Writers Strike Opinion

Throughout the strike, there regularly were news stories about dissension in the Writers Guild. Writers dissent for breakfast. Finding dissent in the WGA is like finding sand at the beach.

Want to know the gory details of the tentative writers deal now being voted on by the Writers Guild members?

Admiration and thanks are plentiful. But I still reserve my awe for the strike captains.

It's not surprising -- as has become clear in the oceanic email volume of these post-strike days -- that many writers turn out to have written scripts on spec over the past few months.

After working steadily as a TV writer for many years, I made a big mistake: I allowed some of my hair to turn gray. In the eyes of those at the studios, I was suddenly too old to be funny.

Most Los Angeles writers who haven't yet joined the WGA and continue to peck away at careers in writing for publication had their moment in the sun during the Writer's strike.

The groundwork for the writers' strike started with something the town rarely notices: a routine, biannual WGA election.

The incessant honking. It was like driving in Mexico City... Hanging out on the picket line with my good buddy Elvis Costello. It was one of the greatest minutes of my life.

No, this contract isn't great. But it has much good, some wonderful, and establishes critical precedents in New Media. And considering the alternative, it saves the Writers Guild.

In a wonderful article, Variety summarizes the last few month of negotiation, and notes that "movement in the WGA talks began when Disney CEO Robert I...

About an hour in, Patric Verrone was handed a note and announced that someone was live blogging and would they please stop it. I was worried that everyone would look to me, and I would have to say, "Hey, guys. I don't even know how to text message."

The writers faced down eight large media companies and conglomerates, and won what appears to be a decent beachhead on the Internet.

The Writers Guild held a closed-door meeting Friday with strike captains to brief them on the tentative deal. Here's what a source inside the room told me.

You've probably heard that the strike is over. It isn't. No, really, it isn't. The truth is, no one speaking publicly knows what the deal actually is.

Carson Daly's name still can bring a twitch to many a Writers Guild member. But he had the bad fortune to be first.

With a writers deal apparently in the offing, now's a time to pause and ask about favored nations.

It's intriguing how the writers' strike rumor mill builds everybody up and then shoots him or her down.

Al Sharpton was in a rage. He began to scream at us on the picket line, and I mean really scream, apparently furious that we had put a moral decision between him and Barbara Walters.

The AMPTP corporations have only themselves to blame. They opened the hidden door, turned on the overhead light, and let writers inside to read the magic book.

If you listen really hard, you can make out the glorious sound of thawing ice. On the other hand, that could also just be the moguls rubbing their hands together.

"The movie industry is one of the most unionized industries left. I feel a lot of what this strike is about is corporations looking at their entertainment division and saying, 'Can't we turn this into Wal-Mart?'"

Once we accept a deal similar to the DGA's, it will be almost impossible to significantly improve it once we realize how much money the Internet networks are making and how little in comparison we are.

Maybe we should tell the producers, look, you build the stadium, sell the tickets, form the league, make the rules and then we'll come in with our bats and gloves and get hits. Because that's the way it works.

After the Writers Guild signs agreements with Internet companies, movies and web series will start appearing online. The studios and networks can join in the future -- or buy a ticket.

No matter how much mutual respect you share with cast, crew, writers, assistants, studio execs; at the end of the day, a show is a monster. And it will eat anything.