INTERVIEWS STIMULATING....

By Olivene Godfrey

A new writer once wrote that she had found the pattern of an interview taking an unexpected turn. She suddenly realized she was being interviewed -- that the roles of the reporter and the subject had been switched. I smiled when I read about the reporter's interview in which she found herself answering more questions than she was asking.

This has happened to me, too, and such subjects are usually individuals who have an intense curiosity about almost everything and everybody. They make interesting reading as subjects of articles even though they keep you on your toes. Such interviews are stimulating and fun. But, you have to use ingenuity and self-control to obtain information about your subject before the interview is over.

The need for self-control is that talking about oneself can be heady stuff, especially for the writer. But, I guess that when you are in a profession where your success depends largely upon public recognition and acceptance (writers, actors, politicians, etc...) you have to be pretty much of a ham anyway.

Many people who aren't in such professions find it difficult to understand why anyone would deliberately seek personal publicity. Shy introverts usually find such publicity embarrassing. Such people could never become politicians as they'd be too modest to say, they were better for the job.

Now, there is a difference between conceit and self-confidence. There may be a thin line between them but a difference does exist. Conceit is an exaggerated estimate of one's ability and importance. On the other hand, self-confidence means to have confidence in one's ability, one's judgment and so forth.

You may have noticed that often the person who has let a bit of success go to his head tends to rest on his laurels. He forgets there is standing room only at the top, with no room to sit down. And one can't rest very often on the way up the mountain to success. There's always am eager beaver right behind you, just waiting to take your place.

Surely every new writer gets a special thrill when they see their work in print for the first time. They can't help but savor every word printed under that shiny byline and that's how I felt when I started writing many years ago.

I still enjoy seeing by-lines but I read my work now for self-criticism. Also, while I couldn't quote verbatim anything I've ever written, I can spot at once a changed word, or any form of editing, in the published piece. And when I spot changes
I have to find out "why". I confess that I usually agree with the reasons for changes in my copy. I try not to remember why so it won't happen again.

But, there is danger in too much self-criticism. The critic that lives in all of us will question at once the seed of an idea. So, it's best to play around with an idea before rejecting it as stale or dull.