Saying goodbye to Nina is both bittersweet and beautiful. After six-plus years together, the entire cast and crew of The Vampire Diaries has reached a level of closeness that I don't think any of us ever expected. Nina is excited to spread her wings, get some rest, travel the world and also take it by storm, and we support her a thousand-fold. We will miss Nina and the four hundred characters she played, but we look forward to the insane and exciting challenge of continuing to tell stories of our Salvatore Brothers and our much-loved and gifted ensemble.

People say like, "I don't know how you do it. You must get no sleep." I actually do get the right amount of sleep every night. That's my rule. But if I'm writing until six in the morning I sleep until two in the afternoon and it's the only thing that keeps me healthy and sane.

When you're in a functional friendship or a functional relationship, and you feel like you've got something to share, you can share it with a friend, a lover or whatever.

Once a vampire drinks another vampires blood they are connected to them forever

For me, it is important to not just tell the audience how the story ended today, but to give a glimpse into how other people's stories might go on, in the future.

Saying goodbye to Nina is both bittersweet and beautiful. After six-plus years together, the entire cast and crew of The Vampire Diaries has reached a level of closeness that I don't think any of us ever expected. Nina is excited to spread her wings, get some rest, travel the world and also take it by storm, and we support her a thousand-fold. We will miss Nina and the four hundred characters she played, but we look forward to the insane and exciting challenge of continuing to tell stories of our Salvatore Brothers and our much-loved and gifted ensemble.

I always say, "Never give your lead character an infant. Make them a recovering alcoholic, or the victim of a horrible violent crime because you can really never truly recover from that." It's a story pitfall.