Great read as always, LM. Thanks for setting the record straight on what this strike is really about. Makes me wish even more they hadn't kill that show Action which is basically written by writers taking revenge on Hollywood.
See LM,
here you are preaching to the converted,
we know the power of the word,
of your word,
we are part of the fundamental change that the media industry is going through, from newspapers via music to film, we know the powers that be are shit scared of their workers and the man on the street, we know.
I never fails to amaze me that so many people in this country don't understand the need for unions, do they really think that they will get paid a fair day wage for a fair days work out of goodness of the heart of the Owners, or have they all been brainwashed that someday they will be part of the elite, "the American dream"
Do tell more, what programs have I watched that you wrote part of?
One network did tell the truth about what was at stake. Don't remember which one.
A picketer had his foot driven over by an angry, anxious suit impatient to leave the facility
The driver wasn't even arrested!!
I've read about the huge salary they pay Leno. I think he should have gotten busy writing to prepare for this rather than handing out donuts or be like Jon Stewart. He is paying his writers for the next two weeks.
Wow LM, I have even more admiration for you now that I know you've done professional TV gigs in addition to your brilliant writing on this blog. I've been following lots of pro writer bloggers during this strike, and it's really thrilling to see the solidarity that's out there; everyone is on the same message, they're all (as you'd expect) quite eloquent about it, and I can't see this strike not being a complete success in the long run.
Good luck guys...its a bad tiem as teh goverment is anti worker currently. has been for a while.
My big worry is due to all the crap on air (CSI and what not) the scabes have at least a 50% chance of produceign better TV. if that happens even the good writers are SOL
Wow LM,
Yep, to people who say unions are passe,
I say do you think the 40 hour week and the 8 hour day came from the goodness of the bosses. Of course, thats not news to anyone here, but it never amazes me that it is news to so many.
It is interesting that Americans take as Gospel the words coming out of various talking heads... about poverty, economic problems with middle class morgages, Main Street America... yet not one of those talking heads is making less than $500 thousand a year. Mass media is run by the rich for the rich... has been since Pope Julius comissioned that ceiling.
Residuals are just back end money that is due the writer. It is simple, the studios would have to pay so much more upfront if the possibility of residuals was not there.
I've said since the beginning that the effect of networked computing will be greater than the effect of the invention of moveable type by Gutenburg. And its' only just starting to show in Mass Media.
Once again, the chasm between those who make the work and those who do the work. As a commercial writer, I am continually astonished by the lack of understanding of the creative process. My clients expect me to turn it on and off like a spigot, upon command. When I can't, they assume that it's because I won't, the only possible explanations being that I'm negotiating for more money or on a power trip. I suspect the lack of respect comes from the same old Authoritarian fear of anything that's not black and white, of the gray area that they cannot understand, let alone control. Creativity by its very nature is not quantifiable. 2 + 2 might equal 5, and 5 might be the right answer.
Just about the best rundown on the WGA strike I've seen yet.
One quibble: When you say that residuals dry up after three or four repeats, I think you're talking about the pre-1988 contracts. I sold a TV script in 1991 (my sole success, alas, but a pretty good one -- ST:TNG, fourth season, "Clues") and I'm still getting about a grand a year from residuals. (And, boy, somehow those green envelopes seem to show up just when I'm in the middle of a cash crunch and can really use them.)
How is it that people who can't do something don't understand how hard it is to do the thing that they can't do?
“When you say that residuals dry up after three or four repeats, I think you're talking about the pre-1988 contracts.”
Aaaah, I was shorthanding the amount a rank and file writer gets for something that gets a few repeat plays but isn't an evergreen like ST:TNG that lives on in syndication fer-evah! You wish there were more of those—bad boys that pay out a decade down the line, but alas...there ain't. (Oh shit! Here comes that suit that hate's when I write “ain't”—with his blow-dried hair and blue pencil again!)
And you wrote an ST:TNG ep? That's a cool credit I'd like to have on the ol' resumé. As the old-school Klingon Kor said, “It would have been glorious!” 
Very nice.
But, what concerns me is that, while you always have the fulcrum of below the line workers to contend with, there's now a second one, comprised of the "new media" types who seem bound and determined to call the writers a bunch of babies. Go look at the tech sites that are covering the strike, and take some time to read the comments - they can be disheartening.
I hope that the WGA strike, in addition to getting the writers their fair share of the money made by these works, also acts as a wakeup call for the sort of people who think that creating the media that flows through our lives is easy. But I'm not holding my breath.
“And, boy, somehow those green envelopes seem to show up just when I'm in the middle of a cash crunch and can really use them.“
Hoo-boy! You ain't kiddin! Major car repair? Hello, check!
Gum surgery that insurance won't cover? Hello, checkie!
It's uncanny, but thank God it happens when it does!
“How is it that people who can't do something don't understand how hard it is to do the thing that they can't do?”
Me:
“This script isn't modular! You can't just pick up “X“ part and move it here without it having an effect on “Y”! It's like “pick-up sticks“, dammitI Move this and it changes five jokes down the line! Stop calling this a five-minute fix!”
f writers had a nickel for every time they screamed into a phone past midnight about that very subject to another writer...they wouldn't need residuals, ever! 
Those damn tech types are lying through their teeth. if anything THEY SHOULD KNOW that CONTENT IS EVERYTHING and it should be respected accordingly. Fucking assholes.
fist in the air from a songwriter to a TV writer.
a lot of the same economics/politics apply. a LOT.
This is really gruesome, LM ...
To think that the producers/execs have spent more than a decade fussin & frettin over how to navigate the New Media profitably & all the while assumed the writers would be satisfied to spend their professional lives in 1991!
Worse still is your point that these very people have so polluted the creative pipeline that unless you're on board with an auteur-driven project (meaning one with a singular vision at the helm & real creative control), as a writer you get dumbed down. I was checking the cranks on Huffington yesterday & you almost get the idea that the execs prefer TV that stinks because they can blame it on the writers who in turn get no sympathy.
Race to the bottom indeed ...
“you almost get the idea that the execs prefer TV that stinks because they can blame it on the writers who in turn get no sympathy.”
A sad, wisful ding of the bell on that one.
AChick: I have to disagree with one aspect of your statment. If your are a pro, adn doing this for a living you damm well better be able to turn on the creativity at the drop of the hat. Wating for the muse is for hacks and amatures...if you want to create for a living you need to keep the muse chanied up in the basemnt and slap it around when you need to.
AngelHedgie: don't fret too much about those teh types...i deal with them every day. the yare teh same assholes that give away free over time and happly work the job of three people with no compinsation...the yare genrealy sdispised by most of us, and will all die off of hart attacks in the next ten years or so.
Me, LM :
“This script isn't modular! You can't just pick up “X“ part and move it here without it having an effect on “Y”! It's like “pick-up sticks“, dammitI Move this and it changes five jokes down the line! Stop calling this a five-minute fix!”
f writers had a nickel for every time they screamed into a phone past midnight about that "
Try writeing a tech book...fuckign editors didn't like my "verb placement" so they moved a verd...changed the meaning of multipul sentances in a chapter, cause you know there is no diferance between sanitizing user input and sanitizing your code
my buddy took great pains to tell me about the spring water bottles neatly placed at the side of the stidio gate...filled with pee from people wanting to staying close at hand to the protest. Ick.
I probably shouldn't admit this about myself, but I couldn't help but think "Water balloon potential!" for if the strike got really ugly in the manner of the labor struggles of yesteryear!
I hear you Moonglum and have indeed been forced to cage my muse to make it professionally. Turning it on still requires a process. I have to go down to the basement, wake the beast, feed it just enough to work but not too much to bust the chains and eat me, and do the dance. My frustration is with the lack of client appreciation for the process. You have to go to the basement. Respecting the process means better product in less time. For example, taking a break between drafts allows me to resolve issues that I had been banging my head against. A fresh eye gets it every time. There is no cheating the process.
Achick, as an old reprobate creative I must disagree with you.
"There is no cheating the process."
Sure there is... it is called gimmicks, swindles, scams, turning a trick and outright lying. I'm not proud of it but when faced with a deadline and a check in the balence I can draw on years of experiece to take the place of inspiration. But then I've worked for both casinos and religious publishers so my muse has been pretty well whacked to death.
Old saying... Old age and treachery will beat youth and enthusiasm every time.
Amuseinc,
You're making my case. By attempting to cheat the process, inspiration is replaced by gimmicks. Years of that kills the muse.
Lack of respect for the process lowers the quality of the product. Witness much of what's now on the small and big screen.
What does old age and treachery win exactly?
“What does old age and treachery win exactly?”
Really young trophy wives?
Garrets are cold and lonely places. Alcoholism has its proponents but little to support it in the cold light of morning. Artistic purity rarely is rewarded in commercial terms. And I don't make the rules but I do need to play by them.
As I was laughingly saying... this is about selling your creative abilities for money. It is about making a living as a writer, artist or musician in a world more interested in mud than things that really matter.
What do you win? A life of ideas, colors and sounds... where your vocation is your avocation. Doing what you like to do even when it is filled with compromise and "tricks." The right to say "I make my living as a creative."
And hot, young trophy wives... or girlfriends.
AChick: I have an advantage as my day job is as a tech consultant/contractor...I have allways known that I was a prostatute, have no high ideals to worry about. I jsut moonlight as a writer (well tech writer, first book hits the shelves in december).
My wife writes for a living, a beats the hell out of the muse daily to produce the tech and busniess stuff that pays the bills (well half of the bills). She moonlites in fictio, that keeps the creativity flowing and the muse alive. May I sugest lookign into wild rose press, they pay well and are allways lookign for new short stories. She has a few there now.
I'm interested in exploring the lack of respect for process, the conflict of art and commerce, in light of the current strike. A critical role of unions is protecting the process, forcing the suits to accept creative realities.
I've been playing by the rules for 15 years, and I make a living as a commercial writer. I'm not defending artistic ideals or promoting the starving artist fantasy. I'm wondering how we can change the rules to make the system better. That's another role that unions play.
A lack of respect for process seems to underlie many of the systemic issues our corporatized society and government face. I'm curious why that is and what can be done to change it.
Perhaps I am just not creative enough to try to rewrite the rules.
Achick, I respect your serious nature and apology for being kind of a jerk about it. I'm the wrong person to have this discussion with... faced with a deadline and check I am all for getting paid above everything.
That said, I work in the world of ideas where social engineering is most important. I have been in situtations where every idea I had was golden and others where nothing I did was right. It wasn't the ideas that changed, it was just the mileau or however one spells that vague sense of "enviroment" in French.
The suits are not always the enemy. It just seems that way most of the time as they get in the way. Being a little understanding of thier "problems" goes a long way in getting them off your back.
The rules are simple but unchangable... he who pays the piper, calls the tune. You know that and I bet are very good at identifying the decision maker in the mix. Otherwise, you wouldn't be making a living at what you do.
Amuseinc and Moonglum,
I don't think we're in disagreement with how the system works or what you have to do to make a living within that system.
What I'm wondering is what, if anything, we can do to effect change.
Am I correct to conclude from your advice that you both think there's nothing that can be done so why raise the question? Isn't that just a recommendation to submit to the status quo?
Oh, about the suits. I don't think they're the enemy. They get in the way when their power is disproportionate to their contribution. Unions are a way to rebalance the power.
LM, this is sort off topic.
I have worked around the Industry for a couple of decades (swing gang, projectionist, the occaissional gig as an extra). I was pleased to see John Lithgow walking picket yesterday.
Now to the meat of the matter, I am a photographer. I want to thank you for explaining how much work goes into something which looks easy, and gets discounted because of it.
Thanks.
AChick: produce for youre self...
I hate to be a cynial bastard, but thats about it. as long as someone else is paying the bills they make teh rules.
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