A: Somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-200 WPM. It depends on the day, my mood, the air pressure, and a handful of other factors.

A: I kind of lucked out in the realm of ideas. See, if you want to write something that’s fictional, then you have to sit around all day thinking up characters and settings and rising actions and whatnot. Since Leaves on Supine is an autobiographical work, I’ve essentially offloaded all of that work onto reality itself. Some might call it a cheap trick, but in my opinion it is the regular old biographical work that you ought to take issue with. Why would I want to hear someone tell me about another person’s life? It’s best to hear things from the horse's mouth. Take As I Live and Bleat, the autobiography of Dolly the sheep. Who else could have told the story of living as a cloned sheep other than the one and only cloned sheep herself? Not some pesky biographer, that’s for sure. So, to answer your question succinctly: I don’t come up with ideas. Ideas come up to me and they beg me to write them down.

A: Well, Leaves on Supine is first and foremost the story of my life. Here’s how it goes: there’s happiness and sadness. There’s love and hate. There’s highs and lows. But, at the end of the day, the hedonic treadmill just keeps spinning and spinning. I think, overall, you can expect something like a Bildungsroman crossed with a character drama crossed with a road novel with a heaping spoonful of comedy, a sprinkle of tragedy, and a dash of allspice. I’d offer to draw you a Punnett square on the possible outcomes of all of that crossbreeding, but I fear I don’t have a large enough sheet of paper on hand to do so.

A: I can’t say for sure.

A: I was delighted to see Francesca’s name show up here. I loved her work on the arms dealing scandal at that dragonfly farm upstate. Beautiful stuff. If anything, I should be asking her this question! But, of course, as the answerer of this question and answer event, I must do my duty. People like to say that you need to wake up, eat a nice breakfast, get comfortable, crack all your knuckles one by one, and then get to writing. I’m sure that's good advice for some people. But I am not some people. I’m just one person. And I’m sure there are other people out there who are more like me than other people. My strategy since time immemorial has been to write only under some sort of distress. In the early days of chronicling my life for Leaves on Supine, I scouted someone at a local gymnasium and paid them to chase me around at night. I told them to give the chase their all, to really make it feel like they might catch me, to brush their fingertips against the back of my shirt, but never to actually catch me. It needed to be convincing. After being chased around for a good hour, I would return home and start writing like a woman possessed.

A: Unfortunately, I can give you only one sentence: “Nobody wears cool robes anymore.” That is all I am allowed to provide you at this time.

A: First and foremost, the book Options by Robert Sheckley changed my life. I wouldn’t be who I am today had I not read it. There’s a good chance that Leaves on Supine would not even exist without Options. But, otherwise, I draw from this great big font of inspiration in my backyard twice a day. It’s a viscous, citrusy liquid, and it’s tough to swallow, but once it goes down I always feel a whole lot better. The people around me in my life also inspire me each and every day. And by that I don’t necessarily mean, like, friends and family members. I’m talking random, nameless passersby with whom I never even exchange a word. These Eternal Strangers mean more to me than they’ll ever know. I couldn’t type even a single word were it not for them. I also spent many an hour of my childhood reading all sorts of things in school. Some of these works, e.g., Wuthering Heights, A Tale of Two Cities, Periwinkle Morrow, Julius Caesar, and so on and so forth, are so unbelievably famous that we need not dwell on them for even a moment too long. They have all undeniably had some effect on my mind. How strong of an effect? Only a gifted psychiatrist could say for certain...... I think Mark Danielewski and Banana Yoshimoto have also exerted some amount of pressure on my typing fingers. And, of course, I must credit the sage under the mountain for passing on much wisdom to me.

A: It’s fine I guess.

A: I would tell my younger self to never, ever, trust anybody you meet for the first time on December 13th, 2019. If the past self I am talking to is from after that date, I would advise her to flee the country. The amount of time she would need to remain in hiding would vary based on what day it was. If this past self is a slightly older version of myself from the past two or three years, I would likely give her a hug and say something cliché like “It’s always warmest before dusk.” Finally, if this past me is exceedingly young and unable to understand spoken language, I would probably just make silly faces at her and hope she finds me funny.

A: Send me an email. Time and place. I’ll try anything once! Bear in mind that I am unlikely to agree to drive more than an hour or so to meet anyone who isn’t a close friend, family member, someone who wants to give me a briefcase full of money, or an exceedingly wise person (preferably a mystic of some description) who is willing to teach me secret knowledge.

A: I consider all but maybe two months of each year to be holidays during which working is frowned upon.

Well, that’s all the time I have. I look forward to answering more questions from the reading public in the coming months. Leaves on Supine: The Life and Times of My Times and Life or The Smallest Bug Can Have The Biggest Dreams is nearing completion! I hope you can find it in your most clement and loving hearts to forgive me for taking time to answer the questions for this reader Q&A instead of burying my nose in my writing desk and finishing the book. Here’s my final piece of advice: if you don’t feel like writing, don’t! I mean it! Should writing even a single word prove to be a Herculean task, simply go take a walk, watch something on your television, read a book someone else has already written, or just lie down and take a nap. You’re bound to sprain or tear something important should you force your writing muscles past the brink. An injury like that could put you out of commission for a season or two. Believe you me! Well, that’s all I have to say. Until next time!