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Sometimes you nail the interview; sometimes the interview nails you. For some reason when I’m interviewed for Time magazine whether online on in magazine I always end up feeling like I’m the one that got nailed. It’s no reflection on the reporter doing the questions, but at some point during the process I end up getting thrown off my rhythm and never feel like I get back on it. It usually happens when you have your answer set and ready to go, and they want a different answer, or they ask a question you’ve never heard. I guess, in a way, it’s a compliment to Time magazine that their reporters are more likely to do that. But it’s not until someone asks you a brand new question, or takes a question in a new direction that I begin to realize how knee jerk I’ve gotten with my answers. I’ve heard the questions so many times that I know the answers, I’m ready, until I’m not. I often think I sound like a babbling idiot, when later I listen to a recording and I sound fine, but sometimes it’s not just delusion on my part. How can I tell the difference? Is it insecurity of the moment, or did I really drop the ball?

The interview on Time.com sounds fine, but I might have said different things if I hadn’t thought of those different things about fifteen minute after I hung up from the interview. Yeah, that quick, and I remembered what I really wanted to say. What I would add to the interview if I could, is the part about what I got to explore with the Merry series that I couldn’t do in Anita. Well, initially it was the sexual content, but as we all know the series have sort of caught each other up. But what I get to explore more in Merry than Anita is what it means to be a leader. A true leader, and not just a politician. What does it feel like to know that you are responsible for so many, and that if you fail they could die because of that failure? How far would you go to protect those you love, or even just feel responsible for? That’s is admittedly a theme in the Anita series, too. Apparently, it’s a topic that interests me, or puzzles me, because I explore it in different ways in both series and many of my short stories. What does it mean to take care of people? What is loyalty, friendship, love? All this, and more, but I choked, and the interview is mostly about the sexual content, no fault of the nice reporter, but just me fumbling the ball. It’s still a good interview, and I’m particularly pleased with getting to talk about my religion, but in the end, I hung up and went, damn. I’m beginning to realize there are only two kinds of interviews. One, is so much the same questions that you answer by habit, and don’t have to think. Two, is the one that surprises you, shakes you out of the old patterns and leaves you scrambling. If you get enough of #1 in a row, #2 will catch you off guard, every time, or it does me.