Never Ask A Writer these 10 Questions

1. Is Your Book Finished Yet? If I'm not doing the happy-dance of ecstasy don't bother asking.
   
2. Are you writing one of those Harry Potter books? Yeah except my guy is named Larry Trotter.
3. Am I a character in your book? Yes, you and every other person I've ever met because who has time to create characters.
4. Did this really happen to you? Once again, you've seen through me and know that I find dead bodies and solve crimes every day.
   
5. Did you hear that Joe the Plumber got a book deal? AAAHHH!
6. Is your book going to be just like [insert famous author's name here]? No mine is more like a Stephen King meets Toni Morrison with a wee bit of Tolstoy and a hybrid of The Da Vinci Code mixed with The Secret Life of Bees but only in the horror/gothic/romance/literary/sci-fi genre.
7. Does it really take that long to write a book because my cousin/uncle/old college roommate wrote a whole book over the weekend? Unfortunately, I'm stuck with the old-fashioned notion of creating a story with a wider audience than my immediate relatives or stoner pals.
   
8. Isn't that the same story [insert famous author's name here] just published? Just go away so I can cry now.
9. How many different words do you have to use to write a story? Believe it or not this was an actual question asked of me while riding the NYC subway years ago.
10. Are you sure it should take you this long to write your book? Could you be doing it wrong? This is where the writer imagines your death from a thousand paper cuts.