A writers’ magazine, that shall remain nameless here, asks authors of new titles ten questions. Clearly, the intent of these articles is to promote the book because I can’t imagine that readers care how and when authors write.
Okay, maybe I’m biased against these kinds of articles because “they” haven’t called me and asked whether I write best in fire or rain, use a pencil or a pen, or sit in Waffle Houses or woods as I craft each new book.
I’ll stipulate that there may be circumstances where a writer’s methods and techniques might be interesting:
- Wrote the book in jail.
- Wrote the book while clinically dead on the operating table.
- Wrote the book while surrounded by rabid kangaroos in Australia.
Otherwise, I’m not sure readers care whether an author writes in the bedroom or the back porch or the south forty. I know I don’t care. And if “they” called me and asked for an interview in which “they” proposed a series in inane questions, I’d probably agree to it and make stuff up. People who ask inane questions deserve to be lied to.
Perhaps I would say, I always write at High Noon because “High Noon” is one of my favorite movies. Or, perhaps I would say, I always write on Hallowe’en because I channel haints and the veil between worlds at that time of the year. Personally, I think that thin veil between worlds stuff is a lot of nonsense, but people seem to believe it. That means readers would probably believe haints help me write my books.
I just got done reading one of these “ten questions for Joe Smith” kind of articles and the whole shebang was so boring, I immediately opened a bottle of Shiraz and tried to forget.
These articles all seem to be written by lazy writers who ask the same stock questions to every writer they interview, so it’s no wonder they (the authors and/or the articles) all sound like they come off an assembly line. When a real journalist is assigned to write a feature article about an emerging author (or anyone else), the first thing they need to do is learn everything they can before the interview begins. That makes each article unique, makes the subject a real person rather than just another widget, makes the source more important than the interviewer’s stock questions.
Some blogs actually have a list of stock questions for writers to answer. Purportedly, the result is supposed to sound like an interview. It doesn’t. The result is usually boring and probably costs the emerging author a lot of book sales.
Question: What were you doing when you first thought about writing this book?
Answer: I was eating a pizza.
Wow, that information’s really going to resonate with prospective readers! As an author, I’d feel so discounted if I were asked such a question, I’d probably say, “I was watching alligators have sex.”
When I read an interview with an author, I want to see questions and answers that matter.
Smoky: It was confusing at first, because I had no memory of the event, but I was in such a fog from the morphine I guess I would have believed anything they told me. I couldn’t speak, because I was on a respirator, so I was in no position to question them. I guess I realized how seriously injured I was when I saw that all my siblings—who lived as far away as Georgia to the east and Washington to the west—had gathered at my bedside.
Malcolm: Since the story got into the newspapers, did you go for a while constantly being hounded by reporters for the latest update? If so, did you ever get tired of all the attention? Did people on the street recognize you from a picture in the paper and say, “hey, there goes that lady who do struck by lightning?”
Smoky: I don’t think anyone was disappointed. Plenty of witnesses saw the event, so the press got the lurid details from then. And because I had so many serious issues that developed as a result of the event, they got fresh story material on a pretty regular basis. It did get tiring after a while.
Smoky: Absolutely! Bear still is a constant presence in my life. People who walk with Bear tend to be introspective, to have inner strength. I would not be alive today if Bear did not share her inner strength with me. I live in almost constant pain, and sometimes that pain reaches almost unbearable levels. But what is in the center of the word un-BEAR-able? Bear herself! Letting me know that even though I hurt, she is with me.
Forty thousand amps of raw electrical power tore through my body and into Bob, who was still holding my hand. The force of the lightning was so great that we were literally catapulted out of our shoes and tossed twenty feet through the air like rag dolls. Hit by the wall of intense heat created by the blast, Steven tumbled over backward. Bob’s plastic key ring melted into his hand. I ended up face-down in a pool of blood, my pierced earrings blasted out of my earlobes like miniature missiles, my gold and opal necklace vaporized into my chest skin. To all outward appearances, we were dead.
Malcolm's Round Table 