I think that people in the phase between being someone's kid and being someone's parent have always been uniquely narcissistic, but that social media and Twitter and LiveJournal make it really easy to navel-gaze in a way that you've never been able to before. People taking pictures of what they eat and showing them on their Facebook. People assume that people have a level of interest in what they're doing that's maybe far greater than it is, although there is an audience for all that stuff.

At my age, no one is married, no one has kids, no one has a career.

I have been envious of male characteristics, if not the men themselves. I'm jealous of the ease with which they seem to inhabit their professional pursuits: the lack of apologizing, of bending over backward to make sure the people around them are comfortable with what they're trying to do. The fact that they are so often free of the people-pleasing instincts I have considered to be a curse of my female existence.

I write at all different times. I write in my bed, I write at the table. I need to get it together. I'm working on a book and working, and just jam it in whenever it makes sense.

Here's what I have to say about being married: someday you will look at him, hating him with every fibre of your being, wishing that he would die the most violent death possible. It will pass.

When we, as young women, are given the space to read, the act becomes a happy, private corner we can return to for the rest of our lives. We develop this love of reading by turning to stories that speak to the most special, secret parts of us.

I'll start by saying that "Fifty Shades of Grey:" It's like I don't have. an elicit confused relationship to my sexuality. So I don't need a book like that.