Here I am jumping on the five questions bandwagon. Thanks to Jenn for taking my request and coming up with the questions, and she's had a lot of people asking. Directions for your own five questions (from me) are at the bottom after my answers.



1. If you could be a best-selling author or an award-winning author, but not both, which would you choose?

This one is pretty difficult to answer. Best-selling author practically guarantees I could live off of the money coming from writing, as long as I don't live above my means. Award-winning writer dosen't neccessarily mean I'd be making a living at it, but the recognition would be nice. Perhaps I have a skewed perspective of things. I know there are award winners who do make their living at fiction writing. Tim Powers, I'm assuming here, isn't a bestseller, but an award winner, and I bet his advances are high because he has an audience.

I should tackle this question with what I want from the writing life and not by my definitions of best-seller and award-winning authors. What do I want? Number one, I'd like to move closer to my ideal writing state where the writing flows and I'm writing from the subconcious. It's getting easier. As long as I'm putting words down I'm happy and that happiness fills my entire life and affects my outlook. It's easier to write without a day job and the worries and stress that comes from planning your writing day around a day job--so not having a day job is number two. With those two points, I'd have to say a best-selling author.

It is interesting that best-selling and award-winning each has a degree of fame involved, if not two different types.

2. What's the best present you ever received?

Okay I might be picking the most recent present because it's fresh, but there are actual reasons why this could be the best. Ximena bought be a bike as a combination Xmas/birthday present on Saturday.

Sadly, I haven't gotten all that many presents in my adult life. I've lived away from family for the last ten years and I've gotten presents, but you know it's hard to buy for someone seperated by miles. Nothing jumps out at me from my childhood. Typical toys and practical items. I've never had a lot girlfriends, so I can't come up with list from that area of my life.

With Ximena, she's given me many things. The bicycle is the best from her and the best present over all presents. I wasn't an athelete as a kid, but in my late twenties when I had much more self-esteem I discovered the joys of exercising and the balance between the body and the mind. Limber body = limber mind, you get the idea. I haven't had a bike since I learned to drive, so once I got on that bike to test it out, I was loving being "physical." Maybe it was a different form of excercise since I have a Bowflex and I needed variety. But also, since I am an introvert and I spend a lot of time inside my head, exercise brings me out. It puts me in the here and now.

I'm sure X didn't have that in mind when she decided to get me the bike, but I do know she loved seeing me enjoying the bike experience. If I can give her things (or do things for her) to give her the same joy, that would be sweet.

3. What kind of character are you afraid to write about? If there isn't one, what kind of character do you find the most challenging to write about?

I think writing about a historical character would be the most challenging. I've become increasingly aware of my ignorance so now I worry about details when I write about something I'm not familiar with.

4. What's your funniest workshop memory?

I'll talk about a funny one and a fun one.

When Leslie What won the Nebula award for her short story "The Cost Of Doing Business" in 2000, Bruce Holland Rogers accepted the award for her since Leslie did not go to the ceremony.

Bruce returned to Eugene with the award, but would not let Leslie see it until Tuesday night at the workshop. So when we arrived at the bookstore on Tuesday night, Bruce put on a show involving Leslie's Nebula. A video (or was it a slide show?) gave us images of strangers in Eugene who got to handle Leslie's award before she did. They were all smiling and holding the award for the camera. In another, Leslie's husband, Gary, held the award (Leslie not knowing about this of course). In the next, Gary's looking shocked as it seemed the Nebula had slipped from his hands.

Yet in another picture, Bruce had taken the Nebula on the bike bridge over the Willamette River. There's a sign that warns of leaning over the railing, but Bruce had the sign photo-shopped so it read: "Do not put Nebula Awards on the railing." Sure enough, in the next picture, Leslie's Nebula award was on the railing, which was flat but only as wide as a man's hand, with the river stretching out behind it.

The show didn't end there. When it came time to finally give Leslie her Nebula, Bruce gave a series of packages, none of which held the Nebula, but were filled with tissue paper or gimmick gifts. If memory serves correctly, the last package did hold Leslie's award.

Leslie and Bruce are still friends, but I don't know if Leslie will allow Bruce to accept an award for her ever again.

Now fun. A number of years ago when there were a large number of us who had submitted to Strange New Worlds, the Star Trek anthology for new writers. This was for volume two, I think. Anyway, they were going to announce the winners in a chat room and it happened to be on the night of our workshop, Tuesday night. So somebody brought a computer into the bookstore and logged in the chat room. John Ordover was there (typing from New York) and Dean Wesley Smith, too (typing away from Lincoln City). Steven York had brought a toy alien to give to everyone who had entered a story just so nobody would leave with nothing. There were five or six of us who entered and I was one of them. Somebody brought a bag of poppers (those little champagne bottles that "pop!" and shoot out confetti when you pull the string). Three workshop members got in that anthology--Dustan Moon, Christine York, and Kathy Oltion--and when each name was announced, POP! went the poppers. And applause and hoots and hollers, too.

That was a fun and exciting night. We did get down to critiquing stories afterward.


5. If you had to live in another city anywhere in the world for 2 years, which would it be? (You can't pick any cities in Oregon.)

While I do like Seattle and don't visit enough, I will say New York for romantic reasons. It's where publishing happens, it's home to the literary world, and it has a long history of writers who have lived there. Starving and writing in the city. My, how romantic.

Well, this was fun and it got to be a long-winded journal entry. Here's the rules for this ubiquitous question game:

RULES:
1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.