I have a lot of screenwriter friends and many of them have had an experience where they aren't even welcome on set during production.

Somebody asked me earlier if I thought it was really important to tell stories about women's struggles. And I said yes, but at the same time, it's also important to tell stories about women's triumphs, women being slackers, women being criminals, women being heroes.

Hollywood is a perpetual summerland, a temperate, godless yaw where the very word 'season' has been co-opted by television executives. There are few harbingers of winter here.

Unfortunately I don't live by a Target now, so I just go to a regular Starbucks as opposed to a Starbucks nested inside a Target, which is my ideal situation. That works out for me. I like that white noise, those interruptions, and the people around me.

I am a karaoke purist and I don't like that. I don't think it's enough for you to just be there with your friends singing. I think you need to be in front of a crowd of hostile strangers for it to truly count.

The stuff I write isn't strictly autobiographical, but it's personal, if that makes any sense. It draws all these little incidents and people out of my life and then contorts them.

Personally, I consider 'Titanic' the most brilliant example of successful counterprogramming; the film actually countered itself by embedding an epic chick flick within a classic disaster movie.