I love being in the writers’ room. Not just because it means I’m hired and I can put my endless search for the next job on hold, at least for a while, but because it’s a place where you can dive deeper into a story and explore its potential thoroughly with others. And even that can be very satisfying in itself. But not just that.

For me, there’s something almost magical about the writers’ room: you observe creativity in action, witness the birth of an idea, good or bad, marvel at how other creatives’ minds work, and practice speaking your own mind. It’s truly a learning environment: being in a writers’ room for a month may mean learning more than you would on your own in a year, if you’re open to collaborating with others.

And I’m not just talking about learning the nuts and bolts of the craft. You also learn how to approach the process. For example, I remember realizing that I had been judging and discarding my ideas quite prematurely after watching a head writer turn not-so-good ideas into gold again and again.