A Night in the Writers’ Room: Drama Writers Mix It Up on Writing Process, Time Spent in the Room and to Outline or Not to Outline

From the first question, Variety’s A Night in the Writers’ Room gathering of five drama showrunners was a lively affair as the scribes compared notes and reflected on how much television has changed in a short time.

But nothing sparked up the session, moderated by Emily Longeretta, Variety’s senior TV features editor, like the discussion of how each showrunner prefers to work — and what it takes for them to actually get work done.

For Jennie Snyder Urman, showrunner and executive producer of CBS’ “Matlock,” she has to free herself from the desk to get creative juices flowing. The lengths to which she goes to get her work done surprised her fellow panelists.

“My writing process is tied to my walking,” Urman said during the panel held at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. “I do that every day. I take my scripts for walks. My husband’s gotten calls that’s like,…