Surviving the Writer’s Room: Mental Health Tips Every TV Writer Needs to Hear

Posted on: May 29, 2025

Photo Credit: vgajic // Shutterstock

By Brendan Fitzgibbons

There are few places that test your mental health more than a writer’s room. The others that come to mind are Las Vegas, showing up single to a family reunion, and Cracker Barrel. That might sound like hyperbole, but an intense writer’s room can feel like one long episode of Naked and Afraid — for your emotions. Stay calm and don’t build a shelter, because the good news is, there are several tips and tools you can use to maintain a solid baseline of mental health throughout your time in the room.

Key Takeaways:

Treat every pitch like a new play — learning to move on quickly is crucial to staying sane in the room.
Daily mental health habits like therapy, walks, or even comfort food can help you reset when the pressure builds.
Writer’s rooms may end, but the relationships you build can shape the rest of your career — so show up with kindness and gratitude.

Grateful To Be There

First of all, congratulations on getting into a room. It’s never a bad idea to maintain a baseline sense of gratitude just for being there, considering how difficult it is to get in. This might seem like a small or obvious tip, but you’d be surprised how far being grateful can get you — especially if others in the room are jaded.

Also, let me be clear: the difficulty of writer’s rooms varies wildly. Don’t go into your first one assuming it’s going to be a nightmare — that’s working in tech. You might end up working very human hours with a supportive showrunner who’s genuinely excited to hear your input. (And if you know of that person, please tell them to call me.)

The Long Game

It’s critical to remind yourself daily that a writer’s room is like one very long sports game. And if you’ve played sports, you know that one of the best philosophies is the idea of “Next”: next play, next shot, next man up. You’re going to get a lot of chances to pitch ideas, jokes or storylines, so if one completely bombs, remember — Next.

It’s vital to have a short memory. Your next opportunity to contribute is always around the corner, but you’ll miss it if you’re too busy obsessing over something that didn’t land. And depending on how long your room runs, you’ll literally have thousands of chances to chime in and showcase your brilliance.

A Strong Base

You will most likely be triggered, have hard days, and question whether or not you should even be there. That’s why it’s pivotal to have a foundation of mental health practices to fall back on. These can include meditation, talking to a therapist, working out, having your mom on speed dial and a bucket of pulled pork sandwiches. You may not need to do any of these, but either way, a healthy dose can only make you stronger in the room.

Breaks

This might also seem obvious, but because of the closeness of the environment, the vulnerability of creating and the small size of the group, writer’s rooms can feel like high school. Spend enough time with a group of people in a small room, and it can start to feel like it’s your entire world. Reminder: it’s not. Put it this way — as a stand-up, I’ve bombed in front of hundreds of people in a crowd and seven people in a writer’s room. I would pick the stand-up crowd every time because at least I wasn’t having lunch with those people.

However, you can mitigate this by carving out time — during the day or after hours — to fully disentangle yourself from the room. Solo walks are huge, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Remember: you had a life before the room, and you’ll absolutely have a life after. Along those same lines, keep working on your other projects, hobbies or interests during the job. Don’t get caught up thinking that what you’re doing in the room is all that matters. It’s important, but it’s not everything.

Build Connections

Keeping with the long-game theme, the writer’s room will come to an end, but the friendships and connections you build in that room can last forever. So many of the professional writers I know met all their best friends in their first room when they were writer’s assistants. And those people all went on to be successful writers, EPs, showrunners and DJs.

Brendan Fitzgibbons is a comedy writer and actor living in Los Angeles. He’s written for Comedy Central, The Onion, NBC, HuffPost and Bravo. As an actor, he’s appeared on Comedy Central, MTV and “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.” His podcast, “Spiritual As****e” was named a Top Indie Podcast by Stitcher.

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