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.

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.

It was difficult, and yet I was very eager to do it. It was a really odd thing. I really wanted to do that story. I really wanted to write the death of Captain Kirk. I really wanted to do it in the movie.

After you get a season under your belt, you learn a lot of lessons. It's a much bigger challenge, logistically, in terms of production.

Writing is like that. You have to have some basic creative spark, and then, if you have that, I feel like you can learn the production side of it. You can learn how to be a good producer. And I guess it does take a certain balance of those two skills in your head to be a successful showrunner.

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.

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