9 to 5 (film) be a drama, but "any way we did it, it seemed too preachy, too much of a feminist line. I'd wanted to work with Lily [Tomlin] for some time, and it suddenly occurred to [her producing partner] Bruce and me that we should make it a comedy." Patricia Resnick wrote the first draft drama, and Fonda cast herself, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton in the leads, the latter in her first film role. Then Colin Higgins came on board to direct and rewrite the script. Part of his job was to make room for all three in the script. Higgins
The Ship Who Sang in a 2004 interview. "I remember reading a story about a woman searching for her son's brain, it had been used for an autopilot on an ore ship and she wanted to find it and give it surcease. And I thought what if severely disabled people were given a chance to become starships? So that's how "The Ship Who Sang" was born." Anne McCaffrey had published two stories when she attended her first Milford Writer's Workshop in 1959. Afterward she worked on "The Ship Who Sang", which was published in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" (Apr 1961) and