I thought it would be easy. Don’t we old people love to talk about our memories of the past? You generally can’t get us to shut up. Yet so far I have not managed to interview anyone at all. Why won’t they talk to me? I asked respectfully and carefully. “Nancy, I’ve so enjoyed your […]
Interview Questions: St. Johns Memories
These are the interview questions for when I ask people for their St. Johns memories. What year were you born? Were you born in St. Johns? Or when did you arrive here? Have you lived here all your life? Or where else have you lived, and at what ages? Where are your parents from? When […]
The Interview Strategy
For that perfect day job that I recently quit, I became adept at interviewing people. I learned how to prepare a detailed, thorough list of questions in advance. I learned how to keep the interviewee happy about talking to me, and how to control the conversation so the person doesn’t wander off into long stories […]
Sending Agent Query Emails (It’s Scary)
My website was down for a whole week, so I missed my Monday blog post, sorry. Here it is now. I hereby promise to send at least one agent query a week. That doesn’t sound like much, does it? But it is actually pretty labor-intensive. First you have to identify agents to query. One way […]
Maybe It Never Happened
In addition to its being set in a place where I personally did not grow up, my new story also includes incidents that never happened to me. This means that I have to go find people who did have these experiences and ask many, many questions. How did it happen? What, exactly did you do? […]
Research at the Blow Fly Inn
I am doing research for my next book. Like my completed book, _Like Light from Stars_, this story takes place over multiple generations in a place with which I am familiar—in this case, St. Johns, where I have lived since 2005. However, that is not exactly several generations’ worth. I need to find out a […]
Metaphor and Dementia: Dancing in the Sky
In the metaphorical conversations I had with the patients on the dementia ward, certain themes came up again and again. Not surprising for people with late-stage terminal illness, a common theme was concern about work being finished. A teacher was anxious about whether the materials were ready for the next day’s classes. A caterer […]
Metaphors and Dementia: Dreams of Escape
Metaphors and Dementia: Dreams of Escape Continued from last week’s post: What excited me was that if I listened for the metaphors in what my demented, dying friend was saying, I could still understand him. We could communicate. I had to let go of the literal sense of what he said and let the real […]
Writers, Metaphor, and Dementia: David’s House
Years ago, long before the advent of protease-inhibitor cocktails, a close friend of mine was diagnosed with Kaposi’s sarcoma, which in those days was an AIDS-defining illness—a death sentence. I felt helpless and horrified, unable to do anything for my buddy, but wanted to do something useful, so I volunteered at Shanti, a San Francisco […]
Leaving the Best Day Job Ever
I have the best day job ever. I work at home. I never have to go into the office, which is 600 miles away. I set my own schedule. I can work more hours or fewer hours, as I please. My boss and long-distance co-workers are a pleasure to work with. The job is very […]