There’s a thing about being TV writer that most lay people don’t know: when an episode says Written By a person, say, Me, there is a chance that I wrote as few as somewhere from 0-10 words in the entire episode. Writers submit scripts, which oftentimes get rewritten by the Showrunners for a variety of reasons: production concerns, story issues, or simply just a matter of Taste. It’s always been a weird-ish part of the job for me, because as a playwright, when the lights come up on your Brain, you are responsible and culpable for EVERY SINGLE WORD. It’s strange sometimes to see my name credited and receive Congratulations when I feel like I did nothing to deserve either. HOWEVERMORE, I’ve been supremely lucky on a number of jobs to work for Bosses who keep a lot of my words in tact, so that I can feel some ownership. Take my Fross (friend Boss?) Molly, creator and showrunner of Maid, who protected and kept a great many of my words, specifically for Regina (above) who I put a lot of myself into. But it’s one of the many ego waltzes of being a TV writer on a staff: You find yourself in it, but it’s not your story. You create the world, but it’s not about you. And this, actually, always ends up being my favorite part of the job. It’s not about me. I’m in service of stories and characters that surpass my own life in scope, in meaning. So I do not have to be brilliant, I do not have to be great, I do not have to have lived all experiences, all I need to do is listen, then type, then wonder, what next?