A Quiet Week

This has been a nice, quiet week. Work has been a bit rough, but otherwise, things have been peaceful. Even Writers' Group canceled for a Writing Excuses recording day. So mostly I played Divinity Original Sin 2.

The most eventful thing that happened was my first email interview for a local newspaper. They sent 8 questions, pretty standard stuff. I asked for a target word count. They gave it to me. And then I started crafting my answers. I think I prefer this form of an interview to an in-person one in many ways. While you can't develop any kind of chemistry with the interviewer, and that's a big loss, you can really craft your responses. I worked on one or two of the lines for ten minutes. I'm still not completely happy with them.

But I can't deny that my answers are more polished than they'd be in an in-person interview. And post-edited as well. They don't have any of that fumbling toward an answer that human speech has in the wild, where you start talking without knowing where you're going to end up. Now, part of being a funny guy is having faith that you can start a joke without knowing the punchline and not fall flat on your face. Most of the time. But having a little time for rewrites is much better.

So while it might be ideal to get to charm the interviewer in person, getting to really craft your answers is a big benefit as well. Essentially, it allows you to all but write the article about yourself. They can change and frame what I gave them after the fact, of course, but what they have right now is about 95 percent me, and only 5 percent the interviewer, and that gave me a lot of control over how I come across.

Usually when hear myself in an interview after the fact, I cringe. That won't be the case this time. So that's a big plus. Anyway, I found it a novel experience.

That's it for this week. Soon, as in the next month or so, I should be getting edits on the next DbC novel. Until then, I'll probably take it easy. If I start a big push before then, I run the risk of burning out or getting sick. So I think I'll conserve my strength for the moment. I drive myself into the ground often enough.