Um, We Need Something Here...

APPARENTLY, IT'S NOT so easy to go back to the room after three months off.

For many writers, returning to work brought an emotion akin to what they remembered experiencing on their first day of high school. There was the giddy mood accompanying the start of something new and fresh — and the pit of anxiety in their stomachs as they made the transition from mostly idle days to a daunting workload. And who was that guy in the corner? “I almost didn’t recognize you with that new beard,” said Mr. Brennan to Greg Weidman, a production assistant.

On the Warner Brothers lot, Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, the co-creators of “Gossip Girl,” the teenage soap opera on CW network, likened reopening their offices to starting up a summer camp after the winter. “Nobody had been cleaning and there was crime scene tape across the door,” Ms. Savage said. Walking into her office, she said, “And somehow I remembered my office being much nicer.”