Comments on: Another interview

By: bloglily

bloglily — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:19:38 +0000

I like the bit about the woman loving you when you’d done nothing to deserve it. I think some of the best things that happen to us feel that way.

jb says: Hi Bloglily. And some of the worst things feel exactly the opposite.

By: Steve Clackson

Steve Clackson — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 14:25:09 +0000

I had left a comment at Joe Blog’s Blog about your wonderful cranium covering device and now he has sent me an interview…see what you’ve started!

jb says: I’m looking forward to reading that one, Steve.

By: crimeficreader

crimeficreader — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 19:20:55 +0000

I agree on the funniest entry! I have very strong memories of that post. Thanks for the reminder and another laugh…

jb says: Writing funny. That’s difficult.

By: Susan Abraham

Susan Abraham — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 12:33:49 +0000

A paradox, John. Playful round the edges to the portrayal of a serious writer. It worked.

By: Susan Abraham

Susan Abraham — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 10:37:15 +0000

I agree with Reading the Signs, John. First thing I wanted to say, was that the photo is tops.
btw, so is your vocation!
Also, yes, it was tongue-in-cheek. You offered a humorous slant.

jb says: In retrospect it was a little flippant. Must have been a flippant day.

By: Reading the Signs

Reading the Signs — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 22:21:36 +0000

Yes, the photo is dead cool. I’m not saying it isn’t down to your natural good looks, but the effect of the clothes and all present a very different image to the one on your blog. If it’s not impertinent to ask, where did you get the jacket and hat?

jb says: The hat’s a Borsalino, I think, and it’s been in the family a long time. The jacket came from a charity shop, Help-the-Aged if I remember correctly.

By: blue girl

blue girl — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:46:54 +0000

That was a great interview! I really enjoyed it — and I second Paul’s opinion about your photo.

“Tell us about a good deed you have done recently.”

“I chased a big pigeon away so a crippled blackbird could get at some crumbs.”

You are a good person, too.

/smiles

jb says: You should have heard what the pigeon said.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 11:29:10 +0000

Lovely interview – lots of humour – great photo.

What you said about the commitment that the writing process demands made me wonder yet again, why I do it. I have to confess that if it was truly a “burning urge” that could not be denied I would have started much earlier. Yet it seems to have become that now, in whatever form.

My Dad who was much brighter than he gave himself credit for, said it was ego with me. Being a bit naive in some respects, it took me by surprise when he said it. But I have to admit it’s true, not in the respect that I want to be famous, and I certainly don’t want to be a “celebrity”. I just want to be able to say I’ve done it – written something that people want to read – communicated on a different level with people I will never meet – set myself a challenge and met it – left some faint sign that I was once here.

My Dad’s gone now and will never see me published, but he read some of my short stories and enjoyed them. He even tried to read my novel, but never finished it. In a sense that was enough. He knew me far better than I usually gave him credit for.

jb says: There’s the possibility, Paul, that if you don’t respond adequately to the itches, they accumulate and finish up as the famous “burning urge”.
And yes, ego is there, always with the novel. The novel is unthinkable without it.
“Left some faint sign that I was once here.” Almost back to the discussion on identity again. That tendency to have to equate identity with a kind of permanence when we know, deep down, that it’s a shifting thing.