Mosley: “Write Your Novel”

With more than 20 of his own novels in print, Walter Mosley oughta be able to tell the rest of us how it’s done.

Mosley is best known, of course, as the creator of the Easy Rawlins series featuring the Los Angeles private detective who was played so winningly by Denzel Washington in Devil in a Blue Dress. Mosley is also three books into a new series featuring a bookstore owner named Paris Minton and his friend, Fearless Jones.

In 2007, however, Mosley will take a break from mystery to share some of what he knows. According to Reuters, “Mosley, 54, will next year release a 100-page book called This Year You Write Your Novel, giving people advice on how to write a novel in a year.”

In an interview, Mosley explains where this book came from, and where it’s going:

People always come to me and say that they really want to write a novel. Some want to do it because they think it will make them rich, some think it will make them famous, or become a movie. This [book] is for if you believe there is a novel in you and you want to write that novel. It tells you how to write a novel in a year. I am not saying how good the novel will be or that it will ever get published. All I am saying is that you can write a novel. The activity of writing a novel is an extraordinary thing. This can have a significant impact on your life. At the end of the book I say congratulations--and the next one will be better!

Even Mosley fans who aren’t planning on penning their own novels will find good stuff in the Reuters interview. Mosley talks about the end of Easy (foreseeable, the author says) and his next novel, Killing Johnny Fry, which the author has subtitled as “a sexistenial novel.”

Mosley is currently on tour promoting Fear of the Dark. You can find tour details here.