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.

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.

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).

I think that under ordinary circumstances (i.e., neither person is famous), it's already hard enough to make a long-term romantic relationship work, but add fame to the calculus.

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

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.

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.