From October 22, 2013
Last night I listened to the interview I did on the Steel on Steel radio program. I’ll try to post it here tomorrow; my Tech Support staff isn’t available on weekends.
I fielded all the questions quickly, never said “uh” or “um” or “y’know,” generated a few bone-tickling witticisms, and did the best I could.
But I don’t know what to do about my voice. It’s horrible. I sound like I’m 110 years old. Even my wife said I sounded “like an old man”–and a little old man, to boot.
I’ve always had this problem. Many years ago, when I was still just thirtysomething, I was trying to get something done on the phone, and it just wasn’t happening. After quite a while, the operator said she’d have to hand me off to someone else. The next thing I heard was this:
“Samantha, I have an elderly gentleman here who needs help.”
“I wasn’t elderly when we started this!” I cried.
What am I gonna do? I need to do every radio appearance I can, because I need the exposure for my books. But my voice! The horror, the horror! And I don’t know ahead of time what the questions are going to be, so I can’t write the answers and hire somebody else to pretend to be me.
Squawk, squawk, creak… Your screen door doesn’t need oiling: that’s only me.