Confusion Interview

Posted on by scott

About a year ago, Justine and I were guests of honor at High Voltage Confusion, a yearly convention in Detroit. As we blogged here and here, we had an incredible time and met lots of lovely people.

Our introduction to the local folks was via a long interview with blogmeister John Scalzi, best known for his crankiness at the Whatever. He asked us the usual stuff about ourselves and our work, but then we branched into a far-ranging discussion of YA. I listened to the interview recently, and it was one of those, “Huh, I was pretty smart that day” things.

It really sums up my thinking about our field, and Justine is also on song. So if you’ve got a spare, um, close to an hour(!) forty-five minutes, take a listen.

After you click here, you have to scroll down to “Teh Awesome Duo—Revealed!”

And if listening to me and Justine pontificate for that long is too much, there’s always . . . hoverboards!

164 thoughts on “Confusion Interview”

  1. Ah, I’ve said this before haven’t I? But still. Happy New Year. It’s back to school tomorrow.

    I was also wondering, if Bixby had those spectacular fireworks at midnight, then the midnighters would have an hour with a sky-ful of frozen fireworks. I mean, how cool would that be?!

    Audrey-Sensei: ‘Bubble-headed Elle’ = LOL. Brings to mind of another equally bubble-headed character named Elle, in heroes.

  2. Lex : i do to but i can’t find anything scott-la please tell us if there is going an uglies movie for sure and when the auditions are

  4. Eclipse: I just know that the movie has been announced.. you can look on IMDB.com and type in Uglies and it says so. it isn’t coming out until 2011 though D:

  6. oh my gosh i want one of those so bad! they look so cool! still not like how i pictured them in uglies but still cool!!!!

  8. My stomach kind of hurts. I dotn know why im telling you that but i am.

    In other news, i wont be on for a few days. i will be checkign in when i can though.

    My stomach still doesnt feel to good.

  9. I really dont know why i even posted that comment. It was totally random and i dont think anyone really cares. Oh well.

  10. HAPPY NEW YEAR 2 EVERYBODY!!!!! mine was like ummm…..well its 4:14pm now on Jan.1….so u do the math. i spent new years eve w/my friend Keri @her house. her parents were@a party, so i went over 2make her less bored. we didn’t even realize it was the new year until my mom called.

  15. yeah happy NY!!!!!

    Bran-la:I CARE TOO!

    um, but yeah how 2009 4 u guys so far?;D
    i havent gotten to do much but sleep and go see Marly+Me(OMG!i was like soooo close to tears,i was really hard not to cry!)
    but other than that i have done nothing

  16. I haven’t slept in over 24 hours. Yet I’m totally wide awake, it’s starting to scare me. I wanna see Marly and Me! Everyone says it’s really sad!

  18. Yeah! I am cared for. How nice! And all your caring went a long way…my stomach doesnt hurt anymore!

    I am making brownies. But not just brownies, they are brownie pops because you put them in the freezer and then you dip them in MORE chocolate. Talk about weight gain, right?

  19. Um, I have sleeping problems anyways so I don’t get a ton usually. It’s kinda weird. Sometimes I’ll be really tired cuz of it, but sometimes I’ll be hyper. Woah, Bran-la those sound amazing! Lol, I think I gained like 5 pounds just thinking about them, not good! Lmao…jkjk.

  20. Bran-la: mmmmmm!!!! that sounds sooo good right now. mmmmm!!!! sure u may gain a pound or 2 by eating those, but who cares as long as they taste good.=D

  22. Bran-la: Must. Have. Brownie pop! They sound sooo good. Chocolate covered in chocolate (covered in chocolate) is very close to (if not at) the top of my list of favorite things. 🙂

    Scott, who is your agent??? I’m currently looking into literary agents and could use some help finding a good one.

    Click my name. Read my blog. Comment on my blog. Love my blog. 😀

  23. lex: There will definitely be auditions for the parts of Tally and Shay, etc. However, I can pretty much guarantee you that they won’t be open casting calls. You have about two years to get an agent. Good luck.

    Trish-la: What? Elle from Heroes was not bubble-headed! She was the most adorable and messed up character in the entire show and I was so sad when (SPOILER) Sylar killed her.

    Oh yeah, and this is my first post on Westerblog in 2009! How exciting is that?

    An extra for now. 😉

  25. Haha, Abby, have you ever seen Mythbusters? Basically, to make a hoverboard, they strapped a leafblower to an innertube thing. Uglies hoverboards are still about 300 years away.

    An extra for now. 😉

  29. I’m going to try to build a hover board this summer.
    My dad’s going to help me. We’re going to get a leaf blower at first and then some thing stronger (lawn mover engine?) and use some king of propeller to generate enough wind.

  30. Audrey-sensei: oh my gosh…i saw that episode of mythbusters!!!!!! i totally wanted to go out and build my own mythbuster’s hoverboard, but alas, it happens to cost money.
    Bran-la: those brownies sound yummy……

  32. Audrey-Sensei: She was in Season 2…. but that was when we didn’t know her as much. She was all ‘Daddy can I keep him.’ and ‘I wanna zap you’. She became my favourite sociopath in S3 and I was so upset when she d***, I was just starting to get into the whole Syelle thing and then they k***** her. How unfair was that?

    Bran-la: The brownies sounds really really tasty. And I’m getting hungry thinking of it.. mmm

    Ashley-wa: Go finish your home work and you can go play!! Or at least post here on Westerblog.

  33. well….i haven’t started my homework yet, but i will. maybe Sunday night or early Monday morning.=D

  36. Ohhh we made one of those in school last year! It was fun! Except this one kid pushed me off on accident. lol it’s kind of dangerous. I wish I had a real hoverboard!

  38. Andrea-la: Darn that money! It always ruins everything…

    Trish-la: True. Very true. But what about those flashbacks to when she was working with Bennet? That made everything make sense, but it wasn’t very consistent with her Season 2 characteristics. She could have had her memory erased by ominous Bob, but she still remembered the incident with Sylar when she saved him from committing suicide, so idk. It could have just been bad writing.

    Elle is a really bubble-headed name after all. Maybe it’s because it’s also a name of that magazine.

    An extra for now. 😉

  40. hey! how’s it going?

    i hate homework too. it sucks and i’ve got a ton to do still. i go back monday. 🙁 and then i have finals on thursday and friday. isn’t that stupid? we go on break for 2 weeks and then have to take finals after we’ve forgotten everything. my school is dumb.

  43. mmm…brownies…(I was reading the rest of the posts thinking about them…)

    Homework sucks. It’s like teachers assign you homework over break so you forget and get in trouble. Doxheaded teachers.

    Happy New Year! (just a couple days late…)

    I wish I had a burn-things-with-your-eyes fairy. I would burn my school…

    Have a nice day/evening!

  44. Jay-wa: I totally agree. We go back to school Monday and I have to do not one, but TWO essays. grant it, they’re somewhat fun and creative, but they’re still hard and a relatively big part of my grade. If *I* had a fairy, it would be a Good-grade fairy. I wouldn’t need it in, say English, but I would definitely use it to get an A in Chemistry and Algebra 2/Trig.

    Actually, I do have a fairy. It’s a fabulous Handbag-fairy. I can always find great purses that look adorable and are (usually) affordable. And I can fit *anything* and everything in them. Once, I snuck a full liter of Arizona Iced tea into a movie theater for my friend’s birthday by hiding it in my Dolce and Gabana knockoff. And you couldn’t even tell.

    That’s my story for today.

    An extra for now. 😉

  45. I was listening to the interview (yay! most important sci-fi writer! finally) and it sounded like some one was pouring water during it…I loved the interview! Justine sounds awesome! And now I finally know how to say her last name! It was vastly hilarious and informative!

    Audrey-sensei: I think it’s bogus you can’t bring your own food into theaters!! That sounds like a totally doos fairy!

    Ps Sci-Fi is not dead!

  46. i NEED to update my blog….but alas, i haven’t the time. for now, i am writing another short story, or as my friends would call it, short novel. i swear, i WON’T go over 20 pages this time. i mean, really, how much is there to write about a girl trapped in a blizzard with a stranger gripping her arm, not letting her go? this one wont be too long.

  47. Andrea-la: Sounds to me like she’s going to die on the first page.

    Jay-wa: I think it’s totally cool how we are starting to combine Pretty talk *and* NA slang. Maybe someday, this new lingo will escape from the internet and enter our conversations at school. That would be interesting.

    And I think “littlies” is Australian slang, not made up, but I’m not from Australia, nor have I ever been there, so I’m not sure.

    An extra for now. 😉

  49. Andrea-la: Okay, that’s good. I’m working on my AP Euro homework. At least it’s kind of an interesting assignment, because it’s a story about a person in the time period we’re working on. Historical fiction is fun, so I don’t mind it so much.

    An extra for now. 😉

  50. I have a question for everyone that’s read Love is Hell. The last story in there is LoveStruck by Melissa Marr. Am I the only one that thinks the song I’m Yours by Jason Mraz totally fits it? It came on the radio this morning and I was like Woah! Sounds like an interesting story Andrea-la.

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