I gave my first in person interview a two weeks ago and today it came out in print. I didn’t say anything terribly embarrassing and I don’t look like a crazy person in the picture, so overall, it was a success. However, I can now honestly say there are few things more terrifying than a tape recorder.
I write for a lot of reasons, but one of those reasons happens to be that I like to have time to organize my thoughts. I can be shy, and I like to be relatively sure the world won’t collapse around my ears before I say something. When I write things down it gives me time to (hopefully) make sure that doesn’t happen. At an in person interview, with a reporter seated directly across the table from you, and a tape recorder between you soaking up every little pause and “umm” organizing my thoughts seems almost impossible.
However, no harm done (this first time out anyway). I appreciate that I didn’t come off as unhinged or boring (so I thank my kind interviewer for working his magic on the article, since I’m sure I didn’t sound quite so composed on every answer I gave him). But anyway, one down, hopefully one day there will be more to go.