[Edit: It’s late Tuesday night, and I just finished reading through the hundreds of questions, and answer the ones that stuck me as being interesting/amusing. It took me a while to get to the last page worth of comments, because I had to take a break to mail out some t-shirts.
I had a good time with this one. Thanks for playing along.]
A while back, I offered people the chance to ask me questions down in the comment section of the blog. Nothing really deep, just fun questions that would never get asked in a real interview. Little questions. A flurry of little questions. It’s sort of like a machine gun interview.
It turned out to be fun, and I’ve done a few of them since then.
It’s been about three months since I did one, so I figured we were about due.
With previous Machine Gun Q&A, I only accepted questions for an hour or two before I shut things down. But today I’ve decided to try something a little different.
I’m going to accept questions for all of Monday.
This changes the game a little bit. Before, you needed to hurry to get your question in before the time was up. But now that’s not an issue. You have plenty of time.
This time, the challenge will be coming up with a question interesting enough that I’ll want to answer it instead of the hundreds of others. Because I only answer the questions that amuse me in one way or another.
Here are the rules. Read them before you post:
1. You can ask any question.
2. Bite sized questions are best. I’m not looking to write essays here. Think popcorn, not steak.
2b. One question per comment. No multi-part questions.
2c. Don’t post 20 desperate, flailing questions hoping that I’ll answer one of them. Post one or two clever questions instead.
3. I reserve the right to ignore your question.
3b If I ignore your question, it’s not because I hate you. It’s probably just because I don’t have anything witty to say on the subject.
4. I reserve the right to lie, or at least be wildly inaccurate.
5. Complete sentences, punctuation, and spelling words out in their entirety is encouraged. I’m more likely to pass over your question if it contains abhorrences like “ur.”
6. Nobody can make fun of your question.
6b. Except for me.
7. If I’ve already answered the question in a blog or one of my innumerable interviews, I’m going to pass over it.
7b. If a lovely person wants to post up links to where those answers can be found, that would be very much appreciated.
7c. That said, please don’t answer questions on my behalf. Just links to my answers are best.
8. I won’t answer spoiler-ish questions about the book.
9. I reserve the right to delete unanswered questions so people reading the blog later have an easier time navigating the comments.
10.
I’m not going to answer questions about the upcoming tour. All the answers to those questions will be posted up in a separate Tour FAQ blog that I’ve been lovingly assembling for a couple weeks now…
