Melissa Rosenberg

Melissa: (advice to upstart writers) Find a way to live, if you're not independently wealthy. Have some life experience. Know how to type. If you can, get a job as a writer's assistant so you can find out how things are done, and be on hand if something opens up. If you can't get a job as a writer's assistant -- which are hard gigs to get -- get a job as a literary agent's assistant. It's a brutal job that will kill your spirit. But you will form relationships with people on the business. Take scriptwriting classes at UCLA or AFI. And all the while keep writing. Then somebody may give you a shot.

Melissa: (on her college) That's what Bennington was for me, a way to realize dreams. The school really taught me you can make things happen in your life on a lot of different fronts.

Melissa: (on writers living up to what they did for season two of "Dexter") We've been meeting for a month now for the third season and it's been like, 'What the hell are we going to do now?'. But I think we've come up with something that's going to be hopefully as good. I can't even hope to surpass it, but I can hope to do as well. It's going to be tough. But it's a challenge.

Melissa: (on writing a television series like "Dexter") In television you have to be able to string out what could possibly take two hours, but you have to string it out over the course of five years. So that's the challenge.

Melissa: (advice to writers on what to pitch to TV producers) The industry is hungry for anything and everything. Absolutely, novels!

Melissa: (on the challenge the traditional US TV season presents) The competition is insane. Writers are competing with each other (for directors and actors), and by September the market is so swamped that it's hard to get viewers to pay attention to your show.

Melissa: (on "Step Up") This film was an amazing experience. It was finally a chance to dance again, on the page if not on the floor.

Melissa: There's nowhere I'd rather be than in a room full of talented writers, breaking story together. But it can also be a little like being crammed onto a submarine during wartime.

Melissa: I live in terror of writer's block. I had it once, early on. It's the complete loss of confidence. Horrible. The only way through it is to simply write.

Melissa: You must in television, I think, in order to survive, you must take risks. I think the shows that burn our are the ones that play it safe.

Melissa: If a story is character driven, I can connect with it, I can bring something to it.

Melissa: I think the Internet could become a giant force in original programming... Look at cable. No one predicted that would grow as fast as it has, and it's completely changed the way people write for TV and watch TV.