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.

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).

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 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.

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.

Mostly what ends up inspiring me and affecting my work are books by authors that I love.