Cooking Up a Book

For quite a while now, I've been writing a daily blog about learning French and taking classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. As things evolved, I realized I had enough material to create a book. My hang up, though, was how do I structure a book about my various reincarnations of career, relationships, and interests?

Arvid Setran (my uncle) posing with Harold Grovender (my father) 1944.

While dithering and mulling this over, I have been working on acquiring French pretty much daily. Of course, I take classes. I live a block and a half away from the L’Alliance Française Minneapolis so my loyalties lie there. My first 20 weeks of intensive French with Jamal as our classes’ fearless professeur sometimes felt like I was going to hit a brick wall. And then, I felt like I was hitting a brick wall daily.

But I pushed through it, kept taking classes at A.F., signed on for as much one-on-one tutoring as I could, continued to watch a French film per evening, bought workbooks on grammar, used multiple dictionaries to write in French and have it corrected, and found conversation groups to connect with people and improve my spoken French.

Whew! And, my husband Phil and I traveled to France and I took 3 more weeks of intensive French in Paris. We’ve also made 2 trips to Montreal, Canada within this time period. I also try to read as much French as I can force myself to without getting too much of a headache: newspapers such as Le Monde, articles online, the French language on the back of grocery, and cosmetic packages (I am not making this up). Well, there are a lot of other materials I have found that also further my French, but you get the idea. Once I start something I really sink my teeth into it.

So then, a funny thing happened. Just a few weeks ago, I received a phone call from a young lady, a junior in high school, and her teacher requesting information about my uncle, Arvid Setran. Arvid never left France; he is still there interred at the American Cemetery located on Omaha Beach. There is much more to this, but it is sufficient to say that ultimately I located and read all of the letters my uncle sent home. A little vibe in the back of my head told me I had to write about this. Now I had 2 book ideas. Then I realized I could combine the 2 ideas and it would make for a much more interesting book.

So here we are, I’m writing a book. I didn’t know I was preparing myself for precisely this task by taking writing classes and studying French. I had no idea that a young student (of whom I will be writing more) would enter my life and energize me into making a decision about what my book should incorporate. I thought something would develop, it always does, but I had no idea I would find such a satisfying project.

Detour through France: My first 1,000 words

I wrote my first 1,000 words of my book a couple of days ago. As always, the first question I asked myself is what voice should I use? After all, I want this to be an entertaining book and including letters from World War II might seem like kind of a serious subject. I’m not writing a documentary.


So, upon brief contemplation, I decided I would use the tone I usually have with my family. To be clear, I’m kind of breezy and flippant. When my family, especially with my siblings, gets together around a table of food, topics range over a wide array from technology to travel. Back when it was my parents and we 4 at the table, we frequently told stories about school and family with a humorous twist. And if we sat there talking long enough, those twists might turn into flights of fancy about situations that otherwise could have been sobering.


Like the time my dad was copying down a license plate number of a pickup truck that had just tore the side-mirror off of our car. The driver of the pickup, for some reason, decided that he would stop at a railroad crossing that was flashing a red light. Since the pickup wasn’t displaying a license plate on the back of the truck as required by Minnesota law, my dad walked to the front of the pickup to get the number. Hilarity ensued as the pickup jolted forward forcing my father to jump up on the hood of the pickup while it speed up to 50 miles per hour, swaying, as Dad clung to God-knows-what. Did I mention that Dad had a bad heart, survived heart surgery, and was supposed to remain calm?


Well, that was pretty upsetting for all of 5 of the rest of us watching the drama from the family car. But, over the years, this tale was told many times at dinner and each rendition was funnier than the last. So I’m going to write the book with the flavor of our dinner-time antics. My Mom, especially, has always enjoyed a good laugh. She loved Arvid so much I assume he had a pretty good sense of humor. And after reading some of his letters, I know this is true. So, I will write something funny and if possible, witty.

Book Beginnings

My writing tool in college: 1918 Underwood typewriter.

In my future book,"Detour through France", my own introduction to France and French culture is entwined with the story told through my uncle Arvid's letters written during World War II. Arvid  trained in the Army to participate in the Normandy invasion of June 6, 1944. If Arvid wasn't interested in the French before he landed on French soil, he certainly had good words to write about them once he was there.

Maybe it isn't entirely chance that, in 1984, I developed an interest in France and French. A summer program offered for graduate credits toward my M.B.A and set in Lyon, France immediately appealed to me. I never had an expectation of visiting France prior to that, especially since I had never studied French. Might the idea have been seeded in me early by my uncle's story?

I meet challenges head-on, and so I have begun to write a book. I may have no urge to jump out of an airplane yet I have jumped into learning French now because of its difficulty, and next I am jumping into an intimidating amount of work writing this book. 

I wish to motivate my readers to engage themselves in challenges that they never thought they could do. We are adaptable. When unforeseen obstacles form, we find means to get over, and around, them. As a river encountering geological forces, we must change course from time to time to accomplish our goals. Detours can make the journey so rewarding and sometimes it even changes human history.