I am still trying to get my head around an interview I conducted this afternoon. It was the first of what will probably be many as I start working on a biography of a WWII veteran. There’s so much information to take in and digest that it’s overwhelming me at the moment. I need to digest what he told me and start to shape how I want to present his story. I’m looking at a few different directions that don’t seem like they would connect—World War II, Civil War, Art. Yet, they all do connect with this man.
I want to do this man’s story justice. I think it is pretty interesting. This is the first time that I’ve worked on a true biography. Saving Shallmar was sort of a biography about a coal town. This book will be a biography about a living WWII veteran. There’s fewer and fewer of them left, and I want to be able to tell his story so that others will know what he did long after he is gone.
Right now, if I’m honest, I’m a bit intimidated by task I’ve set for myself. I’m at the bottom of a very tall mountain looking up and hoping I can find the trail that gets me to the peak.