Fiction and screenwriting blend for me. I feel like being a TV writer/screenwriter has definitely made my fiction writing better, although I have less time to do it.

I feel like having an actual taxidermy-ed mammal would get gross, like its hair would get dirty and stuff.

Fiction and screenwriting blend for me. I feel like being a TV writer/screenwriter has definitely made my fiction writing better, although I have less time to do it.

I was tired of working in an office and I wanted to make a living telling stories. There are not many people who find a way to do this.

I encourage all novelists to move to TV right now, that is the way to go. I was living in New York working at a bank as a day job about seven years ago. I was writing novels at night and decided, "Wow, there's so much great TV, and they're telling the complex, interesting, psychologically nuanced stories that, as a novelist, you dream of telling. And it's a healthy, exciting, thriving medium - that's where I need to be."

I don't think I've ever bench-pressed anything in my life. Until about two years ago I swam a mile almost every day. Then I stopped and I lost a lot of weight because my appetite was less. I'm not skinny now - I'm spindly. I eat an extremely simple diet - mostly salmon, avocado, feta cheese, chicken, eggs, peanut butter, blueberries, and quinoa.

We're lucky to be in the middle of a TV renaissance. It's the healthiest storytelling medium in our culture.