grossed over $1 billion worldwide, which in
turn are based on a series of books that have
sold 85 million copies. The sage saga has
won awards, inspired hundreds of fan sites
and even made a tourist mecca out of Forks,
Washington. It's a momentous global phe-
nomenon, one that makes it easy to forget
that at its core is a simple story of boy meets
girl meets boy. That the two boys are, re-
spectively, a vampire and a werewolf does
serve to complicate matters, though.
tinson), the vampire, and Bella (Kristen
Stewart) are together again and very com-
mitted to staying that way. Their relation-
ship, though, has caused an estrangement
between Bella and her best friend, Jacob
threat surfaces against Bella, it forces the
rival clans to enter into an uneasy pact to
protect her.
of adapting these beloved books to the big
screen. Of course, before Kristen Stewart can
say a word or a fan can scream for Taylor
Lautner at a premiere, Rosenberg must first
face the scariest monster: the blank page.
writer from a non-professional is whether you
let the demons win. I mean, yes, talent and
craft play a part of it, too. But can you over-
come those voices that scream, `You suck!
You're a hack! You've never had an original
thought!' That monologue from Adaptation --
every writer has that. I mean, if Charlie Kauf-
ers we've ever known has those
thoughts, you know everyone does."
ter and The O.C., Rosenberg brings
a "writers' room" mentality to her
feature work. While working on a
draft, she'll take scenes to the writ-
ers' group she's been relying on for
18 years. "Sometimes you read
something out loud and think,
`That sounds horrible,'" Rosenberg
says. "Sometimes you read it and
think, `Oh, that's good,' and you
catch a little thrill. But that doesn't
always happen. It's usually just
working and sweating over a draft
until you finally find it." Once she
has a draft she's happy with, she
shows it to her very large circle of
writer friends for feedback. As she
explains, "By the time I show the
studio what I'm calling a first draft,
it's more like a 12
the producers, most notably the au-
thor of the Twilight books, Stephenie
Meyer. Rosenberg says she feels a
kinship with Meyer and often goes
to her when she's working through
ideas and processes for characters
and emotional arcs. "The rest are
why I love working with them. But Stephenie
is the only other writer, plus she's an incredi-
ble resource in that she created the mythol-
ogy and has thought about these things for
many more years than I have."
is usually attending to her day job as
showrunner on the Showtime drama Dexter.
Regular communication with the set in Van-
couver allows Rosenberg to continue rewrit-
ing through production from the cozy
confines of her office in Los Angeles. Work-
ing on two projects concurrently can be
tricky, even though they're both character-
driven pieces with obvious tonal differences.
Rosenberg admits that sometimes they can
bleed together and it takes some effort to
separate them. "Maybe once in a while I'll