That’s me not as Butch Dalisay (the guy who writes about his computers, his cat, his Parkers and Pelikans, his stupid missteps halfway around the planet, and his strange aversion to cheese) but as Jose Y. Dalisay Jr., that curmudgeonly but marshmallow-hearted purveyor of gloomy fiction and ribald drama – in other words, the perfect target of paper-topic seekers taking a break from their Counter-Strike and World of Warcraft studies (am only kidding, guys, I know you’d rather be talking about the prose of Nick Joaquin any old time).
I do my best to indulge these requests –knowing, perhaps, that the day will come when I’ll be thankful for the most perfunctory question thrown my way, and also because I can’t resist playing teacher and telling kids a thing or two about writing and the writing life. (My short advice: if you can’t write well enough and aren’t prepared for a life of hardship, don’t. Do yourself and the world a favor – study dentistry, accounting, liposuction, automotive mechanics, or some such useful skill).
Last week I was besieged by a horde of students from a high school nearby, all of whom had apparently received the same assignment to seek out a "well-known writer" and to pick his/her brains. Fair enough, I thought; at least the kids were going to realize that there was such a living, breathing organism as a Filipino writer (never mind the "well-known"; as my friend Charlson says, we’re all "legends in our own minds").
The series of interviews largely went well, and I was pleased by the intelligence of many of the questions that came my way. In a couple of instances, however, I found myself having to repeat my litany of interview do’s and don’ts, which I’ll be noting down here today for the sake of all you people out there whose academic and professional lives depend on getting something intelligible, useful, and interesting out of another human being’s mouth. I’ll be speaking here not just for me but for everyone who’s ever been interviewed and will likely be interviewed again, drawing on my experience from both sides of the Q and A. Got your pen and paper, boys and girls?
First, okay, bring pen and paper, since the act of taking notes imprints notes in your brain as well as it will do on paper, but by all means bring a tape recorder or a digital voice recorder with you to the interview. I’m not the Dalai Lama, and I have no illusions that everything I say will mean money in the bank for you, but I take great care to craft my words, and some statements I make will be so balanced or nuanced that their meaning will likely change with a loose paraphrase. I don’t expect you to use all my words, certainly not, but I’d like you to be able to refer to the tape itself if something I said wasn’t particularly clear. Also, like all interviewees, I hate being quoted or taken out of context, so I’d like to have that context in a voice recording.
Speaking of recorders, check to make sure that yours works before the interview. Put in fresh batteries, or bring spares. That goes for the tape itself – make sure you’re not over-writing a previous and possibly more important recording (like your dad’s business meeting), and when you’re done with our interview, don’t forget to punch out those little plastic tabs to render the recording permanent.
Consider newer, better alternatives to the old tape recorder. Aside from stand-alone digital recorders, many MP3 players and even PDAs or smartphones can now double as voice recorders, with the advantage that you can often download the voice track directly onto your computer as a .Wav or .mp3 file that you can listen to at your leisure and even carry with you in your iPod. (I’ll admit that I will find you very strange if you were to stroll in Greenbelt or on the beach, listening to me perorate on characterization.) I’d give my right arm for a digital transcriber – something that will turn a taped interview or speech into editable text – but that’ll be the day when they design and train one to pick up every inflection of Pinoy English.
Second, read up on your subject before going to the interview. If you interview me, I’ll expect you to have read something I’ve written, so you can ask me more specific questions about my work than that most annoying and revealing of questions, "Uh, what have you written?" There’s always Google to make your life easier (and mine), and if you spend even just two minutes Googling "Butch Dalisay" you’ll find a web page where I’ve helpfully posted my résumé, just in case some publisher’s looking for an author to describe the flora and fauna on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro.
I’m a nice guy so I won’t ask you to vanish pronto if I find that you’re asking me questions about substance and style without having read a word I’d written, but I know authors, artists, and musicians who’ve done that with their haplessly ignorant interviewers. We will have a mutually miserable half-hour or hour together if you can’t ask me anything of value, because I’m not going to make an extra effort to clarify things for you if you haven’t made an extra effort to do your homework. And please – unless you want me to get really nasty – don’t ever suggest to me that you’re busier than I am, because you’re being driven to school and fed by your folks and you’re not writing three books, copyediting two magazines, teaching four classes, supporting a household, and moderating a couple of geek forums at the same time.
Third, don’t ever, ever ask me what my stories mean. It’s my job to write the story, and yours to figure it out. I can answer questions about the writing of the story – what I had in mind; when, where, and how it was written; and what source I may have drawn this or that image or object from – but I will not interpret my story for you. That’s not because I’m just being stingy or obstinately difficult, but because the work now exists independently of its author, and whatever the author says of it shouldn’t shape (and maybe spoil) your own appreciation of its meaning. (Shameless plug: the UP Press will soon be coming out with my book of Selected Stories – including three stories I haven’t included yet in any of my collections – and for this book I wrote a preface giving a brief "story behind the story"; also in the works is a collection of all the writing-related pieces I’ve produced for this column plus other essays on creative writing, tentatively titled The Knowing Is in the Writing: Notes on the Craft of Fiction, for publication in early 2005. In other words, your other questions should be answered there.)
Fourth, say "thank you" afterwards. Gifts aren’t necessary and I’d really rather that you drop whatever it is you’ll be spending for that coffee mug or that pen for me into those cans at the checkout counter for the benefit of orphans or missing persons. (Speaking of such tokens, I’ve gently asked people inviting me to speak or to lecture before their groups to forgo the usual "plaque of appreciation" – of which I have enough to build a shack – and to give me instead any good book, even a dictionary, that I can add to my library or donate to a school.) Sometimes we just forget that nothing works better than a sincere word of note of thanks, or some such gesture; if you present a play of mine and I give you permission to use it without a fee, I’d appreciate a copy of the poster and program, and maybe a pair of tickets (whether or not I can actually make it to the performance), just for my documentation. That’s not too much to ask, is it?