Most women are wise to the fact that lots of men love a cat-fight, and thus go out of their way not to give them one.

These women whose antics we smirk at good-naturedly in the pap-traps put themselves out there at least partly on their beauty; they are in showbiz, and showing what they've got is part of their business as much as it is for male show-ponies from the Chippendales to George Clooney.

My dad didn't drive - the only dad I knew who didn't.

The secret is not to care what anyone thinks of you.

It must be said that Brighton, unlike London, makes driving seem very appealing. Instead of glowering faces and angry horns on all sides, we have the coast road in front of us and the Sussex Downs just 10 minutes behind us.

What men don't want, in fact what anyone who's any sort of thrill-seeking, intelligent adult doesn't want, is some crushing bore describing their emotions in real time every waking hour.

'Stress' was the catch-all every pamper-pedlar I spoke to used to explain why healthy women feel the need to be regularly patted, petted and preened into a state of babyish beatification.

I wouldn't know how to fool a man any more. My deceiving days seem so long ago.

Make no mistake, most women are well aware that they've never had it so good; when they enter a spa or salon, it is purely a hair/nails thing, a prelude to an evening of guilt-free fun.

One of the few ways in which I feel I've actually matured is that as I've grown older I do find the concept of 'men' mystifying, whereas when I was a feisty young thing I was forever saying 'The most fun part of being a feminist is frightening men!'

The allegedly 'classy' magazines often seem to be in an endless, undeclared competition to see who can climb furthest up the fundament of Gwyneth Paltrow or Jennifer Lopez.

No one knows 'men' as such, any more than anyone knows 'women,' and if they do generalise they're probably trying to hide their own ignorance. You might know one 'man,' yes, or even lots of individual 'men'.

These women whose antics we smirk at good-naturedly in the pap-traps put themselves out there at least partly on their beauty; they are in showbiz, and showing what they've got is part of their business as much as it is for male show-ponies from the Chippendales to George Clooney.

I know that Brighton is famously a mixture of the seedy and the elegant, but in the summer of 2001 seediness swamped elegance hands down.

The secret is not to care what anyone thinks of you.

When I moved to Brighton from London in 1995, I was struck by what I thought of as its townliness. A town, it seemed to me, was that perfect place to live, neither city nor country, both of which like to think they are light years apart but actually have a great deal in common.

What men don't want, in fact what anyone who's any sort of thrill-seeking, intelligent adult doesn't want, is some crushing bore describing their emotions in real time every waking hour.

And call me a pig, but isn't it brilliantly refreshing how early the Dutch eat dinner? When they're still laying out the cutlery in achingly hip Barcelona, they're hanging the Closed sign on the restaurant doors of old Amsterdam.

I wouldn't know how to fool a man any more. My deceiving days seem so long ago.

One of the few ways in which I feel I've actually matured is that as I've grown older I do find the concept of 'men' mystifying, whereas when I was a feisty young thing I was forever saying 'The most fun part of being a feminist is frightening men!'

No one knows 'men' as such, any more than anyone knows 'women,' and if they do generalise they're probably trying to hide their own ignorance. You might know one 'man,' yes, or even lots of individual 'men'.

I know that Brighton is famously a mixture of the seedy and the elegant, but in the summer of 2001 seediness swamped elegance hands down.

When I moved to Brighton from London in 1995, I was struck by what I thought of as its townliness. A town, it seemed to me, was that perfect place to live, neither city nor country, both of which like to think they are light years apart but actually have a great deal in common.

And call me a pig, but isn't it brilliantly refreshing how early the Dutch eat dinner? When they're still laying out the cutlery in achingly hip Barcelona, they're hanging the Closed sign on the restaurant doors of old Amsterdam.

I realized that I get pleasure when I'm told, 'Don't listen to the haters; they're losers in their moms' basements.' I imagine these 'losers' and feel better about myself. Their insults hurt less if I label them 'pathetic.' I diminish their value in order to protect mine. I noticed that I'm quick to make a joke at someone else's expense.

I call it 'The Breakfast Club' philosophy. There's something about being trapped in a dire situation with a group of people that you would never normally be trapped with.

I always talk about Meredith and Derrick from 'Grey's Anatomy,' and I loved them the most when they sort of opened and closed each episode with them in bed, happy with each other, and you didn't need to insert extra conflict into them, because there was plenty of conflict in the show. So they were this port in the storm of conflict.

When you're dealing with long-distance relationships, it's a relationship played out over technology. When you're in high school, it's because you're not supposed to act on those impulses yet. So some of my favorite relationships in drama are based in people that can't really be together.

You can love and hate your family with equal measure, but the power of the bond you have to have with them, you can't really ever walk away.

There are a lot of things you do in a supernatural universe that can toe the line and cross the line.

I used to sneak 'General Hospital' when I was a kid. My cousin was my babysitter, and she watched it, so I got hooked on it. I wasn't supposed to be watching it, but I was so obsessed with it that I'd find ways, even as an 8-year-old, to get into that.

I remember, my freshman year of college, sitting in my TV room at the end of my dorm hallway with one other girl watching the premiere of 'Beverly Hills, 90210.' And then, a year later, walking into a room packed with college students watching '90210,' and I thought, 'I wonder what it must be like to be part of a phenomenon like that.'

When you're telling taut, tight storytelling that has any kind of built-in plot twist elements, you tend to want to stack everything up on top of itself as opposed to letting things breathe and be languid in terms of the passage of time.

I love real women that don't have to be saints, who can be selfish and act out against their parents or like the wrong guy, because that's life. That's my life, at least.

I talk all the time about how much I read growing up and how much I love Stephen King and how he impacted my work from a genre perspective, but Pat Conroy wrote some of the most magnificent stories about characters who had to deal with dysfunctional families and try to find a place of honor in their own world and the pain of loss.

Hollywood, Twitter, our friends - they all contribute to a community of snark. The more we engage in the way that everyone else engages, the more followers, likes, and RTs we get. But we can't rail against the cyberbullies without acknowledging what we also contribute to a culture of cruelty.

Cynicism doesn't have its way in series finales. My emotional desire when I watch a series come to an end is to be crying and laughing and cheering as the final credits roll, feeling like I just got delivered the happy ending, whether the plot ends happily or not.

TV writing - for me, at least - is half original voice and half an embodiment and a representation of the spirit of the actors you're writing for.

Humanity has both its beautiful and its ugly sides.

The intensity of the story breaking on 'Vampire' has never been easy. Every week, you're starting with a blank board and trying to make a new movie. There's no formula; there's no franchise to hang your hat on.

Kevin Williamson and I wrote a show about loss and grief that just so happened to have vampires in it.

Daily, I visualize the smart-ass troll who lives deep in my subconscious, and I pelt him with rainbows and unicorns. I fight a battle against my judgmental thoughts. And when an opportunity arises to gain acceptance or popularity at the expense of someone else, I zip it. It's not easy.

I wanted to work in Hollywood. I was captivated by it. I read 'Premiere Magazine' and 'Movieline Magazine' and 'Us' before it was a weekly magazine.

'The Vampire Diaries' is a serialized drama. It deserved its final chapter.

I look at 'Friday Night Lights' as one of my all-time favorite series finales, and that is what you want. After all the roads you've traveled with these people, you just want to know that they're going to be happy. I'm a big believer in shows that make that choice.

To me, TV relationships work at their best when there is a deep longing and feelings and interest and sexual attraction that is unrequitable.

I didn't get paid to write professionally until my first episode of 'Kyle XY,' which was the fourth episode of the first season.

Fans are always talking about endgame as though endgame has been chosen from minute 1. I don't know that you could talk to a single series creator that would say confidently 'Where I started is where I finished, and there was no way in hell I was going to stray from that path.' 'Dawson's' being the perfect example.

As you live your life and accumulate friends, both IRL and on social media, ask yourself, are you a bully too?

It doesn't matter if these characters are supposed to be together forever: if their chemistry gets stale, you want somebody to die, you want to put somebody in a coma, you want to write them off the show - anything to save you.