Interviewing.

What a fantastic job - I read some of my favourite writers, travel the country to meet them and chat to them about their writing. I find the writers fascinating and although I read a good deal to prepare for the interview I am always amazed as to where the discussions take us.

I don’t go with a set of prepared rigorous questions. Rather I jot down areas and broad topics I think we should cover. This allows us - the writer and me - to have a conversation. The conversation mode is more natural and allows an exploration and a chance for new ideas and thoughts to emerge. As we talk I mentally keep my list of topics in mind and tick off the ones we’ve covered.

I use this method because the writer knows his or her works better than anyone. I like to give them the space to chew away at some of the deeper things they are thinking about and not just recite the stock-standard answers to the stock-standard questions.

Of course this is harder to do than having a list of prepared questions and I always feel nervous and edgy before the interview doubting my abilities and questioning if I have done enough research. Also, I’m quite exhausted after the interview which last about two hours. The mental concentration has been enormous.

I like to watch the tapes as they are being logged the next day. It’s still fresh in my mind and seeing the writer talking on film gives me ideas as to what I might say in my commentary.

Unlike the interview the commentary is completely scripted. This script takes quite a few drafts and includes locations, shots, actions and the like. I always want to say more than I the shot allows and so I spend the most amount of time cutting my lines right back. I am slowly learning to let the image do the talking for me.

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