Jean-Philipp Soule

I love and support Indie Authors


Through my writing journey, I have met a lot of Indie Authors with amazingly colorful lives from my favorite FB network group, WLM (We Love memoirs), one of them is award winning author, Jean-Philippe Soule, who has launched several books. 

Jean-Philippe has published 6 books: 3 full-length memoirs, and 3 shorter travel and adventure memoirs. his memoirs award winning ‘Dancing with Death: An Inspiring Real-Life Story of Epic Travel Adventure’ and ‘I, Tarzan: Against All Odds’.

He joined the elite mountain commando team of the French Special Forces in 1985. Driven by his desire for adventure, Jean-Philippe left his native France to travel the world.

He landed in the USA with $200 and barely a word of English. After 6 years in the US, he reached the hierarchy of Microsoft as an executive in Seattle. He led expeditions while working as a photographer. His images of indigenous communities have been published by National Geographic as well as publications from the United Nations. He completed multiple mountain and jungle explorations, then lived in the Siberut tropical jungle among the Mentawai, an indigenous clan of hunter-gatherers.

Jean-Philippe writes under different author names, for his different types of books. He has just released a cycling travel memoir ‘Two Wheels and a Will’ under the pen-name of Colin Hunter.

1. Tell me about yourself.
It took me 300 pages to start to reveal who I was in “I, Tarzan.” It’s a complex question because we really are in part the fruit of education, culture, family, and surroundings within which we grow up and live our entire life; and, on the other hand, the result of the decisions we’ve made based on these influences. As a result, I’m French and definitely not French. I’m probably Asian or Indigenous, stuck under the skin of a Caucasian. I’m an alpha male and a strong feminist. Above all, I’m a world-explorer and adventurer who loves life and lives every moment of it. My US passport does not define me any more than my native passport. I’m a citizen of the world. As for the rest, I’m still trying to figure it out. The more we know and understand, the more we realize we don’t know or understand much. My life journey continues. I only know who I was, and I’m still trying to figure out who I am.

2. Synopsis of your book (memoir) in one sentence.
(About I, Tarzan: Against All Odds): A kid and young adult who refused to live a formatted life and who, beyond fear, fought incredible odds to follow his dreams. The message of the book is “Never give up and live your own life, not someone else’s.”

3. Why did you write this book?
I was in the process of writing another true-adventure-travel book when I had a long and emotional phone conversation with my sister. We had such different and difficult experiences under the helm of the same parents. And I realized that the fact that my parents denied me any moral support, never believed in me, and tried so hard to break my dreams was what made me want to prove them wrong even more. This childhood and coming of age period defined who I became. Before writing more epic real-adventures and stories of extreme expeditions, I thought that it was important to explain what made me the word-explorer that I became. This is not to say the book isn’t filled with epic adventures. I think I was born an adventurer. Writing this memoir was also a good healing process for both my sister and me.

4. What message or lessons did you want your readers to take from this book?
Believe in yourself even if nobody else does. Never give up on your dreams. Nothing is impossible. There is no limit, but those we set for ourselves.

5. Amongst all the books you have written, what is your favorite?
It’s a difficult choice. “Dancing with Death” was my first book. It won five international awards. I worked on it for sixteen years, and it was the necessary completion of a three-year death-defying expedition with countless amazing human encounters and cultural discoveries. It was a lifestyle that remains one of my life’s best memories. I felt that the expedition would never be complete until I published that book. I published it exactly 20 years after the expedition ended. So, this book is extremely important to me. It made me understand that my friends were right, English may not be my native tongue, but I am a storyteller, and I love telling stories.

The success of this first book opened the door for future ones.With “I, Tarzan,” I dove much deeper into my emotions. I revealed that the extreme alpha male all my friends and family knew, was in fact extremely vulnerable and sensitive. I peeled off the shield, chapter after chapter. I stripped the bad-boy armor, one piece at a time, to reveal who I truly was. I put my heart and soul into writing this book. It was not only a healing but also a deeply emotional experience. By the time I finished writing it, I felt entirely naked, stripped of any protection. I revealed my biggest weaknesses and fears. Although the chronology of the story in this book occurred earlier in my life, I wrote it with more maturity and life experience than I had when I wrote “Dancing with Death” (which I started writing daily during the expedition from 1998). It’s a tough call between the two.

6. How many hours do you write in a day?
As you’ll learn in my books, I never do things in moderation. When I believe in something, or want something, I go for it. I’m a passionate person, and I follow my feelings. Inspired by this passion, I always give everything I have, and my writing habits reflect that.When I feel compelled to write, I don’t stop to eat or to sleep. As long as the inspiration is there, I keep writing. One time, I spent over 16 hours writing non-stop, without eating. It may seem crazy, but if I stop when the fingers move by themselves on the keyboard (even if it’s only 20 minutes to grab something to eat, stretch or take a walk), when I return to the computer, I may not be able to write another word. On other days, when I plan to write for a couple of hours and nothing comes out, I’ll stop after 10 minutes to do something else. I cannot write on demand.So, I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a daily average out of that.

But to give you an idea, I wrote the first draft of “I, Tarzan” (400 pages) in two months, and then I spent two years revising, editing, and polishing it to produce a good 300-page manuscript. After revising it for a year, when my editor told me it was ready, I wasn’t happy with it, but I couldn’t pinpoint the problems. I put it aside for three months during which I wrote “Two Wheels and a Will.” Then I returned to it. I finally understood what had been bothering me, and my editor and I spent another 6 months working on it. Then, only after publishing it, did I return to polish “Two Wheels and a Will.”

7. Are you currently working on a book?
I’m working on a fiction series based on true events during the Spanish Civil War and WWII. The fictional characters will highlight the stories of real-life heroes including little-known ones that had a huge impact on the French liberation. Many of the scenes will happen in mountains where I climbed, and will also involve the army corps in which I served 30 years ago, two generations after the end of WWII. Readers who love my memoirs for the epic adventures will also find the same page-turning thrilling action they got used to with “I, Tarzan” and “Dancing with Death.” 

There will be two sets of books. One set will focus on resistant heroes who fought in the mountains (mostly men). The other set will focus on the intelligence work that was crucial to win the war, most of the real-life heroes as well as the main fiction characters will be females. The main heroine of the female leading protagonist is the sister of one of the main male protagonists of the first set of books. The stories happen in parallel at the same time. The two sets will be tightly interwoven with the same characters playing roles in all the books. I have yet to decide if it will be one or two separate series. At the moment, as always, I write scenes based on feelings. I don’t know yet where these scenes will fit, so I’m actually writing four or five books simultaneously.I’m also planning to write at least two more memoirs. The one I started two years ago that I put aside to pen “I, Tarzan,” and the other one will be set deep in the remote tropical rainforest of Indonesia. Living with one of the most traditional shamanic tribes on earth was an experience that changed my life. It was so important to me that I don’t yet know how I’m going to write it.

8. What do you do when you are not writing?
Long before being an author, I was a word-explorer, adventurer, and endurance athlete. This is what I still do, and what defines my life today. I’m a cycling tour operator. I organize tours in the mountains of France, Spain, and Italy. I also spend months traveling in the winter. Although COVID-19 and a recent foot surgery have changed that pace for the last year and a half, I plan and hope to return to that lifestyle when we all recover — my foot from a new surgery that happens as you post these words, and the world from COVID-19.

9. What would you advise emerging Indie authors?
Advice on writing your first book: Follow everything I wrote in “I, Tarzan” (although I never mentioned writing in that book, I think all the lessons I took from these early years are lessons to be applied in writing). It applies to everything else in life. We all have doubts and fears, but we have to overcome them to succeed. Believe in yourself and never give up.My second piece of advice is to be true to yourself. Be yourself. Don’t try to impress with a writing style that isn’t yours. I’m in a good position to express this because as a non-native English author, I worried so much that my style wouldn’t be as literary as many authors who try to emulate Faulkner. I couldn’t do that. But I was blessed to meet two amazing editors. They both encouraged me and mentioned numerous times how much they loved my writing style. I had a voice that was resolutely mine and I immediately grabbed people to make them live the story as if they were on the journey with me.

Editors were there to correct mistakes, but I was the one with the voice driving the story. That really helped me. The more I wrote, the more my confidence increased. So, I will give the same advice today. Don’t pretend to be someone else. Be yourself. Write from the heart and with emotion.For publishing: Luckily, it’s easier today with self-publishing, but writing “The End” only means the beginning of your publishing journey. The book industry is changing at an extremely fast pace, we have to adapt to these changes. It’s not easy, and again perseverance is important.

10. What are you reading right now?
I’m currently reading many history books on WWII for my current work. Half of them are in English, half of them are small or out-of-press French editions that have never been translated. For example, I’ve been looking for a book on the resistance work of Josephine Baker which has been out of print for 50 years. But I just found out where one of her granddaughters lives. Finally, nearly half a century after her death, and thanks to her granddaughter who spent years fighting for it, Josephine Baker is receiving the recognition she deserved. A few days ago, she became the first Black woman to enter France’s Pantheon mausoleum of outstanding historical figures.Of course, Josephine will appear in my book series (I’m a huge fan of her entire life, not only her work in the French resistance, but her global fight for peace, cultural and racial acceptance, and women’s rights). Some stories can’t be found in books, so I plan to contact her granddaughter to see how I can fit this incredible human being, along with many other real-life heroes into my books. Sorry, I digress. So yeah, history books at the moment.

11. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
That’s such a difficult question, both in life and physically. COVID-19 and my current health problem suddenly changed my life entirely. Maybe it’s the universe telling me that I should focus more on being an author and less on being an aging athlete and adventurer. But the latter is anchored deeply in every cell of my being. As for the physical location, I’m not sure. I love my Pyrenees, but I’d love to return to live in Japan as well. And I’ve only visited a third of the world’s countries, so maybe the adventure bug will take me to an entirely new destination and lifestyle. I don’t make plans, I just follow my passions and adapt to the changing situation. We’ll see.

12. If you were a fruit or a vegetable, what would you want to be and why?
Huge laugh! (not to say LOL). I told you not to ask me this question, which I had already answered for our wonderful WLM group with “guava.” For those who don’t know the WLM group. It stands for “We Love Memoirs” and I highly recommend it to all memoir readers and authors. At that time, I compared myself to guava (you can read all about it on the WLM Facebook group).

To not use the same fruit comparison, this time I’d say I’d be like be a durian.Many people may not know this tropical fruit. Even the occasional tropic travelers who have sampled it or refused to taste it may not really know this fruit for what it really is.Yes, durian is so stinky, that many hotels, malls, and stores ban it from their establishments. But the best French cheeses are stinky, too. And so are Japanese natto, Korean Kimchi, and many other types of food that may be an acquired taste even though they are loved locally.Durian is an interesting fruit. The first time my Thai host offered me some, I couldn’t eat it. Not for the smell, but the pungent taste was so strange to my palate that I had a hard time swallowing it. I ate it to not offend my host, but it wasn’t a good first experience. I wondered how this could be the king of all fruits, and the most expensive, even in Asia.

When I lived in the Siberut jungle with the Mentawai people. I first arrived before durians were ripe. The rainforest hunter-gatherers climbed the giant trees to harvest green durians, which they ate as a vegetable. It was delicious. Not stinky, only very lightly sweet. It tasted something between fennel and artichoke heart. I loved it. Over the weeks, as the fruits matured, I continued eating, as the flesh turned into the real fruit, rich and sweet. The taste is impossible to describe as it changes so much and so rapidly. And the Mentawai have four different varieties of durian that grow wildly and produce fruits of different tastes. As far as how to describe their tastes: my best guess would be richer than a fully ripe avocado, and as sweet as a pineapple but without any acidity. A truly unique taste that doesn’t come close to any other fruits.But the interesting thing is that even mature, a durian freshly collected from the tree does not stink at all. And it’s the best fruit I’ve ever eaten.

The problem is that durians have a very fast fermentation time. They only grow on top of giant trees in the jungle. Plantations are usually in remote regions. The time it takes to harvest the fruits and transport them to local markets (2 to 3 days from harvest) is usually enough to have them start to ferment and stink. Then after 3 more days in market stalls, they smell strong enough for us to understand why hotels would ban them from rooms. The taste also starts to be too pungent, even for me now, although it has become my favorite fruit. I still like it and buy some at the market, but it’s not nearly as delicious as it is at the time of harvest.But yes, I love durian. And no, I don’t pinch my nose to eat it. But then again, I don’t pinch my nose to eat well-done French cheese and I love it (I do, however, pinch my nose for kimchi).

The reason I chose durian this time is not only because it’s my favorite fruit, or because it’s a jungle fruit, an environment I love. Or because it reminds me of my Mentawai adoptive family, and the amazing months I spent living with them (the subject of my next memoir). The fruit is larger and heavier than a coconut. It has a thick spiny shell that looks like an impenetrable armor. It’s like me, I often hide who I am behind my thick bad-boy alpha-male armor. And even after removing the shell, it may be an acquired taste. But don’t let the thick shell or perceived strong smell stop you. You may discover one of the most loved tropical fruits. You’ll never know until you try.

Check out more of my author interviews here.
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