We support the WGA Writers StrikeMany of you know that I am a member of the Writers' Guild, but you probably don't know my full story...
I'm a writer through and through - published in Highlights magazine before puberty, studied English Writing at UMASS, and obtained an MFA from Emerson College. A play I wrote came to life on a stage in the Hamptons, and short stories earned me placement in Zoetrope. But, the dream has always been to sit in a TV writers room to create emotional season-long arcs that punched our main characters in the face and left the audience on a cliffhanger.
My step toward that goal was as a TV packaging assistant at CAA in 2007 where I watched the 2007-2008 writers' strike with a bird's eye view. When that strike ended, television shows resumed, and I landed an assistant job in the Berlanti camp.
There, I made more lifelong friends. I watched some of the greatest television writers of our time as they created Brothers & Sisters, Dirty Sexy Money, Eli Stone, and No Ordinary Family. As assistants, we made less than $10 an hour but didn’t care. We were in the presence of a dozen or more brilliant writers daily.
2012 was the boom of television. Every network wanted to get into the scripted game. I landed a job on Hit The Floor on Vh1 and worked there for six years - through four seasons and two development rooms. My friends that I loved so much from my previous gigs were getting jobs on shows too! We were all staffed!
Then, we weren't. Certain networks decided they actually didn't want to make original scripted television. Showrunners started to produce entire seasons with very little budget. Three times I had Showrunners that fought with their studios to bring me on but could not get the money. The shows had a few producers doing ALL the work - for less money than they had made in the past. So, I started "developing," which meant spending years pitching and re-pitching FOR FREE to executives who received salary and benefits. I often found out two of my peers were pitching on the SAME piece of intellectual property - none of us getting paid. I started to feel like I had somehow failed. Maybe I messed up along the way. How was it possible I was once living my dream of creating television, only to have it slip away?Mike and I started helping WRITERS buy homes. Despite title raises and much more responsibility, they were not working consistently enough to qualify for a mortgage and their income was DECLINING steadily year after year.
A lender, Steve Haddad, found creative loans for many of our friends and clients and they bought homes! Yay, except...They wouldn't be able to buy the same homes today due to the steady decline of writer income and the skyrocketing cost to live in Los Angeles.Writing is as vital to me as breathing. So, I still dream of sitting around that table with a room full of writers creating incredible stories. And, I write in other mediums. But... Until May 2nd, I feared that the joy and bliss I felt from 2008 - 2019 was the "before times" of television and that rooms no longer had space for someone like me. On the picket lines, I met SO MANY PEOPLE in the same situation. I realized I didn't fail. The system is broken.
Mike and I have been on the picket lines almost daily, but we vote to do more for our friends and clients. We will be updating our mailing list regularly with ways to weather the storm without giving up our position!
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