This week’s Five On Friday guest is thriller writer Richard Doetsch. If you love page turning, Dan Brown or Steve Berryesque type thrillers, then I highly encourage you to pick up one of Richard’s Books. You can learn more about Richard at his website, www.RichardDoetsch.com.
When did you know that you first wanted to be a writer?
Not until five years ago. I wrote my first novel, The Thieves of Heaven, purely for myself, as I wanted to encompass all the things I found exciting in life into a book. 
When I finished it I found my true passion and have been writing as much as I can ever since.
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What book or writer do you feel influenced you the most?
I was a voracious reader after college and ever since. I don’t think there was one writer, but many: Dumas, Michael Crichton, Clive Cussler, Robert Ludlum, Alistair Maclean, Dickens, William Goldman. I love the David Lean movies and try to capture certain aspects of his work; the excitement and visuals on the page.
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What book or books are you currently reading or have recently read that you’d recommend to others?
I just re-read The Count of Monte Cristo, my all time favorite. I also read all of the Ian Fleming Bond books in order, great writing and it makes the movies pale by comparison. And I’ll be reading A Christmas Carol in two months as I do every year. Dickens is amazing and most people forget that the classic tale is so many genres rolled into one; time travel, a ghost story, a morality tale, a story of love, family, forgiveness and redemption plus the magic of the holidays. What could be better?
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If you could offer one piece of advice to aspiring writers, what would it be?
Everyone says a writer has to write every day, well, that is obvious. I think as a writer though, we sometimes forget we are storytellers and to hone this I write a new story every day, a simple three-act story. It could be about anything, something familiar, something out of my comfort zone, a different genre. It allows my creative mind to breath and grow. After a year I have a file of 365 ideas, things I can draw on for my next literary adventure, things that I can combine and make my stories more original.
Granted most of them are sub-par but if only 5% are really goo, that’s 15 ideas to draw from to sharpen into an amazing book. So don’t just write every day, create something new every, single day and you will be amazed at what you come up with.
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Can you share with us your next project or any information about the next book you’re working on?
The Thieves of Darkness was just released from Atria Simon and Schuster. My next novel will be out in six months called Half-Past Dawn, which is a story about a man who wakes to read in the paper that he and his wife were killed. 
Of course it goes nowhere near where people think and is a thriller very much in the vein of my last novel, The 13th Hour. I’m just finishing up The Thieves of Legend (doing this interview is a perfect distraction) which is my release for next August.
