by Annie Scholl

For most of his life, Tom French thought writing a book was in the “dream-that-I-probably-wouldn’t-get-to” category.

An English major in college, French took a creative writing course and spent years filling journals while skiing competitively, traveling the world, and climbing mountains before graduating from Harvard Business School in 1987.

Writing a book never rose to the top of the list.

“You can only do so many things,” he said. “I wanted to go down about four paths, and I couldn’t fit all four into one life.”

Tom French

In 2019, at 60, French retired from McKinsey & Company after a 33-year career as a management consultant and decided to reconnect with two passions from his youth: mountaineering and cross-country ski racing. What he initially imagined as a one-year break became a three-year odyssey that included climbing some of the world’s highest mountains, racing ski marathons and two expeditions to Everest. Friends encouraged him to document his adventures through a blog.

“I asked them: ‘What’s a blog?’” French said, laughing.

But he decided to take them up on the idea. His blog began as a way to keep family and friends updated while he traveled, but the posts spread far beyond the people he knew. Strangers began reading and responding.

“That gave me a burst of confidence,” he said. “I realized I had something to say to a broader audience.”

Eventually, he used his blog and journals to write The Gap Years, published this spring by Brandeis University Press. Part adventure memoir and part reflection on aging and identity, the book follows French’s effort to reclaim the passions he thought he’d left behind decades earlier.

Recently, French talked with The Sunlight Press about memoir, rejection, tapping into emotion in writing, and why finishing a book felt a lot like climbing a mountain.

You have so many details in your book. How did you do that?

I kept a detailed journal through college and through those years of traveling and climbing. I didn’t write every day, but almost every day. Boy, did that become useful. When I went back to write the book, especially the flashback sections, I had records I could go back to for the names of places I’d been and what I had done and when. But I also got really sucked into the detail. I ended up putting way too much into drafts at first. My wife Jill read one early section and said, ‘What is all this stuff in here?’ She was right. I had gone way too long on some things.

You said your agent and early readers pushed you to go deeper emotionally. What was that like for you?

That was probably the biggest learning in the whole thing. I came from business writing, where it is all about logic flow and getting the idea across clearly. Memoir is completely different. They helped me realize the personal material is what gives memoir meaning. Initially, I didn’t think readers would be interested in various personal aspects of my life. I felt they wanted to hear mostly about the adventure story: you went here, you climbed this mountain, you skied this race. But my agent and editor helped me understand that people do want the emotional layer. They want to know what was driving you and what was really going on.

How long did it take to write the book?

I started about the beginning of 2024 and spent roughly a year writing it. In the middle of that year, I started reaching out to people because I’d never written a book like this before and said, ‘What does it take to get published and how do you do it?’ They said, ‘It’s great that you’ve got the manuscript, but actually you should divert your energy right now to writing a killer book proposal,’ which took a ton of time and energy. I spent about two months on it.

How did you approach the book proposal?

I viewed it as a business plan. It is akin to crafting an investment proposal for a venture capitalist. You’re trying to convince somebody that your book hangs together as a commercial project. An agent is thinking, ‘Is this something worth investing a whole bunch of my time in, on spec?’ And then you’ve got to convince a publisher to invest their time and resources in something that will pay back for them.

What surprised you about the publishing process?

How much rejection is just part of the normal process. A writer friend gave me fantastic advice. He said, ‘Send out 70 query letters and expect 69 deafening silences or rejections.’ That mindset helped me enormously because otherwise it’s hard not to take it personally. Of course it still felt personal, but understanding the odds helped me realize this wasn’t a value judgment about me or the writing.

You’ve compared writing the book to climbing a mountain. In what way?

There’s the preparation piece. The discipline. The slog factor. A mountain is a long emotional and physical journey, and writing a book felt exactly like that. A lot of people leave Everest not because they physically can’t continue but because they’re emotionally exhausted. Writing a book can feel similar. There are days when you lose momentum or confidence and you’ve got to keep your emotional battery charged. But the bigger similarity for me is transformation. The reason mountains are meaningful is that you come back changed by the experience. That’s the ultimate gift from them. Writing this book felt the same way. By the end of it, I realized I had changed through the process of writing it. My personal journey had come to include something more than just returning to my climbing and skiing interests of youth. People are reading the book and getting something out of it. That’s incredibly gratifying. I’ve never really thought of myself as an artist before, but I’ve come to realize that writing is an art.

What advice would you give writers working on a first book?

Impose milestones and schedules on yourself. I needed goals. I’d tell myself, ‘I’m going to finish this draft by this date,’ or ‘I’m going to get the proposal done by then.’ That structure really mattered. The other thing is just starting to write each day. Beginning was always the hardest part, but once I started writing, the hours moved quickly. I’d also recommend finding a couple of trusted readers who will give unvarnished feedback. That was invaluable for me. They won’t always be right, but you need people who will react honestly and help you sharpen the work. Also, remember that you are in control of your own destiny more than it feels like you are. If you spend enough time, you will find a publisher, or you can self-publish. You do have options.

Image: “Vintage Typewriter” by Memphis CVB via Flickr