Shonda Rhimes Says It’s Okay For Women NOT To Want A Husband: I have never wanted to get married. I love having boyfriends, I love dating.

She explains the one sentence she uses when she says, “no” to something that she does not want to do:

I’m sorry, no, I am not able to do that…and that is all I say. It is really hard to say that to people. It is very interesting how wired we are to tell somebody a thousand reasons why we can’t do something for them. I lost some friends over the course of the year…I shed some pounds, I shed some friends. It was painful, but it was also really freeing.

Rhimes is the head writer for three ABC prime shows (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder.) She explains which character she mostly identifies with:

They [the audience] are mistaking me for my characters. There is the beauty of me getting to hide behind my characters. My characters were living a much more exciting life than I was. There is a little bit of me in everybody…there is a lot of Christina Yang [Grey’s Anatomy] in me and there is a lot of Olivia Pope [Scandal] in me now that I have become more of a professional woman. Starting out, I think I was lot more Christina Yang and now I feel like I am much more Olivia Pope.

By –@blogxpressions