiction apart from other genres?
Often, the overbearing conflict is the situation, so it is external and internal, rather than between characters.
What do you feel is the biggest myth about writers?
They have chosen an easy life – all play and no work.
How do you avoid or get out of writers' block?
I'm a dedicated pantser, so I find the easiest way is read the previous chapter and what exists of the new one. Then write whatever comes to mind. It matters not if it looks a mess; sense will eventually flow from it. One cannot rewrite and edit if there are no words.
Any advice for your fellow/new writers?
Being a full-blown pantser, my advice is to write a word and follow it with more. A story will evolve.
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