By the time I encountered LSD, I'd already been exposed to Surrealism, post-Einsteinian physics and Asian philosophies, so the effect the experience had on my writing is difficult to gauge. Certainly, the psychedelic experience left me less rigid -- emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. This flexibility has reinforced my disposition for detecting screwy humor and deep meaning -- often simultaneously -- in some rather unlikely sources. A professor at an Ohio university wrote that my books "put the fun back in profundity."

Bankrate: Was money a problem for you in the '60s? How did you manage to stay ahead of the bills?

Robbins: Money was scarce all right, but I just never considered its scarcity a problem. I contributed art reviews to various publications and worked weekends on the copy desk of a Seattle daily newspaper. That was usually enough to support a simple yet ecstatic lifestyle. While I was writing my first novel, my girlfriend was a waitress at a seafood restaurant. Every night, she would bring home leftovers off of her customers' plates. We dined happily on slops de la mer.

Bankrate: You ultimately found your fiction voice following a Doors concert. How did that come about?

Robbins: As I mentioned, I pledged myself to the muse at age five, but for decades I was hesitant to tackle a novel due to a perhaps delusional desire not to sound like any other novelist who'd ever lit up a page. I practiced journalism while waiting and hoping to develop a literary voice I might call my very own. Then, one July night, galvanized by a Doors concert, I staggered home and wrote a review that, although colored by Jim Morrison, sprang from a place inside me that I recognized to be the wellspring of my personal literary style. Not surprisingly, that style has evolved a great deal in the ensuing years, but I can occasionally still hear echoes of that Doors review in my more mature prose.

Bankrate: "Another Roadside Attraction" became an instant cult classic in 1971. Did it translate into any sort of financial security for you?

Robbins: My advance for "Roadside" was only $2,500, but I was elated to receive it and immediately jumped on a plane to Japan. By then, I'd already begun "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," and part of my mission in Japan was to visit a remote wildlife preserve where I could get a close look at tancho zuru, a species of cranes that closely resembles the elusive North American whooping cranes that were to figure prominently in the second novel. "Roadside," for all its word-of-mouth popularity, didn't make any money for years and precious little even then. Bad contract. It wasn't until I scored an advance for the half-complete "Cowgirls" that I, having virtually abandoned journalism, could subsist without raiding produce fields by dark of night and relying on the kindness of waitresses.

Bankrate: Once your book career was established, how did you handle your finances?

Robbins: In 1994, I published a novel, "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas," that one critic characterized as "Wall Street meets the X-Files." It deals with the essential aquatic nature of the human race, as well as with Timbuktu and some bizarre yet true astronomical mysteries, but it's set against the backdrop of the U.S. financial markets. During the three years I worked on that book, I read the Wall Street Journal every day and did a fair amount of investing. Research.

Typically, I insisted on making my own investment decisions, which proved stupid and costly once that novel was done; I'd go for weeks or even months without listening to a stock report or checking my portfolio. I couldn't bring myself to pay attention; there are just too many other things in life I found more interesting. For whatever reason, the itch to make money has never set me to scratching. I must be missing a gene or something.

Nowadays, I have a smart broker and, what I don't spend on travel and debauchery -- which, aside from donations to activist causes, is almost everything -- she invests in bonds. Don't ask me which ones. I know I wouldn't own any Halliburton, but beyond that I haven't a clue.