After reading Fishnets in the Far East, I still had questions and was burning to meet the author. She seemed like such an interesting person. So, lucky me, she agreed to give me an improvised interview with my laptop and her cell phone. I took out part of my babbling, so you will see glitches. I hope the content is enough to overcome the form.
I was right, she IS a very interesting person and we talked about her books, her trips and life. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
So, right here you will find a video, with the audio interview and some pictures of her book, below it, a slightly cleaned up version of the chat we had as a transcript, and at the end Michele’s contact info so you can get her books and follow her news (stay tuned, as the new book is about to be released).
Enjoy!
A: “We are with Michelle E. Northwood. Hi Michelle, how are you?”
M: “Hi, I’m fine, thank you, and thank you for inviting me.”
A: “Oh, I’m so excited! I just finished reading your book and I loved it. I have so many questions! You wrote this book, which is Fishnets in the Far East and then another one in Japan?”
M: “Yes, that’s in the process of being published at the moment.”
A: “Oh, okay okay great! So, tell me about the book. How did you manage to remember everything? Did you take notes?”
M: “I actually kept a diary from the moment that I got off the plane I decided that this was going to be an experience of a lifetime and I decided I should buy a book and and take notes of everything that happened. So then a few years ago I came across the diary and as I was reading it I thought really I should make this into a book”
A: “Yes, it’s amazing. I noticed a couple of things. Specially what struck me the most was that fact that you actually went through your own hero’s journey. It’s so amazing to see! Because, when we write about the Hero’s Journey we are trying to replicate that, and you actually lived it!”
M: “Yes.”
A: “Ok, tell me about kimchi.”
M: “Kimchi is made from various vegetables mainly cabbage and they ferment it and I believe it takes a few months, I can’t actually remember, how long but they leave it to ferment and then they add all different spices to it it is very very picante very spicy and I don’t I don’t like spicy things but even other people that do found that very strong and it’s supposed to have every single vitamin and mineral that exists so the Koreans swear by it and they eat it basically with every meal.”
A: “Are they healthy in general? They live long? How is that stuff?”
M: “To be honest I don’t really know. I’m I’m assuming they don’t live as long as the Japanese because they have the longest lifespan in the world I believe.”
A: “I was thinking because what you say about the kimchi I mean if it’s so good it should take them for a long ride.”
M: “Yeah, maybe, I don’t know.”
A: “Did you go again to Korea after that or you never went again?”
M: “Once was enough, thank you, but to be honest if I had the chance to go back now as a tourist I would, just to reminisce and see the the country maybe in a different light.”
A: “Yeah, well, and being older you should be stepping in a different way.”
M: “Yes.”
A: “It’s great. How was the process of writing it? Are you a writer?”
M: “I have always written and I’ve entered competitions and I my stories have appeared in a couple of anthologies, but this is the first time that I’ve actually written a full book. And so it did take me a long time but also I think that’s because I’m never 100% happy with what I write so every time I read it I want to tweak it and add a little bit and I feel like like when I wrote the first draft I felt almost like the whole writing process for me is like building, creating a body. I feel like when I write the first draft it’s it’s like putting the the skeleton down and then after that I need to read it again and of their muscles and the sinews and the skin and so it’s like totally formed, do you know what I mean?”
A: “Yes. That’s the way I write too.”
M: “Until I’m more or less happy with it. It does take me a long time.”
A: “Yeah. It takes time, but the final product I think is more… rounded? Isn’t it?”
M: “Yes, yeah.”
A: “And you have very very good substance so it’s worth to make a good product out of it.”
M: “Thank you.”
A: “It’s a beautiful beautiful book, so congratulations.”
M: “Thank you, thank you very much.”
M: “Well I’ll tell you a couple of things then, like for example one reader asked me, sent me a private message and asked me, why if I went through so many things why I didn’t just get on a plane and come home and I reminded her that we’re talking about 1989 before there was free or discount air trouble and everything cost a fortune and just to travel one way to Korea in 1989 was 800 pounds, which was a hell of a lot of money and there was no way that we could get that amount of money together to fly home and I don’t think my parents would have been in a situation, a financial situation, to be able to find that money and and bring me home. I, we all three of us felt that we were there for the duration and we had to see it through to the end.”
A: “Wow, I didn’t know that part. I thought you were there and said: Ok, I came here to do and I just do it.”
M: “Yeah, well, I mean, we all wanted to do it, we all wanted to be there. But I think probably at some point we were all having a bad day, we all wish that we had the money to go home, but it wasn’t an option”
A: “Oh, wow, what about the food? I mean when you were describing some of the food issues you had, I was thinking how on Earth were they keeping themselves healthy in that situation? to be able to dance?”
M: “I think we had youth on our side. I think if we were older we’d probably have had a lot more problems but I mean we ate rubbish really I mean we were just eating noodles the whole time really or all the sandwiches that I said. It was it’s really like junk food, really. We very rarely ate a substantial meal.”
A: “And sleeping late, and eating pretty much nothing, it’s not very healthy.”
M: “No.”
A: “Did you have to take time to recover when you came home?”
M: “Not really. I think, like I said you’re just young and you bounce back, I mean, It’s the same with alcohol. Most of the time when you’re young you can drink drink yourself silly in the next morning you wake up and you’re fine and then suddenly you hit middle-age and that’s that just doesn’t happen anymore.”
A: “That’s great! Ok, tell me something else about the book.”
M: “I’m still in contact with Louise. Obviously I’ve changed the names of everyone in the book, but the real Louise, I’m still in contact with her via Facebook. She still dances in her free time she’s part of a club that puts shows together and things and according to her Facebook post she’s still as feisty as she was then.”
A: “Well, actually with age, a woman will go more feisty than less, isn’t it?”
M: “Yeah yes yeah.”
A: “I’ve never seen a woman evolving toward meekness.”
M: “That’s true. I think we have the menopause to thank for that.”
A: “Oh yeah, well, menopause is wonderful. But even before, you know? Every stage… every seven years? We take less and less bullsh%$t? It’s an evolution.”
M: “Yeah. Well I think despite everything that I went through, although it did make me a stronger person, I’ve always been quite a placid person and it takes an awful lot to get me really angered. But just recently I think I’ve become more argumentative than I’ve ever been and I’m not so sure I can’t blame the experiences in Korea for that. It’s just life in general.”
A: “Yeah, well, it’s life. It’s evolution. And menopause does a lot to that too.”
M: “Yeah.”
A: “Ok, I’m very happy about this. I really don’t know what else to ask you as we were going to program this, and we didn’t. I wish I had more stuff to ask you, but this is all I can ask you for now. I’m very very thankful that you agreed to talk to me and have this recorded and I think it’s great information for the reader to know authenticity of the stuff and what happened later and how’s the voice of the author. I think it’s great.”
M: “Yeah, well, my second book that’s in Japan is as interesting, I would say, as their as the Korean one. Probably the Korean one is more shocking but the the second one was also an experience because we were staying in a small village on the island of Hokkaido and just up the street from us there was a tribe of Japanese Indians.”
A: “Oh, wow.”
M: “And they actually lived in teepees and wigwams and everything. It was just, it was bizarre walking up there the first time. I’m turning the corner and finding this Indian Reservation. And there’s several of the things in the book like related to that and related to also doing a Ouija board, that was very bizarre and things came true so I’m hoping that people will find that as interesting as the first one.”
A: “It sounds magical.”
M: “It was very very different, very original and I I enjoyed being in Japan much more than Korea only because things were slightly more stable.”
A: “Yes, one thing I noticed from the Korean book, I don’t want to give any spoilers, is that the cultural shock was really a shock.”
M: “Yes, I think because, I mean I’d worked before but never abroad and although I’d been to Spain on holiday or Italy, going to the Far East was a huge huge difference.”
A: “Maybe the places you went to work in. Do you think those kind of places are of the same level of aggresivity all over the world? that it’s a matter of development? It’s not the culture per se but, not the class, but the group of people that go to a place or another? You know what I mean?”
M: “Yeah, yeah, I think I think I agree with you. I think in every country there’s there’s places like that probably we don’t like to think that there are, but, I think they are because we’re all humans at the end of the day and you’re always gonna find people that like certain things.”
A: “Yes, because, when you dealt with people in higher classes or more developed, they were nice, they didn’t have all the aggressivity of the other people. I think the other people… It’s not a matter of social class or money, more like preferences? Places they go and what they do? Do you know what I mean, or I’m just going too much ahead?”
M: “Yes yes, no no I agree with you and I also think that education, your level of education also changes you as a person as does trouble, I think.”
A: “Oh yes yes.”
M: “Because I think, you have a wider outlook on the world when you’ve traveled, than if you haven’t.”
A: “Yes, definitely.”
M: “Well, that’s just my opinion.”
A: “Yes, definitely. I’ve lived that myself. Ok, this is so awesome. Thank you so much.”
M: “You are welcome. Thank you.”
A: “Go and get Michele’s book. Both of them. They are wonderful. I loved them. See my review of them. Not of the second one, the first one. And I’m going to put all the links I can toward your page and whatever we can so people can find you, okay?”
M: “Okay that’s excellent, thank you very much.”
A: “Okay, awesome. Ok, see you around?”
M: “Okey… bye bye.”
A: “Bye.”
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