A Writer's Journey Continued

It seems like it would be ever so simple to talk about your own book, doesn't it? The book that you worked on day after day, month after month...the book that you fabricated from thin air, the book that no one on earth knows better than you.

Oh, that it were so.

I've been to the extremes of interviews this week. A podcast interview yesterday lasted over an hour (73 minutes, to be exact). Another tarried for 20 minutes, and a live radio interview this morning was over in 4 minutes flat.

Which do you think was hardest?

If you said the quickie radio chat, you're right. I was nervous before it ever started, knowing that the time limit was five minutes or less. It's essential to be concise and well spoken in those cases, neither of which is my forte. I was even more feather-headed than usual at 9 AM for some reason, and it didn't help that I was scheduled to call the station instead of them calling me. After mis-dialing the number twice and dropping the phone on the cat, at the first "hello," I was put directly on the air without a format briefing or introduction to the co-hosts.

My brain immediately froze.

During the rapid-fire questions, I couldn't remember the name of my first book, my children, or how many pets I currently have (what does all that have to do with writing Mom Needs Chocolate, anyway?). Then I had a major tongue cramp and muttered "um" in six languages and three octaves before finally spitting out something semi-coherent.

It was a prime example of Mom REALLY needing chocolate. Or Prozac.

Anyway, now that everyone along the central eastern coast of the United States thinks I routinely hit the cooking sherry before my Grape Nuts, I'm sincerely considering canceling any further voice interviews before 1 PM.

Or calling my next book, "Godiva for Breakfast Melts Your Mind."

Attack of the Slug Beast

Well, I lived through the dreaded radio interview this morning and the twisted knot that is my stomach is starting to unwind.

I shared with you last week about my radio phobia but my publicist doesn't seem to comprehend the magnitude of my psychosis and has scheduled yet another one for tomorrow with Reach FM (90 stations in Florida). Sigh.

I know. You're sitting there in your nice safe computer chair thinking, "Oh, get over yourself." You see? Now my psychosis is morphing into paranoia.

Actually, the two radio interviews I've done so far haven't been as bad as I anticipated. The anticipation is always worse than the actual thing we're dreading, isn't it? Except maybe an execution.

This morning a lovely lady named Takiela (pronounced like the drink)from Books-A-Latte (www.Booksalatte.com if you'd like to hear the taped interview) called me about five minutes before the scheduled Podcast. We introduced ourselves and she put me on hold while she got connected to her broadcast equipment. Within about two minutes, I heard a click and then her theme music and intro. I resisted the temptation to flee. Then she introduced her special guest, me.

Boy did I feel un-special as the sweat beaded on my forehead and my dripping armpits glued my Dumbo-flap upper arm cellulite to my sides. My tongue felt about the size of that gigantic underground killer slug beast in "Tremors." Once I forgot Takiela's name and started to call her Margarita, but managed to bite the slug beast before it got all the way above ground.

Anyhow, Takiela began asking me the questions I had previously provided to my publicist, who had in turn, e-mailed these "talking points" to the host. This is how radio and TV interviews work so everyone supposedly knows what everyone else is going to say and long awkward silences are therefore avoided.

Since my brain has been leaking essential information like a sieve lately, I had somehow forgotten to have my "script" available so I ended up winging the answers off the top of my head. Thankfully, Takiela was a gracious host and did not once hint that I wasn't making any sense or repeating myself. We actually had a few genuine laughs together and bonded over our mutually pathetic choc-addictions (the book we were discussing was my upcoming March release, Mom Needs Chocolate).

I vow to be better prepared for tomorrow's interview. Yeah, right.