Gossip Girl begins its third season Monday, September 14, and Josh Safran, writer and co-executive producer of the show, talked about it with The Examiner.

There is much to discuss.

There is the kiss that launched a thousand Gossip Girl spoilers.

There is heightened sensitivity Safran, the show's only gay writer, feels towards gay themes. There is the story behind Gossip Girl's outrageous stories.

And the most scandalous of all: there are schemes to foil the leakers. Or at least to try. Here's the start of Josh Safran's interview, with links to the rest:

Q: The kiss leak is born from this new age of Gossip Girl spoilers, a relatively new phenomenon that's been building, but gained more traction this year.

NPR even did a story on them. Some people say that spoilers create great intrigue and some say they dampen a story's impact. What is your take?

Josh Safran: First of all, I was surprised [by the leak]. We never intended it to get out there, and we didn't want it to, either.

I understand why they exist and some people like them and some people don't, and if you don't like them, don't look, but what I don't like is how it feels more and more like everything is being spoiled.

Like there isn't somebody going, "You know what? I have two pieces of information. Why don't I use one and not the other?"

Although not everything gets out, of course, it's sometimes hard to write stuff when you feel like "can we do this, or will it get out?" It's just troubling to us ... I wish that people gave a little more care to what they put out there.

Q: As you know, but some readers might not, Gossip Girl was developed by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage based upon books by Cecily Von Ziegesar.

In the books, Chuck was bisexual. Some fans have wanted to know why, in adapting Chuck's character for the show, he was not also written as bisexual.

Josh Safran: Chuck is not bisexual in the first book. The pilot mirrors the first book, and Josh and Stephanie drew from there for each character.

We've deviated from the books quite a bit, but it's important to state that there was never a "we don't want to make Chuck bisexual" conversation.

The book series was used merely as the launching point for the character of Chuck Bass, and the same is true for each of the characters.

Once the show was up and running, the Gossip Girl writers' room mindset, per Josh and Stephanie, was to "let the books be the books and let's use them where we can, but let's also make the series the series."

Also, you have to remember that when we started, the entire book series is a year of their high school life - their senior year. Josh and Stephanie made them juniors for the first season, so we couldn't even delve into the college stuff yet.

Now, we are far away from the books in a lot of ways.

Follow the links for Josh Safran's full interview ...

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III

Steve Marsi is the Managing Editor of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Google+ or email him here.