Homeland has won the Emmy Award for best writing in a drama. Co-creator Howard Gordon accepted the award with his writing partner, Alex Gansa. In all, the show took four awards last night, including best drama.

In the video interview embedded above, we caught up with Gordon talk about his novel, Hard Target. The producer also shared some inspiring advice for aspiring television writers. Gordon was also the executive producer of 24.

Here’s an excerpt: “The writer does have the power in television, unlike a movie, where the director has an outsized measure of power–because it is an auteur’s medium and they can have 10 writers on the project. But some of the stories we are seeing on cable–whether it’s Mad Men or Boardwalk Empire or Breaking Bad, which are all just brilliant–it is creating a novelistic experience for a lot of writers.”

Gordon also explained how television writing helped him work on his novels: “TV writing teaches you to be very economical and find the story. And hopefully, one thing I think they both share, is that you want to be compelling. You want the viewer to stay tuned and you want the readers to keep turning the pages.”