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 don't know if make a conscious effort to vary the characters and subjects that I write about, but I do find myself keeping track of ideas that come along, as probably most writers do, and whatever seems most interesting to me when I flip through my notes before I begin a new story is usually what I will try to write about next.

Jealousy is a potent emotion, of course, and Facebook, texting, email, fan Web pages... In theory, being someone like George Clooney's or Halle Berry's paramour - woo hoo - how great would that be? But wait a minute... er, no, probably kind of a nightmare.

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.

Sometimes I do work on a longer manuscript in tandem with one or two shorter pieces - whether it's a short story or an essay (though I don't write many of the latter).

Thirty years ago, the Pandora's box of the Internet wasn't yet a fact of life, and celebrities inhabited a more remote, hard-to-reach plane.

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.