Tangentially, Americans, despite many of us being prone to sometimes-eyebrow-raising disclosures about our private lives on social media, still retain what I think of as reactionary views about sexuality and intimacy.

Tangentially, Americans, despite many of us being prone to sometimes-eyebrow-raising disclosures about our private lives on social media, still retain what I think of as reactionary views about sexuality and intimacy.

I keep a couple of notebooks too into which I record ideas for story titles or characters or situations, and these notes help me quite a bit when I'm feeling at loose ends and not sure of what to work on next.

So much of what determines our happiness, I believe, is who we choose as our intimates.

The effects of fame on the not-famous people who are close to a celebrity - this is definitely a topic that continues to interest me.

Men might be chastised for being promiscuous, but I think they're more likely to be given a pass, due to a "men will be men" attitude that still prevails in the Western world. They don't usually experience anything like the virulent shaming and verbal abuse that women who are sexually adventurous are sometimes prone to experiencing.

Unless I'm writing trying to write about a historical figure, I don't really set out to read or research with a specific topic in mind.