Thoughts on the Writers Strike
They caved. In the end, the fact is, it's a crap deal. The strike achieved nothing except to demonstrate how utterly moronic the leadership at WGAw is for accepting a deal like that. 17 days of internet TV before the writers get paid? Who thought that was a good deal? And what about the animation and reality TV writers? They got sold out faster than new Air Jordans.
This brings me around to why, in essence, all writer organizations are basically crap. The sole exception I've seen thus far is the International Thriller Writers - they have their stuff straight. But I've been a member of other orgs, including the Horror Writers Association, (which desperately tries to paint itself as a professional organization devoted to furthering the agendas of its members, but usually ends up looking like more of an after school Dungeons & Dragons club without the cool dice) and the fact is, they're little more than a collection of people who don't understand very much about business, but are simply ready to praise god hallelujah that someone actually deems their work valuable enough to pay them for it (even if that pay is insultingly meager). They establish silly little awards in a vain attempt to achieve some semblance of credibility in the eyes of the public, most of whom have never even heard of the organizations in question. Every year, a new leader takes over promising to lead the org in a new direction that will get them the respect they deserve.
Bull.
In the end, the best thing any writer can do is to work their butt off to produce the very best work they can. Study the freakin' business side of *everything*! If you understand how tangential industries make money, then you'll know when someone is trying to screw you over. You can take steps to protect your interests. I don't know how many times I've seen so-called experts waxing prophetic over box office returns of new movies and utterly fail to comprehend the business model of how the film industry works nowadays. When was the last time they read an issue of Fortune or Entrepreneur or Business Week? Probably never. But Writer's Digest? They devour it. And they stay ignorant.
Writers tend to live in this tiny fishbowl, content for the occasional scraps that float down from heaven. They try not to complain that the water gets dirty from their own effluence because then they might not get fed again. It's a ridiculous existence. And it's one I'm certainly not content to live in. There's a big ocean out there and it's filled with food and space. But only if you stop thinking the same way 99.9999% of the rest of the writing world thinks.
Go forth, write, get published. Learn the rules, get the street creds. Then rewrite the rules to benefit yourself because no one else is ever going to. Never quit.
This brings me around to why, in essence, all writer organizations are basically crap. The sole exception I've seen thus far is the International Thriller Writers - they have their stuff straight. But I've been a member of other orgs, including the Horror Writers Association, (which desperately tries to paint itself as a professional organization devoted to furthering the agendas of its members, but usually ends up looking like more of an after school Dungeons & Dragons club without the cool dice) and the fact is, they're little more than a collection of people who don't understand very much about business, but are simply ready to praise god hallelujah that someone actually deems their work valuable enough to pay them for it (even if that pay is insultingly meager). They establish silly little awards in a vain attempt to achieve some semblance of credibility in the eyes of the public, most of whom have never even heard of the organizations in question. Every year, a new leader takes over promising to lead the org in a new direction that will get them the respect they deserve.
Bull.
In the end, the best thing any writer can do is to work their butt off to produce the very best work they can. Study the freakin' business side of *everything*! If you understand how tangential industries make money, then you'll know when someone is trying to screw you over. You can take steps to protect your interests. I don't know how many times I've seen so-called experts waxing prophetic over box office returns of new movies and utterly fail to comprehend the business model of how the film industry works nowadays. When was the last time they read an issue of Fortune or Entrepreneur or Business Week? Probably never. But Writer's Digest? They devour it. And they stay ignorant.
Writers tend to live in this tiny fishbowl, content for the occasional scraps that float down from heaven. They try not to complain that the water gets dirty from their own effluence because then they might not get fed again. It's a ridiculous existence. And it's one I'm certainly not content to live in. There's a big ocean out there and it's filled with food and space. But only if you stop thinking the same way 99.9999% of the rest of the writing world thinks.
Go forth, write, get published. Learn the rules, get the street creds. Then rewrite the rules to benefit yourself because no one else is ever going to. Never quit.