This Year You Write Your Novel by Walter Mosley

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This Year You Write Your Novel
by Walter Mosley

I heard Walter Mosley talk about it at the AWP Conference in Atlanta in 2007, and I wanted to read it immediately. Shortly after that, I got a copy of this book through work. Did I read it immediately? No. Years later, I signed up for a writer's book club swap and this was one of the choices. Now, almost 6 years later, I finally read the book!

Was it worth the wait? Not really. This is a fantastic book for anyone who needs a kick in the pants-type approach to get them to write that book that's been in their head. It covers the basics like characters, dialogue, plot, etc. And it gives you the reality: if you want to write a novel, you have to write every day without fail. You have to make it a priority. You have to edit your drafts. Mosley uses humor and personal advice to help you out. There are also interesting tips like reading your entire novel out loud into a tape recorder and listening to it to catch things that you would have missed because you're too close to it.

If this is the only writing book you've ever read and you haven't written a novel and need some help from start to finish, this is the book for you! If you've read other basic writing books, this one might not have much that you haven't already heard. You'll probably get a bit out of it--maybe a trick or two to help you out. The good news is, this book is not very long and it's easy to get through pretty quickly. So the time commitment required is about equal to what you will probably get out of it.

I thought it was a good book; I came up with about 2 and a half pages full of interesting and useful quotes from it, in fact. But it just wasn't exactly what I need at this point in my writing life. I'm very glad to finally have read it, though. And it was so great to see my workplace mentioned near the end about different useful writer's conferences one might attend!