Interview Me Meme

I was so lucky! I asked her to interview me, and Nymeth sent five questions she really wanted to ask me, for the 'Interview Me' meme. This is how it works:

The rules are:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Here are the five questions Nymeth asked me:

1. What's the one place in the world you'd like to visit the most? Why?
Great Britain. It was easy. I've lived there, and I still haven't seen all I want to see. Why? I love so much about it. The history, the old buildings, the landscape, they all fascinate me. My ancestors are from Wales and Scotland, and I'd really like to go visit them one day. York, London, Whitby, are three of my favourite places in the world. The North Yorkshire Moors has some of the most stunning landscapes in the world, and I swear that on the moor, there is nothing between you and the sky itself. It's all you and nature. If I could I would spend six months of the year here in Canada, and the other six in England, every year. My husband is in full agreement. We just have to win the lottery now.

2. Share a really good reading memory with us! It could be discovering
a favourite author, being really impressed by a book you had no
expectations about…anything.
My favourite reading memory is how Anne Frank saved me. When I was 12, I read The Diary of Anne Frank. I remember being gripped by the book. It was how I discovered about the Holocaust, about the Jews and Germans and WW2. And she wrote in such a chatty teenager way, that it was just like she was there, talking to me. I read the book in a few days, and was devastated at the end, when she died. I remember crying and crying, and thinking it was so unfair that she, who had believed so much in the goodness of mankind, had died so close to the Armistace. Across the years, she reached out her hand, and clasped mine. I even started a diary, in the same manner as she did, addressing it as Dear Kitty, though I very quickly thought that was copying and changed it to Dear Misty. And though things were very bad in my life over the years, it still was nothing compared to hers. What she survived for so long, gave me the courage to keep going in my own life. She really was, and still is, one of my heroines for my entire life. She is one person I do want to meet in the afterlife, and say thank you to.



3. You've mentioned a few times that you're also a writer. When did
you start writing? Do you find that writing you own fiction changed
the way you read? If so, how?
I started writing when I was about 11. At first it was poetry and short stories, and for a long time that is what I wrote. Recently I finished my first draft of my very first full-length novel. I don't think writing has changed how I read; but I have to be careful about what I read while I'm writing, because if I really like the author it might end up influencing my writing temporarily, although that is usually because I'm not certain about what I'm writing at the time - tone, or character, or setting. I did find last year while writing my novel that what i read didn't seem to affect my writing, so I'm hopeful this means my vision of the book is clear enough to keep influences out.
I usually know if reading a book is working for me if I don't rewrite a scene in my head! If I'm really unhappy with the book I'll rewrite the entire ending in my mind, or imagine what the characters could say or do instead if they are acting out of character for me. I don't like being jarred out of reading because something isn't right in the writing, and a really good book is one where everything is seamless and fits.


4. If you could pick one fiction character to be friends with, who
would it be? (I don't mind if you pick more than one :P)

-Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice. She is so lively and opinionated, so caring and kind, and so honest and generous, that I would dearly love to be her friend!
-Thursday Next from the Next series. Her sense of humour, her frailty, her love for her husband and crazy family, and the wonderful job she has in books! I love her dodo too, and how she earns the respects of the Neanderthals, and how she outwits Goliath every time. she's clever, she's funny, and she never gives up.
- Anne of Anne of Green Gables. How could anyone not want to be her friend? I hated Ruby and Josie and all the other girls who made fun of her at school. Actually, I think I wanted to be Anne while I was growing up! She was chatty, imaginative, friendly, and as open-hearted a girl as anyone could have for a friend.
- Dorothea Brooke from Middlemarch. Fiery, outspoken, determined, just, and ethical - she sounds frightening, and she could have been, except she is gentle and caring and soulful, and I know why Will fell in love with her.


5. If you had the chance to talk to a favourite author for a few
minutes, what would you tell them or ask them?

Well, if it was Neil Gaiman, I'm not sure I could get any words out. I'd be fanning myself and trying not to blush too hard. When I get near an author I truly like (and a good looking one at that) my brain freezes and I say the most inane things. It's really awful. I get really nervous and start giggling so I look slightly crazy. Just the idea of being in the same room with Neil makes me hyperventilate. So I'd have to pass him a note, before I passed out, and I'd ask: do you find, that having lived in two different countries, that you have to alter the words you choose sometimes? that you use words that are English in your books set in the US, and vice versa? (see I told you, even the idea of communicating with him via paper, all intelligent questions have left the building).

My second author would fare no better. This would be Stephen King, and I'm afraid I'd fall to the floor and look like I was bowing, and once down there I wouldn't move until he'd left the room. Stephen King! *tries to breathe*

Next choice: ok, she's dead. So I can imagine this would work better: Jane Austen.

Except I can't ask the normal things people who don't write, would ask: how do you get your ideas? etc, because I'm a writer, and I know very well where ideas come from - everywhere. Conversations, words on a page, some scenery, an idea that someone else ruined - you pick it up and make it better.....so the questions I would be most likely to ask any author, and that would be: have you dreamed anything that made it's way into your writing?

Charles de Lint: I can add here that I am not completely hopeless. I have had the honour of meeting and actually chatting with Charles de Lint over the years. He is a charming, sweet, very friendly, quiet man, whose writing I thoroughly enjoy. He is one of my favourite fantasy writers, and I love the Newford books. In all the times I met him I didn't embarrass myself too much, although once at a writers' meeting - he was guest of honour at our small group, as a favour to myself and my friend Jennifer, who he was really friends with - I scared everyone by saying that having pictures of dead people on the wall would be creepy with the eyes of the dead people always looking at you, following you around the room. See? He didn't say much to me that evening either, as I recall, after that! To be honest, he was writing a horror novel, and somehow the topic got on to dead bodies from crime scenes. Honest. So I thought I was making a valid point! Jennifer said after that he looked a bit scared of me.
He is someone who I would like to ask now, "has anything you dreamed made its way into your writing?"

Probably it's better if I don't try to go near any authors.

I very much enjoyed this meme! Nymeth asked me some very interesting questions, and I hope she - and you, my Gentle Readers - enjoyed my answers!

Now, if any of you would like me to ask you 5 questions, just leave me a comment, and I will contact you by email with the questions, as the meme says at the top. I'd love to interview someone!