As frustrating as it gets, at times, and as frustrating as it is, at times, I don't think I've ever considered doing something else, or not wanted to do it anymore. To me, it's just the greatest job. It's a good fit for who I am and what I want to be.

When Kirk dies it was very emotional and very strange, in the moment and all the way through the process. I'd read it in the script and I'd always be struck by what I'd just done and what we were doing, and that this was my childhood hero and I was writing his death.

When we're shooting, I commute to the UK, every three weeks or so, and that's hard. That's probably the toughest, physically, on me. It's a much longer commute than I've ever had to deal with. And then, there are the challenges of this particular production. It's not the kind of show that has standing sets.

The difficult notes are when they say, "And this is how we want you to fix it . . ." Just tell me what the problem is. Just tell me what the issue is, and I'll go off an fix it. It's usually when executives get to a place where they're trying to fix the problem for you that you have issues

The creative part, with the writing of it and the vision, and finding the voice of a show and the characters, is much harder to teach somebody. It's like music. You can either play it or you can't. If you can't play music and you really struggle and work hard, you can learn, but you have to have some inner gift to take it to the next level.

I'm a writer. That's who I am, at my core. I'm a writer, and then I learned production and administration, along the way. I feel like most people can learn it because production and the administration part is all about logic, and it's all about learning rules and budgets.

Now I know that if I'm in a fight or a big argument with executives or the studio or whoever, and it's getting to a point where it's starting to get bad, I don't have to have the fear of, "Am I strong enough to see this through? Would I really make a stand here? Would I really quit over this issue?" And I know in my heart that there is a place where I would walk away. I don't have to make it about my ego. I don't have to make it about whether I'm being strong enough or tough enough.