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.

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.

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.

One thing the passage of time has shown me is that you never know how you'll behave in a situation until you're in that situation yourself.

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

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).