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I'll get back to theme days once I find a groove of posting regularly. In the meantime, most of my posts are about some variation of books, bikes, buses, or Broadway. Plus bits about writing, nonprofits, and grief from time to time.

This blog is mostly lighthearted and pretty silly. It's not about the terrible things happening in the world, but please know that I'm not ignoring those things. I just generally don't write about them here.

14 December 2011

NaNoWriMo, UT Version

So I may have mentioned once or twice (or never-- it's been that kind of semester) that I started a NaNoWriMo/Script Frenzy club on campus with TARDIS Girl, co-conspirator extraordinaire. We decided to call ourselves Frenzied Novelists, because that was the best we could come up with to encompass both events. A couple of other people came along for the ride, and we have something like 55 people who have joined us in our noveling and other writing craziness (we're the only creative writing group-- that we know of-- at UT, so we've flung open our figurative doors to any creative writing types, not just novelists).

Our recruiting poster from earlier in
the semester.
The Sunday before NaNo ended, I got a couple of text messages from TARDIS Girl that someone from the Daily Texan (the campus newspaper) wanted to interview her. Which I thought was all well and good and fabulous-- the more publicity, the better, right? I was just sad that they waited until the end of NaNoWriMo to write about us, but hey, I'll take what we can get.

Later that afternoon, the intrepid reporter called me as well, so I spent the rest of the afternoon in an excited frenzy while I was also trying to do homework, finish my grad school applications, and write some more of my novel. The article (you can read it here, if you are interested) went live before I went to bed that night, and I read it quite happily until I came to this line: “I’m taking more hours this year than I did last year, but it’s actually been easier,” she said. “It’s definitely been an exercise in time management. You kind of get this feeling like you’re on drugs, like you always have to be doing something.”

Yes, that was me that said that. Or rather, me that didn't say that. I said the bit about time management, and I said the bit about always doing something, but I most definitely did not say anything about writing being like doing drugs. First of all, I have no basis for comparison, and secondly, that's not the sort of thing one says to a complete stranger who is writing down one's every word.

So the next morning, TARDIS Girl sends me as text wondering why on earth the reporter had chosen my quote about doing drugs. I told her I didn't know, considering that I never said it in the first place. And once we were done being mortified, we decided to have some fun with it, posting it all over Facebook and Twitter (we even made it onto one of the Twitter daily round-up things), as well as cutting out the article, highlighting my quote, and hanging it up in the Undergraduate Writing Center for the amusement of our coworkers.

A couple of days later, one of our coworkers told us about how last spring, the Daily Texan grossly misrepresented some activities of one of the fraternities on campus, so that the organization got lots of hate mail. Yikes! That makes this little goof seem rather small by comparison, being as we've yet to receive any mail at all.

Have you ever been interviewed? Misquoted? Both? What do you think I should say next time?

6 comments:

J E Fritz said...

Yikes. I thought the drugs comment was a little weird for you. I wonder where the writer pulled that from. I've been interviewed on blogs, which makes it easier not to be misquoted, but never in person. If the rest of what was quoted is true, then it sounds like you handled it fine.

Anonymous said...

I would say, "the finished article has to be approved by myself before it can be published".

Anonymous said...

TARDIS girl here. I wasn't exactly misquoted in my bit, but it seemed like the reporter wrote down the gist of what I was saying instead of what I actually said. It probably didn't help that when I gave my interview, I was in an airport with announcements going the entire time, and the reporter was tape recorder-less in her car.

Geez, I feel so pretentious. "When I gave my interview," haha.

Su said...

@JE: TARDIS Girl did point out that it's not exactly unlike me to make a drug-related joke, but again, NOT around strangers. And apparently, not on my blog, either. :)

@Delores: Gosh, wouldn't that be nice?

@TG: Your interview now sounds very dangerous.

Karen M. Peterson said...

Wow, that's pretty bad. I hate when reporters misrepresent people or situations.

I had an experience in 2008 when I was at a party at a political office and there were on-camera reporters present. They filmed a lot of our party that night, but by about 9:30 all the results were in and the party was dying down because we were all exhausted, but were hanging around for the 10:00 news. All the reporters said they were done and packing it in and that we should leave. I got home and turned on the news and one of the reporters was live at our office saying that we were so dejected by the outcome that we'd all basically abandoned the party.

I haven't watched that channel's news since.

Su said...

Oh, my word. I hope you all sent angry letters to them AND let their competition know!