"Interview me!"

[anghara]

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me!"
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will post the answers to the questions (and the questions themselves) on your blog or journal.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5.When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Questions byshsilver


1. Why do you live where you live?
Because it's about as far away as you can get from Florida and still be in the continental United States... Well, not really, but that's the way it worked out. When I married my American husband he was living in Florida and had done so for forty years (and, as he puts it, he hated thirty nine and a half of those but was kept there by family matters). When I got there, it took me less than three years to put my foot down and say, "We're moving. Get me out of here. NOW." I am SO not a hothouse flower who does well in hot and humid climates and cannot live more than a hundred feet from a beach. Give me cedars and mountains and crisp fall days with changing leaves and the glitter of brittle sunlight on ice on cool winter mornings. Washington state is the closest thing to Heaven that we could find.

2. What was most disappointing about the publication of your first book?
Nothing disappoints me about the publication of a book. The book gets PUBLISHED. It (hopefully) gets read. Everything else is gravy.

3. Dinner party: 2 dead authors, 2 live ones, 1 editor?
Roger Zelazny, J R R Tolkien, Neil Gaiman, Ursula Le Guin, my husband (who IS my first line editor, so yes, he qualifies!)

4. Why do people think nothing of drinking hot coffee in the summer, but won't eat ice cream in the winter?
You know, I can't tell you. But that is precisely what I do. I NEVER have ice cream in my freezer in the winter, I tend to start buying same somewhere in mid-May and quit thinking about it sometime in mid-October. But then again, I drink coffee any place, any time, whatever the season (ask anyone who knows me) If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the taste of coolth (yes I know that isn't really a word but I like the way it looks) in your mouth is a welcome antidote to the summer heat, and when the weather is cold you don't crave it - people have different favourite flavours but on the whole the idea here is ICE CREAM, not a particular kind of ice cream. Whereas coffee is drunk not so much for the temperature but for the taste, and that's... um... less seasonal?...

5. What is the most boring thing you've ever done?
Anything that involves long periods of repetitive tasks. I need some sort of mental stimulation to function; unless I am, for instance, stuffing envelopes with other people and can talk and laugh with them while doing that, the job would make me catatonic very quickly.

Okay, then. There you go.

PS - those of you who asked for interviews, feel free to ask me questions in return!

Comments

[celtic-songster.livejournal.com]

Sure, interview me!

[anghara.livejournal.com]

1. What makes a book into a "good book" for you?

2. If you could ask two questions, and only two questions, from an entity that knows everything - what would you ask?

3. Which season makes you feel the most content?

4. Somebody hands you a folder containing an all-expenses-paid trip. What is the first wish-destination that pops into your mind?

5. Favourite pet: cat, dog, fish, bird, or something exotic? Why?

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

4: One of my first dates with my now wife was in the middle of a blizzard. We bought ice cream and I walked her home as we ate it. I've tried to explain to her that eating ice cream lowers your internal temperature and therefore it doesn't feel as cold, but she didn't buy it then, and doesn't by it now, twenty-two years later.

Of course, today, with the temperature hovering at a balmy -1°, my seven year old asked (repeatedly) for a milk shake.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, and feel free to ask me five questions (since I asked you). I'll answer them here.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

1. If you weren't doing what you are doing now, what sort of career do you think you would be involved in?
2. One word: SNOW. You had a first date with your future wife in a blizzard. In what other way has snow affected your life? (ANything. A memory, a gripe, a piece of wishful thinking...)
3. What do you think a writer of a story owes their reader - and would your answer change if you were wearing your editor hat, your writer hat or your reader hat?
4. If the world is really going to end in 2012, give us ten things you would want to have done before the lights go out for good which you have never done before.
5. If there was a single person who, in however small a way, appreciably changed your life, how did they do it?

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

1. I would like to think that I would have finished my Ph.D. and I would be teaching history at a university, although what I'm doing is much more lucrative.

2. I like snow, although last year's 80 inches was a bit excessive. Back in the winter of 79 (makes me sound like an old codger), when we had tremendous amounts of snow fall, a friend's family hollowed out a snow cave in their backyard, which was much warmer than you'd expect. That same winter, while walking home, one of my boots came off in the snow and it took us about fifteen very cold minutes to find it.
When R. was a year old, we had a 22-inch snow fall. If you put an 18" tall child into a 22" pile of snow, she sinks only slightly. If a grown man goes in to retrieve her, he sinks a good 15" into the snow.

3. Above all, a writer owe the reader entertainment. Everything else is gravy. Doesn't really change based on my role.

4. Get my novel published, travel south of the Equator, really, I'm pretty content with my accomplishments.

5. The easy and obvious answer is my wife, who I've known for 22 years and who has been a partner to me in all ways for most of that time.

[ckocher.livejournal.com]

Interview me!

[anghara.livejournal.com]

1. What do you love most about the place you call home?
2. If you could talk to a great-grandmother, what would you ask her?
3. If you had the choice, what would you rather have, money or fame?
4. What three things would you bring with you to a desert island?
5. How do you feel about movies "based on" beloved books which turn out to share little more than the title with the book in question?

[melissajm.livejournal.com]

Interview me, please!

[anghara.livejournal.com]

1. What is the first thing you ever wrote?
2. Do you dream in Technicolor and Sensurround, or in Black and White?
3. What do you think is the most evocative word in the English language? (you're allowed up to three if you can't make up your mind)
4. If you could go back to your thirteen-year-old self and give yourself one single piece of advice, what would it be?
5. If you could pick from several superpowers - being invisible, being able to fly, or having the power to go back in time and correct one single mistake for a person who is now in trouble - which would you choose?

[melissajm.livejournal.com]

1. The first thing I can still remember the title of was a 29-page "epic" called "The Battle of The Cats," where the Cat and Dog kingdoms work together to defeat the dreaded Beagle Brigade, and Princess Kitty disguises herself as a French Poodle to rescue her brother from a dungeon. I took it to school and asked all my teachers "Would you like to read my magnum opus?"

2. Technicolor, stereo, the works! And I can extract myself from nightmares, or sometimes alter them in my favor.

3. That's a toughie! hm, for today at least... Infinity.

4. (Boy, did you pick the right time period!) "Hang in there. It gets better."
(And hang onto that magnum opus. You'll get a kick out of it in 25 years or so.)

5. Depends. If the person WANTS me to correct the mistake, and I can deal with the consequences, that. If not, I'll take flying.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

#1 is utterly perfect. Thank you for that. :)

[melissajm.livejournal.com]

The really scary thing is that I've still got it somewhere. ;)

[krispies.livejournal.com]

I never can pass this meme up. Interview me, if you would, please.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

1. If you were to wake up tomorrow morning and find out that what you now think of as your real life was just a virtual reality, what would your REAL real life be?
2. If a movie is made out of a book, do you prefer to have have read the book before you see the movie or would you rather not have read the book and walk into the movie without any expectations?
3. If you were offered the ultimate pet (pet food and care costs all taken care of, price no object) what would you choose?
4. What do you think is more important, justice or mercy?
5. If you could make a soundtrack or a play list for your life, give us three songs that you would put on it, and tell us why.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I can eat icecream at any point. In fact, it's one of my 'sore throat' remedies, so it features heavily in winter. I am deprived by the fact that Britain has no decent icecream shops that I can find - occasionally, someone does homemade icecream, but most of them stick to vanilla and chocolate and other boring flavours, when I want mango and other tropical fruits.

Interview me

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Oh, go on then.

Re: Interview me

[anghara.livejournal.com]

1. Why do you live where you live?

2. If you were to be asked to describe Heaven, what would be in it?

3. The glass - half full, half empty, or the wrong size?

4. How many languages do you speak, and which language do you dream in?

5. You step out of your front door with a bag that contains nothing but a heavy load of imagination. There's a road unfolding in front of you. Where does it lead?

[eneit.livejournal.com]

interesting answers, except I can't imagine you being without coffee, no matter what the heat. I'd be interested in being interviewed *g*

[anghara.livejournal.com]

1. Have you ever celebrated a season-attached holiday like, for instance, Christmas in the "wrong" hemisphere, and how do you (or would you) feel about the reversal of the seasons?

2. How old were you when you learned to read?

3. If you could ask three people to come to tea - and they can be family, friends, writers, artists, states(wo)men, goatherds, I literally mean ANYBODY, and they can be dead OR alive, you have the entire range of humanity that ever was to choose from - who would you invite?

4. If you could learn to do or be one single thing in the space of a single night - something that would usually take a lifetime of learning and study - what would it be?

5. What is the greatest gift of friendship?

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

I once spent a day as a temp stuffing envelopes for a mass-marketing house. Twelve hours on my feet (they wanted 14, but I had had enough). We weren't allowed headphones (safety reasons; makes sense), but also weren't allowed to talk. After about two hours they relented on the "no talking" rule for the temps, because we kept chatting anyway, and were collectively about to decide the money wasn't worth it.

There were people for whom this was their full time job. I have never been more grateful for the luck of being born where, when, and to whom I was born.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

Word.

[behindpyramids.livejournal.com]

Interview me. :)

[anghara.livejournal.com]

1. Everyone has something unique in their past and in their identity. If you were to pick one thing that made you absolutely and completely, UNIQUELY, you, what would it be?

2. If you are trying to understand another human being or another society - is it better to be an outsider looking in or an insider rooted deeply in a culture?

3. Is it better to absolutely know what is in your future or to stumble along hoping you're doing the right thing - in other words, if you had a crystal ball would you look into it?

4. You are a genie able to grant somebody three wishes - the catch is, you have to make the wishes on their behalf. Someone you do not know has summoned you out of your lamp, and you are bound to grant them three wishes of your choosing. What are those wishes?

5. What is better - a quiet, safe, Utopia where nothing bad ever happens, or a chaotic world where anything can happen and usually does and your life depends on your wits and your luck?

[debtaber.livejournal.com]

I always try to celebrate the first snow of the year by going out for ice cream. My dad used to do it when we were kids.

I tried to resist; I failed.

I would love to be interviewed by you. You ask excellent questions.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

1. What do you like to do when it rains?

2. What's worse - a hutch that's overflowing with plot bunnies you don't have the first clue how to corral, or an empty hutch bereft of any plot bunnies at all?

3. If you had to pick yourself a totem animal (or if one were to pick you...) which animal do you think would manifest for you?

4. What are the three sounds that most fill you with excitement and anticipation? (Hint: something like "a train whistle" implies that you like travelling...)

5. If you were to have what is known as an architectural folly - something weird and wonderful but of precious little practical use - added to your house, what would you pick?

[debtaber.livejournal.com]

...and next time I won't ask for an interview right before going MIA for several days. Answers soon to be found on my LJ. Thanks!

And a question back at you:

Do you think you would still be able to be a writer if you lived in a house without any cats?

Das Interview mit der Tooter

[miketo.livejournal.com]

Ask Deck to collaborate on the Q's, I'll bet he has some zingers lurking in that devious brain of his. I'll answer here for completeness' sake.