Writing a book involves much more than just sitting down and hammering away on a keyboard.  I start by thinking about a story—just thinking, no notes, no voice memos.  I merely roll ideas around in my head.  That process may take a month or two, maybe more. 

Next, I begin making notes, and creating biographies of the main characters.  Simultaneously—since I write historical fiction—I’m doing research to learn as much as I can about the subject I’m writing about.  Even though I write fiction, I always want to get the historical facts correct.  Eventually, I get to the point where I’m able to develop a broad outline of the book.  It’s only a page or two in length.  But it’s a roadmap of where I want to go. 

Also, it’s a living document.  By that, I mean I can change it as I write.  Finally, after maybe four to six months, I begin the actual writing.  To complete a first draft might take me ten months, maybe less.  When I’m done with that, I send the draft off to my beta readers.  They come back with suggestions regarding how I can make the book better. 

Once I have a polished final draft, I fire it off to my publisher who gives it to an editor.  I do a couple of back and forths with her, and finally I have a novel that’s ready to be published!  So, the entire process of creating a book from just thinking about it to actually holding a bound book in my hands may take a couple of years.

I don’t particularly enjoy getting up in front of an audience and just prattling on about my writing or my books, but I do enjoy making presentations about WWII events (using Power Point-style graphics), or presentations about how I came to be a writer and what I learned along the way.

Around the year 2000 I watched a TV documentary (maybe on PBS) about a WWII B-24  bomber named Utah Man and a harrowing, ill-fated raid it went on that targeted a German petroleum facility in Ploesti, Romania.  Wow, I thought, what a great novel that would make.  But, even though I’d written five nonfiction books, I had no idea about how to write a novel.  So, I decided I’d better learn the craft. 

Over the course of the next ten years I attended classes, seminars, and conferences, joined critique groups, entered contests, and wrote, wrote, wrote.  I finally got my first novel published in 2011.  It wasn’t about the Ploesti raid, however.  That came almost a decade later when WHEN HEROES FLEW was published in 2020.  Though it was not my intent at the time, WHEN HEROES FLEW turned out to be the beginning of a series that continues today.

My target audience is anyone with an interest in WWII history, men and women.  I always try to have a strong female character, and sometimes even a little romance, in my novels to give them a broader appeal than just a book focused on exclusively combat.

While winning four Gold Medals for my novels from the Military Writers Society of America has been wonderfully rewarding (recognition from my peers), there’s another award I’m even more proud of.  My novel, WHEN HEROES FLEW: THE ROOF OF THE WORLD, was given the 2023 Nancy Pearl Award for genre fiction by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association.  That indicated to me my novels have broader appeal than just to readers of military fiction.  I’m extremely proud of that.

I write cinematically. That is, I picture myself in the scene I’m creating, standing side-by-side with my characters.  I see what they see, hear what they hear, smell what they do, and share their emotions—fear, awe, confusion, disappointment, sorrow, love, hate.

Since I write historical fiction, some of the characters I run with are real.  Others who I create and plop into historical situations are based on an amalgam of traits and backgrounds drawn from friends, family, and coworkers I’ve known over the years.  But many are just flat out made up.

One that began: “Warning.  Buzz Bernard cannot write.”  It went downhill from there, listing every bad characteristic you could ever think about any writer.  Maybe it was from an old girlfriend I’d wronged.  Another review I received more recently made me laugh.  Its main complaint was that my book contained “too much fiction.”  Novels by definition are fiction.

All the non-writing work I have to do.  Authors these days are expected to do much of their own promotional work.  Unless you’re a superstar scribe published by one of the Big Five publishing houses—Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette, Penguin Random House—you’re expected to promote your own book. 

We little guys don’t have book tours set up for us.  In fact, we don’t have book tours at all.  So we have to hustle and get out there to set up our own appearances and book signings, constantly update our social media presence, keep our websites fresh and readable, and respond to emails and requests we get from readers. 

At the same time, of course, we’re supposed to be writing.  As a matter of fact, we’re often “working” on three different books at the same time. There’s the book that’s just come out that you’re out there busting your butt to promote, there’s the new manuscript you’re cranking out, and there’s the next book in the queue that’s already spinning around in your head.  And no, we don’t have a staff helping us out.  If anything, my wife, Barbara, is my staff.   She’s my business manager, my chief beta reader, my primary organizer—she reminds me which novel I’m currently working on—and my number-one cheerleader . . . “Get some writing done, mister, or no dinner for you.”