Writing women has never been a problem for me. I like women, both
romantically (when I was still in the marketplace) and intellectually, as
friends. For as long as I can remember, the majority of my friends have
been women. I have a goodly number of men friends, but what can I say, I
like the way many women think. Specifically, I like women who are usually
smarter than me, who are funny, independent, self-assured and know their
own mind. So it's not much of a stretch, therefore, that when I sit down
to write female characters, *that's* what tends to come out most of the
time.

I've had a *lot* of relationships in my time; the total number of
intimate relationships (yeah, I'm talking about *that*) I once figured
worked out to about 50. On one level, I'm not terribly proud of that
figure, it reflects a period when I was trying to find...I dunno...
SOMEdamnthing...but on the other hand, it's given me a LOT of material from
which to draw.

jms