The bank

What do you expect to regret, and is there still time to do something about it?

What would you say to somebody you love if you knew it was your last chance to say it — and have you said it?

What would you want written on your gravestone?

Has knowing that you will die changed how you live?

What are you still hoping to finish?

If you had only one day left to live, how would you spend it — and what would you deliberately avoid doing?

If you had to tell a reader what this book is really about—beyond the synopsis or back-cover description—what would you say?

Where did the idea for this book begin? Was there a particular experience, question, person, event, image, or moment that made you want to write it?

Why did you feel this particular book needed to be written? Was there something you wanted to explore, understand, challenge, preserve, or communicate?

How did the book change between the first idea and the final version? Did the story, argument, characters, structure, or even your own understanding of the subject evolve while you were writing?

What surprised you most while writing or researching the book? Did you discover something that changed your original assumptions or took the book in an unexpected direction?

Was there a particular chapter, scene, character, argument, or discovery that became especially important to you? Why does that part of the book stand out?

What was the most difficult part of writing this book? The difficulty could have been creative, intellectual, emotional, technical, or even related to deciding what should and should not be included.

Is there an important creative choice in the book that readers may not immediately notice? For example, something involving the structure, language, narrative voice, chronology, characters, research, title, or point of view.

Was there anything you originally wanted to include but ultimately removed, changed significantly, or decided not to discuss? What led to that decision?

What books, writers, people, places, ideas, experiences, or events had the strongest influence on this particular book?

Was there anyone behind the scenes who significantly shaped the book? An editor, researcher, friend, family member, colleague, early reader, or someone else whose contribution changed the way you approached the work?

Is there an idea, character, argument, or aspect of the book that you think readers may interpret very differently from one another? How do you feel about those different interpretations?

Is there something in the book that you hope readers will question, debate, or even disagree with you about?

When someone finishes the final page, what do you hope remains with them? It might be an idea, emotion, question, image, new perspective, or even the motivation to do something differently.