Four television writers gathered at ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood on Wednesday evening to discuss their shows, their craft and the perils of show business. Two things connected them all: Each one is a writer of comedy and each one has been nominated for a 2014 Emmy.

Of the group, one writer had already won the Emmy she was nominated for: Holly Schlesinger, whose Bob’s Burgers episode “Mazel Tina” netted the Fox show the Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program last week. The other panelists included Silicon Valley writer, director and executive producer Alec Berg; former The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon writer Michael Jann; and Liz Friedman, whose pilot for Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black is up for the Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series Emmy. Berg is in that category as well, for the Silicon Valley season 1 finale “Optimal Tip-to-Tip Efficiency,” and Jann is up for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series along with the rest of the Fallon team.

Produced by the Writers Guild of America and hosted by The Hollywood Reporter Senior Editor Stacey Wilson, the event played to an audience of would-be TV writers, who listened raptly to the panelists’ tales of the trade and breaking into it. From age 7, Berg told Wilson, he understood that “comedy is a magic power” and could recite entire Bill Cosby routines verbatim by age 9. His passion led him out to LA after college, where he called everyone he knew in entertainment for the first six months of being there, eager for the chance to pick the brain of anyone who would sit down with him. It was the beginning of a career that would eventually find him writing for and executive producing Seinfeld.

Networking and hard work were common themes of the event, as each panelist stressed the importance of writing constantly and making connections. A former advertising copywriter, Jann launched his comedy writing career by faxing jokes in to The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, then tuning in at night to see if they got used. Schlesinger scored an internship with Bob’s Burgers creator Loren Bouchard while still in college and from there, “whatever Loren worked on, I would work on,” she said. Eventually, her loyalty paid off.

Every person’s pathway to TV writing success is different, but of the four panelists, Friedman’s route was perhaps the most unorthodox. She received a gig as assistant to Sam Raimi after the filmmaker read her college sociology thesis, a feminist- and class-based assessment of slasher films. From there, she worked her way up to become a creative executive for Raimi’s Renaissance Pictures before transitioning to the writing side, which she found “horrible,” she joked. “I don’t enjoy it, but it’s worked out okay.”

Friedman’s career has worked out well enough to land her seven seasons on the writing staff of House, which was nominated for multiple Emmys of its own and propelled her into working with show creator Jenji Kohan on the pilot for Orange is the New Black. When pitching the idea for their prison comedy to Netflix, she said the streaming company’s executives were “talking about Emmys” before the meeting was even over. Rather than making Kohan and Friedman deliver a pilot, they ordered a 13-episode season right off the bat, which fundamentally altered their creative approach.

“The pilot is no longer a sales tool,” said Friedman. “It’s the first chapter, which changes everything.”

Off Friedman’s dream pitch scenario, Berg shared the frustrations of trying to develop shows with Dreamworks at a time when the TV business model was radically shifting to give networks the power to both own and air their shows.

“The shows got worse and the ratings went down,” he said. “I was getting paid to come up with pitches that no one could buy.”

Berg said that on Seinfeld, he entered a situation where the network executives were afraid to meddle, and let the writers have the run of things even after creator Larry David left the show. This experience spoiled him for post-Seinfeld meetings, when the executives weren’t quite as amenable. He developed a bitterness toward the higher-ups, which has since dissipated thanks to his experience working for HBO.

“Smart execs can be enormously helpful,” he said, “and HBO has helped me unlearn all that hatred. [They’re] the best I’ve ever worked with.]”

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