Here is the second half of our interview with Sera Gamble. This section is completely spoiler free! We discuss the strike, fandom, online communities, and the Metallicar. Just a few notes to go along with the transcript:

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• As always, comments are encouraged and appreciated. Enjoy!

[Dana] So, fans have been keeping a close eye on the potential Writer’s Guild Strike which we talked about a little bit earlier. Some of the articles are highlighting the effect that strike would have on shows that film in Canada. Are you able to talk at all about the impact that this could have on Supernatural‘s production if a strike occurred?

[Sera] I don’t know the specifics or the difference between what happens to filming in Canada versus what happens to filming here. I can tell you that we’re one day away from the contract running out, the writers’ contract running out. And, all of the news that I am getting is that the strike remains likely. It kind of comes down to this – while the writers are on strike, we can’t write anything else, we can’t rewrite something to make it in budget, we can’t change something to a different location. We really have to just put mittens on and not type until the strike is over. So, it becomes an issue of ‘How much do you kind of have in the bank?’ Because as soon as the scripts that are ready to produce run out, then there’s nothing for them to shoot in Canada.

I’ve been hearing, just today I’ve been hearing that there are other guilds that have started to talk about striking along with us. Potentially the Teamsters, I’ve been hearing maybe the costume people, and the casting people? I mean, this changes day to day, I mean, by the time this podcast is on, everything could be totally different. But it’s possible that people won’t want to cross a picket line at all. I don’t know, this is the first time I’ve lived through a strike. *laughs* So, I don’t know what it’s going to be. I know we have scripts up to episode eleven, possibly twelve, and then after that they won’t have anything to produce. So.

[Dana] But, like you say, if you are not even allowed to touch a script up they have eleven and twelve, but whose to say – how often do you do last minute changes to your scripts?

[Sera] You know, scripts go through so many drafts, and my experience on this show is that we are really pushing to the limit of what is possible to produce for our budget. I am continually astonished by what our producers are able to do with our budget. And so, for me, after I get past the studio notes and the network notes, and make sure everything makes good story sense, and that our characters are good, and up to speed, and things are going the way they are supposed to be going for the story, most of my rewrites are about making it producible. So, I don’t really know what’s going to happen.

But, I will tell you as a way of looking at the strike. Because I know fans are like ‘But, we want you to make the show!’ and we wanna make the show. We wanna make the show, we wanna get paid to make the show, we our jobs to be safe, and you know, we want all that stuff as well. But, a strike becomes effective when it affects the people you are striking against.

So, for as long as all of the studios have lots of stuff in the bank, they, you know, lots of more stuff to produce, and they are pretty much cool and have stuff to put on the air. They really have to start worrying when that content runs out. I’m not an expert on this stuff, but my limited logic tells me that the sooner they run out of stuff, the sooner everyone will get really, really serious about figuring out how to make a contract work.

That’s kind of how it looks to me today, and I gotta to tell you I get an email every couple hours about this. It’s kind of foremost – there’s a lot of tension in the office right now. *laughs* I don’t know. We’ll see how it plays out. I’ll blog about it. That’s what I’ll do. *laughs*

[Dana] I imagine, I can imagine it’s tense. We’ve got unions involved in the work that I do, and I was digging around for information on the strike today, and I saw that the last strike was actually in 1988, so it’s been that long, but it lasted for 22 weeks.

[Sera] Yeah. I know a lot of people who lived through that strike and who were really, really active. I mean, a really good friend of mine in the business was telling me that he had just started and he ended up having to take a big loan and it was freaky, and now people look back and go you know ‘If the strike had just been a bit longer, things would’ve been better.’ It’s a difficult, difficult situation for everybody. I mean, every studio executive that I talk to on the phone, their job is threatened, every casting director.

It’s a serious situation, and – I guess the only thing I would say is, like, I get pissed off at the writers when I read the newspapers about it, and then I remember that the newspapers are owned by the people we are gearing up to strike against.You know, there are serious issues on the table. Also, I don’t really have any control over any of this. I kind of just have to put my pen down when they say to put my pen down. So, I’m doing my best to just roll with it and see this as an interesting experience that I’ll get to kind of like regale my staff with when I’m an old curmudgeonly show runner, and they’re facing it again 14 years from now.

[Dana] Well, we’ll keep our fingers crossed and keep an eye on the news, and hopefully a resolution will come soon.

[Sera] Yeah, I hope so, I hope so.

[Dana] A good resolution, too.

[Sera] Yeah.

[Dana] So, you’ve confessed you’ve checked online reactions in the past …

[Sera] Uh-huh. *laughs*

[Dana] Which is always a risky business. But now that you’ve had two years under your belt in this particular fandom, you know, how are you fairing these days? Do you still come online to gauge fan reaction?

[Sera] *laughs* That’s funny. Yeah, I do sometimes. I try not to look very often. It’s not healthy to look very often. *laughs* And I’m always telling Eric to stop. But all of us – I mean, how can you not? It’s instant feedback, and writers are incredibly insecure people anyway.

I think on the whole I’m fairing well, I guess. You have to keep a kind of philosophical distance. I think there are a lot of people – I’ll say this, as time has gone on and my name has been on more and more episodes, people have come to recognize it – which in and of itself is amazing – and I don’t think happens on every kind of TV show, but genre shows, the fans are very detailed-oriented, and they notice, which is awesome, they actually acknowledge that there’s a writer who wrote the show, *laughs* which is cool.

But they also become increasingly more personal in their assessment of my ability *laughs* from episode to episode, so the snark have gotten snarkier, but the compliments have also gotten more and more, sort of like, laden with marriage proposals. Which is great, you know, so if you love my work and you are into me, thank you, thanks for writing about me, and if you hate it – um – thanks for writing about me.

I don’t know. You know, I don’t really know what to do with it. It all seems a little like – I am not equipped – you know, actors maybe are better equipped to know what to do when you read your name on the internet. You know, on the whole, I think it’s really – here’s the bottom line for me, like, I’m a writer, I put myself out there. The fact that I am writing on a staff of a show that I didn’t even create, where i am fulfilling someone else’s vision, that people notice things about my writing that are consistent and it makes them want to seek out my fiction, and read my blog, and find out what other projects I’m doing. That’s really amazing, and I couldn’t ask for anything more. It’s exactly what you dream of when you become a writer. That there are people who will seek out your work and look for it the way that you are like first in line to buy a book from your favorite writer, you know? It just makes me feel lucky and like my head is going to explode. So yeah.

[Dana] Yeah the fans have suddenly become aware, I don’t know how they became aware, but they’ve gotten the idea that Eric and other writers and people involved in Supernatural do go online and check out a lot of fan sites and fan writings …

[Sera] So they’re like ‘Dear Eric Kripke, stop it!’ *laughs* or whatever.

[Dana] No, now they’re kind of paranoid that ‘Well, now that they read our speculation, and they’re going to lay these false, you know, red herrings in the episodes just to play around with our minds.’

[Sera] If it was me, if it was me, I would. Eric cares a lot less about spoilers than I do. He’s just like ‘Whatever, they’re going to enjoy the episode anyway.’ If it were up to me I would be sending out sides that had nothing to do with the episode every single week. Because, I mean, I’m the kind of person who, I try not to read reviews of movies before I see them. I try not to read the back of the book before I read the book. I just like the experience to be as pure as possible. But that’s a matter of personal taste, and I understand that there are people who – that’s their way of kind of keeping the show alive for them for the rest of the week.

So, yeah, I think pretty much – I bet Ben doesn’t jump online, he seems like he could care less. But the other writers, I know they occasionally check in. It’s a double-edged sword. You know, the show is a living breathing thing that continues to evolve.

[Dana] And we have a very limited picture of what you guys are doing, and so at some point we can voice that we didn’t like something, but there is obviously a reason behind why you guys went with that particular …

[Serra] And honestly, sometimes we do something, and it just sucks. I am not here to – I am the last person to say my writing is alway awesome. *laughs* You know, I mean, sometimes fans have a big outcry because something didn’t work. And, there are times when we think something is great, and we’re surprised that it isn’t met with universal applaud and acclaim, but there are other times when we are scrambling to fix something because it doesn’t work for us, and we do our best to patch it up.

That’s kind of like where the moving train thing comes in, where we are producing so much content so quickly, that, you know, your hope is that the majority of it is really good. But you have so many balls in the air, sometimes things just don’t end up meeting your expectations, and when the fans say ‘That moment sucked,’ I’m like ‘Yeah, it did, I’m sorry.’ *laughs*

[Dana] The thing you mentioned earlier that I was gonna ask you about was the way CW sometimes gives away way too much information in the promotional materials.

[Sera] I know, I hate that.

[Dana] And what is the difference this year that, at least that you are aware of, in the promotional department because a lot of fans are really frustrated that Supernatural is not getting the same amount of support from the network, it seems like at least, as it did last year?

[Sera] I don’t really know anything about the promo department, to be honest with you. I am not involved with it, and it’s so completely separate from the creative staff of the show. I think the bridge between them and us is probably Eric and Bob. I know that when the new season began, they, understandably, they spent a lot of their resources in trying to promote the new shows, and they spent a lot less trying to keep the shows going that had managed to get back on the air, so they were okay, so they doing were okay.

You know, I don’t know. I feel like the cool thing about Supernatural kind of shows, genre shows, is that they do brilliantly by word of mouth because the kind of person who likes this type of entertainment is online and read blogs and goes – the most rabid fans go to conventions for this stuff. So we are able to tap into the best kind of advertising which is just people who like the show telling other people about it.

[Dana] So, speaking of the fans, I’m sure you’ve noticed how Supernatural fans examine pretty much every single aspect of the show.

[Sera] Yeah. *laughs*

[Dana] You know, with a fan base this size, which is – it’s a benefit to all of us – I come across someone who knows about music and scoring, and blocking and camera work, and all the writing and directing – all the stuff I don’t know. It allows us to have these discussions that I would never have with my local friends. The fact that Supernatural holds up to this scrutiny is a testament to the fabulous team that has been created.

[Sera] Well, thanks.

[Dana] To tap into Dean’s least favorite debate – is this fate or carefully crafted choices?

[Sera] It’s both.

[Dana] Okay.

[Sera] It’s both. There are a lot of meetings that happen every single day with the heads of the different departments to make sure that things are all holding together, you know, and we have executives at the studio from the network to keep an eye on every single episode. And Eric has these little 3×5 index cards with tiny little writing like in the movie “Seven.” *laughs*

That, like, I was in the writers room the other day, and I noticed for the first time that there was this tiny little cork board that was full of these index cards, and I was like ‘Should I be reading those?’ and he was like ‘No! Don’t read them, they’re just for me.’ *laughs* But, he seems to be keeping track of things that way, you know.

The key to keeping things going, and keeping things – keeping everything together and every aspect kind of uniform with itself, and consistent with everything else is about assembling a really good team, and keeping them happy, and keeping them together. So, you know, when it works, I think it works really well.

[Dana] Right, and fans I think have said that over and over that Eric has had this plan in his head. He knows where he’s going. Which, it’s much easier to hang in with a show when you know the creator actually has an end point or has a plot in their mind …

[Sera] Yeah, I agree.

[Dana] Versus the show runners who are just layering questions upon questions because they don’t know when or what the answers might be. So, yeah, it’s nice, and we keep saying ‘Yes, Eric has a plan. We know he has a plan.’ So, we’re not too worried yet.

[Sera] I promise he has a plan. We have so many white boards full of crazy writing all over the writers room and so many packets of information here. It changes and it evolves, and we make different decisions as the season progresses, but we have a kind of exoskeleton for this thing, and we’re filling it in as creatively as we can. That’s pretty much how it goes every year.

[Dana] And Eric’s secret note cards, so we’ll have to remember that …

[Sera] Eric’s crazy secret note cards, yeah.

[Dana] So, Fandom Rocks was created as a way to show the larger society that online communities are meaningful and can affect change. Fans have chosen to work with charities that have some kind of a connection to Supernatural or the cast and crew. When did you happen to learn about Fandom Rocks?

[Sera] I learned about you guys when you emailed me, actually, I didn’t realize you were doing that, but it’s cool. It’s really cool. And like I said, anyone who doesn’t give an interview charity is just an ass. *laughs* What a great way to sort of channel the energy of being into a show. I think that’s cool.

[Dana] What are your thoughts on online communities?

[Sera] It’s kind of funny that you ask me that. I’ve been having so many – it just so happens that I’ve been discussing this with friends lately. I think that on the one hand, it makes the world really small, and that’s a good thing. It makes you able to talk to people all over the world, and it makes people able to disseminate information that isn’t filtered through big conglomerates or governments. I think communities of like-minded people getting together and talking about shows is exciting, and I wish that it had been around when I was a geeky kid. *laughs* And then on the other hand I am also like, ‘And then put down the mouse and go out and play.’ *laughs* You know?

So, I feel like – that’s why I actually think conventions are really a good thing. I think it’s good for all of those people who talk in the online communities to get on a plane or get in their car and go and actually meet each other in person and take the relationship to the next level and form real friendships. Maybe that makes me sound really, really old. Does that make me sound really old? *laughs*

[Dana] No, no it doesn’t at all. It makes complete sense, too, I mean, I work at a University and so one of the big things for us is getting students out of their rooms and being involved in their hall, because this is their new community. They’ve finally left home, and they’re without mom and dad for the first time, so, establishing themselves away from all of their gadgets is a really big step for them.

[Sera] Wow, that’s interesting. I think it’s changed. It’s been a couple years. I’ve been out of college for a few years. We were out, and we were doing terrible, terrible things. *laughs* So, maybe in a certain way it’s better. But, yeah, and the reason I have such a strong opinion about it is because I can get really, really sucked in. I mean, I sit in front of my computer all day long at work. And then it’s easy to find yourself sucked into surfing the internet and doing all kinds of stuff all the time, so I’m constantly reprimanding myself and trying to get out and away from it more. And then you’ve got your Blackberry and all your stuff. If we go on strike, I gonna turn everything off for a week. That’s my goal. I’m gonna be Amish for one week.

[Dana] So, it’s interesting to hear that you didn’t learn about us until we emailed you. We’ve tried to keep people in the loop in terms of Eric, and we had sent letters to the cast and to Kim Manners and tried to contact the network and Warner Bros. a couple of times to let them know ‘Hey, we’re out here doing this, we hope you don’t mind.’ And at the same time we’ve tried to ask are there any charities that you guys would want us to support because we are just picking out of a hat anybody that we think could use it. So, are there any charities that are near and dear to you?

[Sera] There are! Actually, there’s a local charity here in Los Angeles, that, it’s a non-for-profit organization called WriteGirl.

[Dana] Okay.

[Sera] And, they’re pretty awesome with teenage girls who want to write, and create one on one mentorship relationships, and then also have several workshops throughout the year. And then at the end of the season they put out an anthology of everyone’s writing. And when I was less busy, I actually was a mentor and have not been able to participate for the last couple seasons. But, I try to always, I give to them every year. That, I mean, you can see why that would be near and dear to my heart. I was totally that teenage girl.

[Dana] Well, what we do is we grab some non-for-profit organizations that we think fans are interested in or fans nominate the ones that they’re interested in, and we out them in a poll, and then they vote.

[Sera] That’s cool.

[Dana] So fans really are truly nominating and choosing the charities that this group supports. So, we’ll have to add that to the list and let them know it is your charity of choice.

[Sera] Yeah, good.

[Dana] Okay, so we’re down to the quickie questions.

[Sera] Does that mean I have to give quickie answers? I’m bad at that. *laughs*

[Dana] No, you don’t have to do. So, first one, what question are you just waiting to be asked?

[Sera] What question am I just waiting to be asked? You know what I can’t – I can’t believe no one has asked me if I would be into Sam or Dean. *laughs* I mean, that’s crazy because isn’t that what you guys ask each other all the time? You know, are you into Sam or into Dean? So, yeah, no one has ever asked me that.

[Dana] What question do you never want to be asked again?

[Sera] I guess … the question that’s the most baffling to me is always – it seems like sometimes I get asked questions about one or the other of the brothers sort of being left behind in the story as if we’re lavishing more time and attention on one than the other, and that just makes no sense to me. Obviously, you know, their page count from episode to episode might vary, but we break their story so as a unit. And then they’re like ‘But what about Sam? Sam is just really being neglected’ or ‘But what about Dean. This seems to be too much about Sam.’ And I’m like, ‘Really?’ I just don’t even understand that one.

[Dana] Right, and that would be the Sam fan and the Dean fan asking you.

[Sera] Yeah, yeah, I see how these things are connected, and it’s good to be protective of your favorite character. But, yeah, let’s retire that question. Can we retire that question if I absolutely promise you I will never, ever let anyone neglect one or the other?

[Dana] Yeah, I will never ask you that question.

[Sera] Okay, good.

[Dana] Okay, so the episode “Tall Tales” was, again, very hilarious, but whose impression do you think was more accurate, Sam’s impression of Dean or Dean’s impression of Sam?

[Sera] That’s a funny question. My favorite moment in that whole episode was Dean with his mouth full, so I’ll go with Dean with his mouth full. You kind of just know that when – he lets it all hang out when he’s around his brother, but when he’s alone you know he probably does shove that much food in his mouth all at once, yeah.

[Dana] You would rather write an episode with a vengeful spirit, a reaper, or a succubus?

[Sera] Are you asking me that question because I said I hate succubi?

[Dana] Oh, yeah, it was totally the third choice because of that.

[Sera] I don’t want to write an episode about a succubus ever again because I pretty much wrote one that didn’t make the air because it was that bad. That said, I suppose if I end up writing the show for long enough, it’ll probably come around again, and if it comes around again, fate dictates that I must be stuck with it. So, the more I talk about it, the more likely it becomes that I’m going have to write one. So, that’s enough of that.

I’m into – I think I prefer reapers actually to the vengeful spirit. Probably because we’ve done more vengeful spirits. We’ve only done reapers twice. You know reapers, they are, first of all, they can really talk to you, like Tessa did in that episode, and they have their own agenda. I like bad guys or supernatural creatures you can have a conversation with, and I get the sense that reapers actually have a of information and a lot of knowledge about stuff that we haven’t yet gotten into on the show just in terms of what the bigger world looks like and what the world looks like from their strange, interesting, very different point of view. So, I think there’s a lot of meaty stuff to explore there, that we haven’t even gotten into yet.

[Dana] Especially considering the first time reapers showed up, they were being controlled by somebody else, so we didn’t really see or learn anything about them as themselves.

[Sera] Exactly.

[Dana] Was there a little shout-out to you in the most recent episode, “Sin City,” where Richie and Dean talk about taking out the succubus together?

[Sera] That’s funny. Actually, at the same time they were writing that episode, I was writing an episode, and I wrote a succubus line sort of implying that they had killed a succubus in Florida or something, and the reason I did that was because I was trying to make sure it was kind of on the list of things they had already done *laughs* so they couldn’t do it again *laughs* but then Jeremy at the same time in the next office wrote his line about the succubi, and his line was funnier so he got to keep his, and I had to rewrite mine, which was fair.

[Dana] So, would you rather, if you got a chance to star in one of Supernatural‘s episodes, would you rather play a vengeful spirit, a hunter, or one of the special kids?

[Sera] Oh, totally vengeful spirit, so they could special effect me out, and I could kill a bunch of people. Yeah, that’s not even a question.

[Dana] And, last one, three choices: the Metallicar, Truckzilla, or Bobby’s new car – which would you rather have?

[Sera] Obviously Sam and Dean’s car. Yeah, for sure, Metallicar all the way, yeah. Just this morning I was talking to one of the other writers about how can we make an episode where the Metallicar is the main character. So, I love that car. It has so much personality at this point. It’s been killed so many times. It’s my fav. It’s just so special. Dean lavishes – Dean puts so much attention in that car that could be going elsewhere. *laughs* So, it’s infused with all kinds of special energy, that car. People worry a lot about what would happen if we got serious girlfriends for Sam and Dean, and I’m just like ‘Dean has a serious girlfriend.’

[Dana] That’s true.

[Sera] Yeah.

[Dana] So, that was it for all of my questions. So, thank you so much.

[Sera] No problem.

[Dana] You have a great day. Bye!

[Sera] Thanks, you too, bye.

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[Sera] Hey, this is Sera Gamble, and you are listening to Fandom Rocks.
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[Dana] I hope you enjoyed our interview with Sera Gamble. It was a lot of fun for me, and we hope to do some things like this again. Please do not redistribute the interview anywhere. It is exclusive to Fandom Rocks.

Don’t forget to tune in to the CW for Season 3 of Supernatural, already in progress.

We hope you’ll come back for our next podcast which will be on “Bedtime Stories.” Keep rockin’ fandom.