As a writer, it's fun to create. And once you get into a long-running show with very established characters and a very established tone and format, after a while it's a really great job, but that's what it is - a job.
I guess in America we're so sold on this ideal of the perfect, well-adjusted family that is able to confront any conflict and, with true love and understanding, work things through. I'm sure they do exist, but I never knew any of them.
A lot of times, the choice of the right song will save a scene. Or there will be a scene that's a little flat and you put in the right song and somehow it just comes alive.
I'm not like J.K. Rowling, where I know there's going to be this number of seasons, and I know exactly what's going to happen. I would be so bored if that was the case. There would be no journey. There would be nothing to discover.
I really love storytelling, and I love the stories as they reveal themselves. It's an incredibly nourishing process; it's probably the closest I come to having a religion.
The idea of celibate vampires is ridiculous. To me, vampires are sex. I don't get a vampire story about abstinence. I don't care about high school students. I find them irritating and uninformed.
I try to tell the best story, and the story that has some heart and some genuine terror and some social commentary and some comedy and some romance and some sex and some violence.
I'm at the point in my life where I don't want to work as hard. Actually, I've had to take a good hard look at workaholism and it's effect on one's mental health.