Louis Theroux
British and American journalist and author
There was a period in the early 2000s when I had been doing celebrity profiles and thought I’d lost my way creatively.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
Do you rely on inspiration or discipline to make work?
Craft & work
Question
What do you do when you feel creatively blocked or stuck?
Craft & work
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Where to begin? How about working the archery range at the Sportsman’s Show in 1956? “The pointy part of the arrow goes at the front.” Or going door-to-door in 1963, when I was a questionnaire re-writer for a market research company, asking a 36-page questionnaire about bowel movements for a laxative company. “No one is going to answer 36 pages on that!” I bleated. “They’ll kick me out after three pages!” “Ah, but those who don’t,” they said – “those are our target market!”
21 Questions, Penguin Books UK, 15 February 2022 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 239 →I was 15 working in Boots on Barnet High Street and it was terrifying. At coffee break you had to know whose cup was whose, and taking the wrong cup was a crime. I’ve met bitches, but I tell you they started out in Boots in Barnet.
Working at a petrol station.
Looking after the flowerbed on my windowsill.
More from Margaret Atwood
View profile →The white-water canoe run I did solo at Lady Evelyn Park 20 years ago. It was impromptu. It took the skin off my knees. It was an unnecessary risk.
Begrudging mean-spiritedness.
As for motivation, I'd say it's a combo of 50s Puritan work ethic and finish-it-itis -- I hate not finishing things.
Block? Not as such, but I've had to throw things out because they weren't working. Sometimes I just get lazy, but that's not the same a s a block.
By members of a human race who have managed to avoid annihilating their entire species and can thus still do some reading, and remembering.
Anonymous. She’s working to make the planet greener.
More on craft & work
- What do you consider your greatest achievement? 204 answers
- How does a new work begin for you? 83 answers
- What do you do when you feel creatively blocked or stuck? 80 answers
- How do you know when a piece of work is finished? 76 answers
- How much rewriting or revision do you do? 58 answers
- What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job? 56 answers
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