SM: How beneficial were these first jobs to your career as a novelist?
Candace Bushnell: I saw [my early jobs] really as ways of getting the skills I needed to become a writer. And unfortunately, it's not what a lot of people want to hear, but that's basically what it is about. It's about sitting down and doing it. It's like playing the violin - you just have to keep practicing. You don't start out playing a concert - you start out playing scales. 

SM: When did you begin writing pieces that are so representative of women's roles in modern society?
Candace Bushnell: I started writing a lot of relationship pieces for Mademoiselle. This was in the early 1980s, and was really the precursor to Sex and the City. There were a lot of young women in the workforce for the first time, and there was a lot of confusion about dating and men and about how women were supposed to behave in relationships. Those were the days that women were supposed to have it all. You were supposed to have a career, and you were also supposed to get a man. At the same time you were also supposed to have sex. Women were hungry for any stories about how to live their lives.