When you're managing an emergency department, you're trying to keep everybody calm, so when an emergency comes in the door, everyone can do their best work.

A lot of what I do as a showrunner is anxiety control. People get nervous when they don't know what's going on, so a big part of my job is making sure everyone has all of the information all of the time.

That's the holy grail as a TV writer, to work on a story that you care about and to put it out there and for it to find the audience and connect with fans and connect with critics.

I think horror films always have to be as simple as possible.

One of the things I've learned by working on the 'Walking Dead' and other TV shows is to be more tolerant of other people's process.

It's better to grow your employees, steer them into a place that they can learn and succeed, and want to work hard and be loyal, than to have a revolving door of employees. That's demoralizing.

The key things I learned as a hospital administrator are to be organized, communicate, and be flexible.

People tweet me all the time and tell me how much they love it, how they can't wait for the show to come back on, that they're addicted to the show. So that's really rewarding. As an artist, we're all looking for that connection to an audience and when you find people as diehard as our fans are - it's sort of like finding the holy grail.

In TV and film, a little goes a long way. I see the show as horror so a lot of the [violence] is suggested. But it is violent. It is gory. I don't see any need to up the gore. Just to keep it as real and visceral as possible.

Sharing information with employees makes them feel invested.

You really have to do your job as a writer and push people to be as creative as possible. What's nice about the TV medium is you have such a connection to the characters that when somebody dies, the audience cries. They really feel it. You really don't cry when someone dies in a horror movie.

My time as showrunner on The Walking Dead has been an amazing experience, but after I finish season three, it’s time to move on. I have told the stories I wanted to tell and connected with our fans on a level that I never imagined. It doesn’t get much better than that. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey.

I usually dive head first and am really excited about that changes.