Salon: What role does writing play in your life? Are you more of a Joan Didion notebook writer, a Hemingway-blood-on-the-page type, or an “I’m emotional, I’m just going to throw it out there” maniac?

Lena: I want so much to be someone who sees something and writes it down in their beautiful leather notebook. The fact is that I write under duress, often in my bed, often at the last minute. I’m kind of a binge writer I would say, which I don’t support. I was always kind of that way. Probably the time I was the most regular as a writer was college. It was like, what else is there to do when you’re living in the Midwest studying creative writing?

Now I have to really guard and cherish my writing time, because there are so many other demands on it. There’s what the show takes up, because the show has so many other aspects besides writing. There are a lot of other areas of interest for me, but writing time is where everything comes from. I have to make sure to be really careful with it. It’s hard for me. When I had other jobs, like when I was working in a clothing store, or I was a hostess, I had this weird schedule where I would work, come home, take a nap, then write from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m., then go back to sleep. I basically figured out a schedule where I could have the strength to get something done at night.

Now it’s harder for me to go in and out of various modes, so I have to set aside days where I’m like “I’m getting writing done today.” Because a big part of it for me is being able to dawdle, or look at things on the Internet, or take a moment to answer six emails, or walk around a circle, or go out and read the newspaper. The day needs to hold enough space for all the other stuff that goes with writing. I would say that my writing comes from more of an emotional place than an “I’m in the street, I observe something, and I get an idea” place. I wish that I had more of that. That’s like where more of my tweets come from, which is a bummer. I’m hoping that it can evolve with age, as all things do.