The Other Side, Part 2.

Writing the actual thing and learning the profession.

This is the novel that just came out May 28th, in England. It’s available pretty much everywhere, the publisher tells me. Certainly on Amazon. On all of them, .ca, .com, .uk.

In the first article of this series of three, I wrote how I got it in my head that I’d write a novel about WW2 as seen from the German PoV.

In this article, I’ll tell you how, like Stephen King said, you can’t suddenly become a writer. Just like you can’t suddenly become a neurosurgeon.

I knew I could tell a story because I had read a lot of novels. When I finally decided I was going to write that story, I created some characters and a plot, and set out writing by inserting these characters in the middle of historical events. And off I went. It took me a couple of years to get my story on paper.

Through an aunt, I got an in with a publisher in Montreal. You don’t need an agent in French Canada, which is cool, but it does make for a free-for-all, wild, unpredictable writing market. The publisher and I signed a contract. When I finished my manuscript I gave it to him. After a few weeks, we met to discuss our publishing schedule. He gave me back my manuscript.

“It’s a good story, but we signed for a novel.”