Wednesday, September 25, 2013

A word, a quote, and some thoughts on interviews . . .

1. A word (that I discovered recently):

Inveigle: to entice, lure, ensnare or to charm someone into doing something they might not have done otherwise.

I just like the sound of the word, and then the meaning makes it juicy. I'm not sure how I'll use it, but I started wondering . . . could someone inveigle for a good reason, and not a bad one? And how, and what would that look like, and why?

2. A quote:

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ― Neil Gaiman

(oh, but only big bad dragons, not friendly dragons like FatherDragon)

3. Some thoughts on interviews:

I find interviews mildly scary. Whereas I can post crazy things without thinking much about it on my blog or facebook status, I find myself hesitating over words in interview answers, wanting them somehow to be perfect. I don't know why. However, that is one of the reasons I'm using my "1 Word" interview format. I'm trying to lessen the pressure . . . however, I may have heightened it. I'm not sure.

Do you get nervous about interview answers?
Found any new words you like lately?
Or quotes?


16 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

No, we don't want to beat Father Dragon Al! Although he might want to beat his dwarves sometimes.
I go over interviews and guest posts multiple times, just trying to make them perfect.

Tyrean Martinson said...

Alex - ah . . .maybe I should have changed that quote so that it stated something about beating dwarves. :) Glad I'm not the only one that gets perfectionist over interview and guest posts.

SK Anthony said...

Hehe.... yes, we can beat the big bad ones and hug our friendly neighborhood Father Dragon ;)

Interviews. Yikes. I stress over them. I read the questions, let them sit, read again, stare, let it sit.. then I answer. I put it away, come back and revise a few times and when I'm done I say: that wasn't so bad, it was fun. Why did I stress? O_O lol

Nick Wilford said...

At least with a blog interview we can go over our answers as much as we like. I don't think I would cope if I ever got famous enough to be interviewed in "real time"!

Tyrean Martinson said...

S.K. - glad I'm not the only one that does that. :) And yes, we need to hug our friendly neighborhood Father Dragon.

Nick - That's true. I would probably freeze in a live interview, and then say um about a million times.

Mark Means said...

I find, for the most part, that it helps to just go with the first answer that pops into my head....

Granted, I said "For the most part..." :P

L. Diane Wolfe said...

Radio and TV interviews are interesting because you have no idea what's going to pop out of an interviewer's mouth.

Unknown said...

I like the quote; we'll concede there are lovable dragons in our midst. :)

I've only done, one or two interviews for blogs and augh, yes, they are hard. Mostly because I really don't like talking about myself all that much. Makes me want to duck the spotlight a bit!

Emily R. King said...

Love that Neil Gaiman quote. So true!

Natalie Aguirre said...

I love being the interviewer. Just think of the interview as talking to someone and you'll do fine.

Heather R. Holden said...

Interviews definitely make me nervous. I'm always afraid I'm going to answer stupidly and regret it heaps later!

BTW, great word and quote! I've seen the quote before, but not the word. My vocabulary is now a tiny bit larger! :)

Julie Flanders said...

One of the reasons I love your one word interview idea is because I thought it really eased the pressure I normally feel with interviews. I also worry about saying the wrong thing or whatever but your interview was just fun.

Love that new word, too. I have to find a use for that now. :D

Maurice Mitchell said...

That's a great word Tyrean! Gaiman is a writing genius.

Carol Kilgore said...

I love finding new quotes, but then I promptly forget them. So maybe I just like the same quotes over and over.

I also like 'inveigle'.

Interviews rarely bother me. But I do go over written ones several times. Even so, I often mess up. I need a permanent editor LOL.

Samantha May said...

Interviews (in person, not so much online) are the reason I could never handle being famous. I would pass out O_O

That's a fantastic word! I'll definitely need to use it.

randi lee said...

Interviews scare the pants off of me!!