1️⃣ To begin, tell us about your educational background. What did you study, both before and at KEDGE?

I took two years of preparatory classes after I got my Bac ES I did the Master in Management Grande Ecole programme at KEDGE. While in prep school, I made a lot of progress in my writing style, especially in my philosophical essays. I think the discipline taught, both the substance and form, allowed me to develop a certain style and how to avoid grammatical mistakes and errors in construction. We had to handwrite our homework, and the writing was done in one draft, in an almost unique and decisive style. So, in order to do clean work, the margin of error was very limited and each sentence had to be as relevant as possible on the first try. Although I write on the computer when working on a novel, and the number of corrections that can be made is unlimited, the exercises I did in prep school gave me the ability to find the words spontaneously, without stumbling around each time. When I started KEDGE I was absorbed in life as a student and put my writing. The only writing I did was texts on my phone but didn’t do any rigorous writing.

 I did a work-study in M1 and M2 at the Crédit Agricole Alpes Provence group in Marseille with a year in banking and a year in real estate investment. I met a lot of people and that experience brought me down from the sectarian cloud that we were all in while in business school. During M2, I went to Montreal for five months to attend an HEC business school. I studied business development, start-up creation, and negotiation. (As an aside, I developed a meeting app with my Brussels team). When I got back, I finished my work-study programme and left the company to go freelance in private practice.

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2️⃣ Tell us what you did after your studies were finished. What positions have you held? What did you learn in those positions?

Since September 2019, I’ve worked as an investment advisor in private practice. “Investment advisor” is a vague job title for a position that is more lucrative than exciting. I procrastinate a lot and sometimes question everything. I'm still searching for myself and have difficulty knowing who I am and who I want to be. I'd like to believe that my path is in writing so I can escape from this infernal turmoil and avoid the big existential question: what am I going to do with my life?

3️⃣ What are you doing/what is your situation today? What gave you the idea and why do you want to do what you’re doing today?

I was writing poetry as early as elementary school. I come from a cultural and literary background where TV was only on for Arte, Roland Garros, and the mountain stages of the Tour de France and I always saw my parents reading and my father writing. I never had the desire to write, I needed to. I remember writing preliminary drafts that I lost because of a corrupt backup and a burnt motherboard. I wrote those only for me - like a release, a therapy. When I write novels, I create stories and fictional characters. Through this exercise, I do a lot of work on myself and reveal myself completely and end up unconsciously discovering myself. I’m able to interpret my dreams and retrieve forgotten memories. When I finish each novel, I feel like I know myself better. Now I can’t go without writing. It has become vital to me. People who read my work and know me ask me where I get all my ideas. In reality, I don't even know myself. The inspiration is fascinating. When I write, it’s like I'm in a bubble and everything around me disappears. I literally become my character and live every scene. Writing a novel requires a strong discipline I never thought I'd have. But when you have passion... . Writing requires extreme concentration - a total immersion. The satisfaction that comes from finishing a novel is indescribable. I feel empty inside, completely wrung out, and naked as a worm, but extremely proud. When I reread certain passages with a little distance from them, I don't remember writing them. It's as if when I was writing them, I was plunged into a kind of unconsciousness that was strange but so exciting.

For my third novel, I didn't write the story around an untenable situation plot dependent upon suspense. It has thirteen characters who speak in turns, and give several points of view on the same relationship or event. As the story unfolds, the characters meet and bond in unexpected, hazardous, and moving ways. The characters consist of men, women, young, and old, all with their own likes, neuroses, misfortunes, and feelings. They confide in us the things they don't dare tell anyone, and all of them become endearing to us. I tried to describe each and every one of them down to the smallest detail so that we can understand them with empathy. They are each very different from each other, but somehow they all resemble me a bit.

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4️⃣ What are your plans for the future?

I published my first three novels on Amazon’s Kindle platform. It's an efficient way to get discovered and get your first reviews / opinions. All of them are good and encouraging. I plan to mail my latest manuscript to several publishers in the hope of attracting their attention and publish a paperback book, rather than sending them a vulgar pile pages paper-clipped together. A number of publishing companies have already approached me to publish it, but as a self-published edition at an outrageous price. I will also enter in literary contests, such as Les Plumes Francophones, that award both a jury prize and a readers' prize. In any case, I’ll always continue to write and invent stories in the hope that they’ll be read by as many people as possible.

5️⃣ If you were to give advice to any KEDGE graduate who wants to do something similar, what would it be? 

I think a lot of people have felt the desire to write, but few have actually done so. It's a good way of liberating yourself and expressing the things you have in your heart that you don't dare reveal. Writing in any form is an excellent exercise, whether in you write in a journal, or write, poems, songs, short stories, or even simply loose thoughts on a sheet of paper. Effort is undeniably required, perhaps even some practice. But I’m convinced of its benefits and the relief it brings. Above all, it’s important to write for yourself and not to please others (although writing a novel is different). You have to write with your gut, your heart, and in your own words. You can’t let yourself be curbed and you must let yourself express yourself fully. You can write and throw away it right after you're done. It doesn't matter, you'll see. 

A second piece of advice I’d give is that, even though I'm am a nobody, be curious. Be interested in people, the world, nature, art, the future, science, and history. Always seek to improve yourself, it’s the key to a fulfilling life. Don't stop at your achievements, dig deeper, go towards the unknown. Open up to others, no matter what their social background, their origins, their job, and their demands are. They all have something to teach you. Be enthusiastic about new experiences, new encounters, and get out of your comfort zone. Learn how to conform to each person, to each situation. You are a fish swimming in a little pond. Turn it into an ocean.

6️⃣ Pierre, anything to add?

If you are interested in discovering my literary style, you can order my third novel "Sous l'oeil des poissons", available in paperback and Ebook versions on Amazon.fr.

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