If you're a teamster, you get paid to drive a truck. But if someone invents a new kind of truck, and you're still driving it, you should still get paid.
-Judd Apatow, writer/director of Knocked Up and The 40-Year Old Virgin on the strike
I am a writer. It is what I love to do and what I want to get paid for. I know what it's like to submit material to TV shows in the hopes of a job. I wait around and work shitty temp jobs to make ends meet until that hope becomes a reality. To be fully employed as a writer on a show that doesn't completely suck is pretty much all I want right now (besides a Capuchin monkey-they are adorable). Being a struggling writer is tough and demoralizing at times, but it's worth the fight if it's what you love to do.
With the WGA strike in full effect, networks will probably start looking into "alternative sources" for programming material--"alternative" meaning hiring non-union writers like myself. I would do a lot of things for a TV job, but walking on top of graves is not one of them. If you are a writer starting your career, like me, you should thank your lucky stars that there are people out there (literally "out" there, as in, in the cold) willing to put their own careers on the line for your rights and future earnings as a creative entity.
I come from a family who has made their living in the arts. My father was a painter and photographer. Because my dad just wanted to "create," he rarely thought about the business side of things, making it extremely easy for people to take advantage of him. I wish there had been a union to defend my father during the numerous times that he under-sold his work only to find that it had been replicated and used for profit by several nameless assholes. They made money off him and he didn't see a penny of that. And sure, there were several people in his field who made a lot of money, but for every Chuck Close there are hundreds of artists who live paycheck to paycheck.
I don't foresee this thing coming to an end anytime soon. I would love to know what happens next on Lost as much as the next person who has shit to do on Wednesday nights. But I guess I'll have to settle for some good books, or a new hobby, or even playing with my friend's cat. You should do the same. Just make sure the cat you're playing with is not watching any online "promos".
Read more about the strike on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.
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