more on WM.

I mentioned Walter Mosley earlier in the week...here's the continuation. I'm not gonna talk in length about him or the book he was reading from. If you care, it was Blonde Faith.

WM gave some candid, three dimensional answers to your generic-style booksigning questions...the kind I call "questions for the sake of asking questions." Aside from being a great storyteller, he's also a bit of a charmer; he reminds me of gray-haired gentlemen I've encountered in Harlem dressed in brown Sunday suits, talking old-fashioned dirty-sweet talk. "You sho make an ol' man smile." Well, he's not that old, and he wasn't that sweet, but still, he reminded me of those gentlemen. Maybe it's just because he wears a cool hat.

I sometimes look to successful, published authors for some kind of secret. An ANSWER. Perhaps a formula for writing a book and getting it published. Whatever it is, I was hoping WM would've let me in on it. He didn't. Not really.

He told us, with writing, it's either in you or it's not. It's not something that you call yourself because you wake up one day and want to quit your IT job and decide "Hey, I think I'll be a writer now." There's no magic to it, you can't fake it. Not very comforting...but sooo true. Oh, and he said something I really liked...I can't quote him but I'll try -- "Being a writer is about your relationship with books that you develop early in childhood, and the way you share that relationship with your audience." And one more. This is simple...but it speaks to the heart of my problem/ambition--"Writing the truth is difficult." As simple as his words were...I needed to hear them from an accomplished author. Without knowing it, he gave me a little "answer"...an affirmation.

This is out of context and all over the place. I just wanted to get this out before the week ended, and now I'm done.
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Image from cover of Fortunate Son