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After the story returned to him, Schlunegger, whose native tongue is German, said it took six months to write a first draft. His first effort at the tale of Corporal Herman Schuller and model Angelina Bianci came to more than 800 pages. Then came the hard task of editing and rewriting it into good English.

“It had to be properly punctuated and put into grammatical, structured sentences,” he said. “I had the help of several people.”

Among them were Lois Schlieter, a former Schreiner University librarian, and Jeff Putnam, his editor.

“It was very frustrating,” he said. “It took a lot of sleepless nights.”

His entrepreneurial successes first as a chef and later as a hotel owner enabled Schlunegger to self-publish the novel through Dallas-based Brown Books, which warned him in advance that competition was stiff.

“Once they had the manuscript, they called back with an offer after two or three days,” he said.
To help him through the process, Schlunegger had Kerrville artist Loys Raymer paint a picture featuring the heroes of the novel, which he hung in his office. This inspiration became the picture on the novel’s dust jacket.

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