Male authors always take care to make their heroes at least one inch taller than they are, and considerably more muscular. Just as female authors give their heroines better hair and slimmer thighs.

I'm opposed to censorship of any kind, especially by government. But it's plain common sense that producers should target their product with some kind of sensitivity.

So long as readers keep reading and my publishers keep publishing, I plan to keep on writing. I'd have to be an idiot to be burnt-out in this job.

So, how to stay inside the world of entertainment without actually getting another job? I felt the only logical answer was to become a novelist. So I wrote the first book - driven by some very real feelings of desperation - and it worked.

If you're convinced as an artist of what you're doing, the only move is to, no matter what people say or what management says or your best friends say or people on Facebook, do what you do, and people will find their way to it.

Whether you're a Twitter follower, a YouTube subscriber or a Facebook friend, natural social instinct is to collect people and to not kind of see them later. But unfortunately, with social media, you collect them and they're in your life, whether you really want them or not.

What are friends? Some people are nice. Some people aren't. There are some I'm fairly close with... we talk.

The friendship I had with Elvis began to take shape in 1968 when I was recording in Memphis. I'd record during the day, and Elvis would send one of his guys over to bring me to Graceland at night. Everything you've heard about Graceland during Elvis's glory days is true and then some.