Java.April.2016

Paul Mosier believes in the muse. His life story lends serious credibility to its magic,
mythic power. Specifically, his development as a writer defies conventional logic in that
he isn’t a heavy reader. Most writers are galvanized to write because of an innate love
for reading. But Mosier is a writer because, well, he likes to write. It’s as simple and
beautiful as that. Mosier is set to release a book with HarperCollins next January. And, crazy
enough, it was all beget from a song lyric first recorded by bluesman Junior Parker in 1953. The lyric
was, “Train I ride, 16 coaches long.”
It was from this seemingly simplistic phrase that Mosier was able to draw a stream of
consciousness that turned into the novel Train I Ride. According to Mosier, he simply followed
the muse as it took him on a ride. “All of my experience with how stories begin supports
my subscription to the idea of the muse. I like the way that it helps me to have a degree of
humility. I’m fortunate that the muse knows my address,” said Mosier.
Mosier was born in Phoenix at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Throughout school he was in the gifted
programs, and in sixth grade he developed a film script called “Intergalactic Gophers.” Though
his parents were not necessarily creative, they were able to provide their kids with the autonomy
to create. Mosier’s brother is a cartoonist and
his sister is a writer.
By the time eighth grade rolled around and
kids began fumbling through the awkward
depths of adolescence, Mosier was fumbling
around for different reasons. By eighth grade,
Mosier was an alcoholic. His reason for
drinking was simple: he was afraid of women.
“I found that I really liked being drunk because
it made it easier to walk past girls without
dissolving. I felt that if I didn’t dance with a
girl at the eighth grade dance, I would die
alone,” said Mosier. He spent the next 10
years or so in a drunken haze. “With drinking
I felt like I was strapping myself to a rocket
and who knows where I would end up. I had to
take LSD on the weekends just so it didn’t feel
like a Tuesday night,” Mosier said.
Though some people drink to feel, Mosier
felt like it was a means to numb. Once he
decided to quit in 1990, there was no stopping
the feelings. “I was medicated while I was
drinking, and now I’m a feelings junky. My own
writing makes me cry all the time. It wouldn’t
work to be liquored up or high. The truth of
write drunk, edit sober—some people won’t
allow themselves to be seduced by the muse
until they drink,” Mosier said. Mosier was able
to transfer all these new feelings into short
stories that he would read to his muses in the
flesh: women.
As the saying goes, energy cannot be created,
it can only be changed from one form to
another, and in that way Mosier used his
writing to impress women, rather than hiding
behind the liquor. Whether it was the girls
at 5 & Diner or the baristas at Dos Estrellas,
Mosier made sure that what he wrote was
read by women. “It’s interesting that the
creative spirit that visits humans is female.
They’re just better than us. They’re more
charming.”
It was the women he met who were his first
audience. He wanted to write stories that
spoke to them. However, in 1993 there was
a girl who made smoothies at The Eggery
in Phoenix who would soon become his main
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