30 May 2009
ljm:
I am bad at interviewing people. I avoid situations in which I have to talk to anyone’s press agent…I do not like to make telephone calls, and would not like to count the mornings I have sat on some Best Western motel bed somewhere and tried to force myself to put through the call to the assistant district attorney. My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: Writers are always selling somebody out.
- Joan Didion
This is true. I try to keep my intentions pure, but this is true. Always squabbling away pieces of stories and conversations and secrets like a rodent, to use for later.
It so is. And it is scary that I always come across this quote when I am feeling confused about whether or not I should use some of those secrets, those conversations.
It is also scary how absolutely me the first part of the quote is. That pretty much sums up why I left journalism…phone calls are agonizing!
