Recently, I did an interview for A Note of Madness, a Danish book blog. I submitted my answers in English and they were translated into Danish. That means that if you're like me and don't speak Danish, you can't actually understand what's on the page. I did try copying and pasting the interview into Google Translator. Most of it made sense that way, but some of it was more hilarious than I meant it to be.
Remember when that contest was going on in December 2010 (all the way back then) where two lucky entrants won copies of Freefall and scarves knitted by the author of Freefall?
Yeah, so, what the author failed to mention is that she isn't much of a knitter and hadn't even picked up needles in, like, six years. And, in fact, she was promising stripes even though she'd never knitted a scarf that wasn't a solid color.
What was she thinking?
Anywho. Her first attempt at a Hufflepuff scarf fell apart. Literally. It was a sad, sad day because she had spent SO MUCH time making that thing and it was totally done and then very bad things happened. As it turned out, though, its purpose was to have been a practice scarf. It taught her how to do several knitting things she'd never done (such as changing colors and removing messed up rows). Hooray!
And now new scarves have been made and will be sent away to the winners:
Oh, and look! Here are those same scarves modeled by the author's husband and resident Gryffindor type as well as the Hufflepuff-ish author who happens to be mixing stripes with polka dots with more stripes.
What a time, what a time.
The bloggers who run Murphy's Library recently gave readers the opportunity to ask me questions. Afterward, they compiled my answers and posted them to the blog. It's a pretty substantial post -- I answered over 20 questions, I believe -- mostly about reading and writing!
The ladies who run The Reading Lark are holding their first contest and the prize is a signed copy of Freefall! To enter to win, just fill out their form before February 8th. Good luck!
I already posted the link on Twitter and Facebook, but I thought I'd just talk a tiny bit about the interview I did at Simon & Schuster here on my blog.
As you might or might not know, I visited New York four days after Freefall came out. During my first few days there, I did my first-ever book signing at Books of Wonder with ten other authors, hung out with my editor and agent, visited the Simon & Schuster offices, and did this interview thingy.
I'd been making vlogs all summer with my intern, so by October, I felt like I was getting somewhat better at speaking in the direction of a camera without wanting to die. I have to say, though, that answering questions in an all-black room with four people watching me was a different vibe than chilling with my intern at the park. When I'd lose my train of thought mid-sentence, I still had the urge to laugh and/or curse, but I think I held back from the latter, at least. Mostly. I actually found myself sweating at the realization that my answers weren't flowing as easily as I'd expected. And I think I even apologized to my editor a couple of times in the middle of the interview because I'd wanted to be smoother on the first try at talking about my own book.
Luckily, the video editing guys are good (and so's the lighting, am I right?). I watched the video once and I feel like I pronounced the word "and" strangely. Like "ant"? I don't know. Do I always talk like that? And why do I have the urge to go all behind-the-scenes like this and reveal what you really didn't need to know? It's all part of my charm, yes?
No?
Oh.
Anyway! Here's the video! In case you missed it last week and don't want to continue missing it There are some insights to be had. My own mother said that she learned new things from watching it, so there you go!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKOFthd4P54&w=640&h=390]
