When I stall out on one of the novels I’m writing and start wondering why I even try, I sometimes cheer myself up and get myself going again by indulging in the following daydream:

My first mainstream fantasy novel is published. It’s gotten some nice reviews, and people other than my family members are actually buying it and reading it. One day I get a call from Locus magazine; the fine editors thereof would like to interview me and put a flattering photograph of me on the cover of their publication.

I’m thrilled, since I’ve been reading Locus on and off for something like 25 years. The assigned interviewer emails me some preliminary questions, and they go something like this….

Actually, the following questions were posed by the fantabulous RaJ. Maybe if Locus ever actually does want to interview me, I can request that he do the job free-lance, because he’s really good at making up stuff to ask people.

1) You decide to write the story of your life as a series of novels, one book per decade. What are the titles?

Doh! RaJ, stop stealing ideas out of my head!

Decade 0-9: Michelle, Ma Belle (I went by my middle name until my junior year of high school; I used to think Paul McCartney wrote that song just for me.)
Decade 10-19: Message in a Bottle
Decade 20-29: Under the Blossom
Decade 30-39: The Smallest Seed

2) If you could make one trip through time – a minimum of one hundred years in the past – and visit with one person for an hour, whom would you want to meet and what would you ask or say?

Just one person? Just one hour? Okay, okay; I’ll quit whining.

I'd have a universal translator, right? If so, I would visit my ancestor Alice de Montmorency; she must have been terribly lonely while her husband, Simon de Montfort, was away at the Albigensian Crusade. I’d want to meet her children; I’d ask her for a tour of her house and grounds, all the while peppering her with questions about life at the court of Philip II.

3) In an odd coincidence, you too find yourself at the terminus of a trans-galactic wormhole, face to face with a genuine space alien. This alien comes from a world of Deep Thought, full of engineering and scientific marvels but no “society”; members of its race have lived in solitude and isolation for eons. The alien wants you to explain your best friend in fifty words or less (work with me here okay?). Given a few minutes to compose your answer, what would be your response?

My best friend is not essential, as your antennae are not, Gentle Alien; but would you want to live without them? Think psychic mirror; think completion of a two-part puzzle. Though Day and Night are pleasant in isolation, experienced together they complement one another in a joyous, eternal dance.

4) What is Luisa's kryptonite i.e. your "one" weakness, your point of vulnerability where your super powers seem to fail?

Pride. All my troubles stem from it; all my bad choices are born of it.

5) Multiple choice (you get to pick which one you want to answer):
a) How can you mend a broken heart?
b) Skip ahead a few years to a time when a human brain – thoughts, memories, the whole works – can be fully and verifiably "saved" and restored to and from digital media. For all practical purposes this would enable a person to persist for hundreds, even thousands of years using replacement "bodies," or even to exist without organic bodies as we know them. Do you think we would lose something essentially human in this process? Why or why not?

Though I enjoy those Bee Gees (and their late lamented foxy little brother), my inner/outer SF geek chooses b).

Digital storage of the contents of the brain would be cool, but I think this too, too solid flesh is crucial to the human experience. Creators of virtual reality are always seeking to make it more ‘real,’ i.e. truer to our normal perceptions. We can’t seem to do without the myriad sensate inputs that generally go unnoticed until they are gone.

More information than you probably want: I occasionally use a facial hair removal product on my upper lip; one time when Daniel was tiny, I got a little nuts and put it on my jawline as well.
I experienced almost instant regret. Rubbing my cheek on the top of my baby’s downy little head—an indulgence I savored at every possible opportunity—was much less pleasurable for at least a week. Those tiny hairs had been transmitters I had taken for granted, part of a sensual experience I wouldn’t ever trade for a slightly less hirsute visage.

Therefore I think the generation of replacement bodies—or the availability of forms incorruptible—would be key for life as we know and enjoy it to continue indefinitely.

Thanks, RaJ! That was good fun.