When you're a starving artist, you make do. It didn't matter that I didn't know where my rent was coming from.

In TV, you're a 'writer for hire.' That means you're trying to guess what your boss wants and delivering that story. There's a lot of spitballing. The big thing is 'breaking story,' which means coming up with a story. You do it by episode and put it all up on a board.

I always was missing that female brown queer perspective, and I think in 'Vida' we have that. A lot of things I wanted to touch on and deal with, I get to do here.

I went in for a meeting with Marta Fernandez, and she said, 'We are looking for a female millennial show. Have you heard of the term 'chipster'?' And I was like, 'Of course - Chicana hipster.'

I've witnessed first hand the impact the Benchmark team has had on new ventures, and I believe their commitment to the entrepreneur and dedication to building companies of lasting value really set the firm apart.

I think that in itself is kind of an amazing achievement to be able to say that your full-time career is in any creative arts, let alone a show that has kept people interested for coming on four seasons and hopefully more.

One thing is having skated five of the best races I've probably could have skated. It was nice to peak at the right time and to do it in an important time in somebody's career.

In a way, I was spoon-fed, if you will, a career. It was fully manufactured by a studio that believed that they could put me on their posters and turn me into their bottle of Coca-Cola, their product.