Please, Don't Ask

Oh, the bliveting Holidays! This is the time of year for interrogations by family and family-friends. Most of them mean well, so I can't rip open the Can O' Snark. What do I do when I have to be relatively polite? 

Here are my flippant answers to the Top 5 Most Inescapable (albeit well intentioned) Questions:

Q1: What do you write about?
A1: "I believe you meant to ask, 'about what do you write?'"

Q2: Why don't you write a story about your childhood/family/that funny thing that happened?
A2:  The judge said I'd get fifteen years without parole.

Q3: Are you still working on that same book?
A3: You still on that same diet? I can see it's working for you. You were trying to gain weight, right?

Q4: You know, my friend published a book about reproductive habits of weevils on his own printing press. You want me to give him your book?
A4: Have they recently changed the definition of "friend"?


Q5: Hey, have you heard about this thing called e-books? Anybody can publish their own book! Now you don't have to be rejected anymore. Why haven't you done that?
A5: The dragon ate my manuscript.