The author stays up trying to figuring out where to position her writing desk, and solves many of her fictional questions in her sleep.

Question: What keeps you up at night?

Lionel Shriver: You know, that’s funny.  This sounds so petty.  But, what kept me up last night was, I just moved house in London and my study is just a pile of cartons and I’m tortured where to put the desk.  So, last night I was rearranging furniture in my head.  So, it goes from the mundanities like that.  Actually most writers would probably not see that as mundane.  The orientation of a desk is bizarrely important.  

Otherwise, I don’t know.  The state of my marriage if I recently had a fight, or what to do in chapter three.  I solve a lot of fictional questions in my sleep.  That is, I’ll go to sleep thinking about something and wake up with the answer.  I find dreams and the state of unconsciousness very creatively useful. 

Recorded on March 12, 2010