On Being Interviewed by a Reporter

As some of you saw in my Facebook and Twitter feeds, I had an interview today with a reporter from the Lewiston Sun Journal. She plans on having an article in tomorrow’s paper, so you can check there in the morning and see how it ended up.

It wasn’t a particularly long interview–maybe 25 minutes or so. But it did feel kind of surreal, in a “why in the world does this woman actually want to interview me” sort of a way. Don’t get me wrong–I’m glad to have been interviewed, and I’d happily do it again. It’s just that I still don’t really feel like an “author.”

Of course, I’m not sure when that feeling will finally set in–or if it ever will. When I go to conferences and sit on panels, when I go to dinners with other authors, I feel like an author then for a bit. An hour or two. But then I leave the dinner or the panel ends, and I’m back to just being me.

I think that’s the way life is a lot of the time. You think that when you get something you’ve wanted for a long time–when you finally reach a goal or finish a long task–that you’ll Feel Different. Not that trumpets will blare or someone will pop out from around a corner with balloons and confetti, but that something will change. There will be a difference in the you before that event and the you afterward.

There’s no difference.

I wrote for 11 years without being published by a New York publisher. I’ve now had a book in print for a little over a week. I’ve got 10 years of experience being an aspiring author, 1 year of experience being a soon-to-be-published author, and now 1 week of experience being a published author.

I guess it makes sense that I still feel like a pretender.

Or maybe it’s that I keep waiting for someone to pop out from around the corner with a camera to tell me that this was all an elaborate prank.

In any case, that’s all I have for you today. See ya’ll tomorrow. (Or not–I’ll be in Boston for much of the day. Not sure if I’ll have something for the blog or not. So keep an eye out for that newspaper article. It might be all you get from me.)

And mega-kudos to you if you get the movie film reference for today. I went pretty out there this time.