I am one of the writers for MyFrenchLife, a wonderful website about all things France. It is now running a series about their writers, and I was asked to answer a few questions about my background. Here is the result, in case you might find it interesting.

Something you may not know about Keith

In 1983, at the age of 24, I backpacked around the world by myself for six months. It was lonely at times, as email and texts didn’t exist, and international phone calls were crazy expensive. But it allowed me to explore the world and meet many kind and helpful people. And for six months, I was never bored!

How did Keith become a writer?

My wife Val and I started living part-time in Provence about 20 years ago. To keep family and friends up to date, we started a little blog of our adventures and (especially) our misadventures. When you move to a new country and don’t know its language or its customs, you do a lot of stupid things. When that happens, my attitude is you can either wallow in self-pity or turn your humiliation into a funny story, which is what I did.

Several friends suggested I turn these stories into a book, which I thought was silly—I’m a boring finance guy. But then I asked a friend who is a successful author, and he encouraged me to try. “There’s a place in the world for fun little books,” he said, so off I went.

To my great surprise, the book sold quite well, so I wrote another one, which was also a success. And I started writing articles about Provence and France. After a few years, I had a lot of them, so I used them to write a guidebook to Provence.

And voilà! A boring finance guy becomes an author!

Biggest challenges

I can say with certainty that learning a foreign language in your 50s is hard. Like, really hard.

Some years ago, Val and I worked for American companies in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, but I didn’t learn the language. I could say hello and order food in restaurants, but that was about it. I couldn’t read the newspaper or watch TV, and I couldn’t connect with the Swiss the way I would have liked.

I wanted to have a different experience in France, which meant learning the language. I took a couple of courses for grammar basics, but that doesn’t get you very far. To make progress, you have to open your mouth and be prepared for regular embarrassment, which I experienced plenty of (see “turn humiliation into funny stories” above.) But I slowly made progress.

I now speak good French and can spend all day in the language. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but also one of the most satisfying.