Internal Interview

“Good morning.”

“Who are you?”

“I am you.”

“Me? You mean I am talking to myself?”

“Yes, in a way.”

“What do I want to talk about?”

“You.”

“Ah, my favorite subject.”

“You do that a lot don’t you.”

“I do what a lot?”

“You try to be funny when you are uncomfortable.”

“So this is not going to be funny?”

“It can be, if that is what you wish.”

“No, I think this is not going to be funny. Funny is for others. This is for me.”

“Then let’s get this interview rolling. Tell me who you are.”

“I am Jim.”

“No, that is your name. Who are YOU? Think of this as a “What” question.”

“I am a dad. Is that what you are looking for?”

“Exactly! While being a dad is important, there must be more to you than that.”

“Okay, let’s see … I am a husband, a management consultant and a passable cook so long as chicken is involved.”

“That’s good so far. It there anything that you are not, that you want to be?”

“You mean like King of the World?”

“There’s that humor again.”

“Okay … yes, there is something I want to be. I want to be a writer.”

“A writer? Interesting. What would that be like?”

“I guess I would sit around all day and write stories.”

“What kind of stories?”

“I am not sure about that. I once thought that I would like to write science fiction with a soul, the kind of stories Orson Scott Card writes.”

“I like him. He is one of our favorites.”

“I also want to write funny stories … like Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.”

“This is our favorite book of all time.”

“I also want stories that make me cry. I wrote one like that a couple of months ago. I actually cried over some story I made up. How does something like that happen? Where did that story come from?”

“Why do you think you want to write?”

“This may seem strange, but I have always been drawn to it. I would see a situation or think of something and suddenly it would occur to me that I could write a story about that.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I am a math person. I tend to be analytical. I have never been anything other than average when it comes to the English language.”

“So you thought that to be a writer, you should have gotten A’s in grammar when you were a student?”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

“I write because it feels like that is what my soul wants me to do. I don’t know where my stories come from but they flow into my computer. Once I start a story, I keep writing to see what is going to happen next. This is not like I thought it would be.”

“So, become a writer. It fits you.”

“Yes, that is it. It fits me.”

“So write.”

“I intend to do just that.”

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