Australian sprinter, 1990–2003
Recorded · National Museum of Australia · 2021
I wanted to be an Olympic champion and I didn't care about the goings-on around me. In my heart and with all of my soul I was ready, willing and I was very able.
Craft & work
Craft & work
Six questions about how you work, what your job really is, and the advice your field gets wrong.
6 questions, 144 quoted from what public figures said elsewhere, each with its source. Every question is asked in FLAPSS wording — nobody answers as anybody else.
Worth reading
What are you best at that nobody watching would notice?
Novelist, short-story writer and translator
Recorded · The Paris Review · 2004
I want my readers to laugh sometimes. Many readers in Japan read my books on the train while commuting.
Composer, record producer and visual artist
Recorded · Pitchfork, reproduced in the More Dark Than Shark archive · 2017
I find that you’re a completely different person as a maker than you are as a listener. That’s one of the reasons I so often leave the studio to listen to things.
Every question in this questionnaire
- What bad recommendations do people in your field repeat too often? 32
- What part of your job would surprise outsiders because it takes up so much of your time? 41
- What are you best at that nobody watching would notice? 26
- Whose work makes you envious? 9
- What is the biggest professional obstacle you have faced? 24
- Which problem are you still chipping away at? 12
Related questionnaires
General
The general questionnaire
Twelve questions in FLAPSS wording — taste, daily life, craft, failure, and who formed you. The place to start if you have no idea where to start.
Identity & self
An honest inventory
For a birthday, a quiet Sunday, or the week you realise you have been answering other people's priorities. Not a goal worksheet — the questions people answer differently at fifty than at twenty-five.
Reading & recommendations
Reading & recommendations
Five questions about books you pass on, books that changed you, gaps on your list, and long-form work that stayed with you.