I’ve been grappling over the last couple days with how to accurately express my feelings about the Writer’s Guild strike. As a ‘hyphenate’ who has worn too many hats to count over the past years, I find myself facing a muddled sense of detachment from the issues these folks are battling. Guild matters rarely touch me, here in the dusty outskirts of independent film. The issues they’re grappling with are Hollywood Issues, right? Late Night Talk Show issues. Desperate Housewives issues. And since I catch only a bare minimum of television, the vast majority of which involves some guy tossing some sort of ball across some sort of field of play to another guy wearing the same shirt, the idea of network television grinding to a halt fills me with a rebellious glee.

But I can’t pretend the larger conversation holds no interest or importance for me. I’ve considered myself a writer since I was twelve, when I was convinced that the only requirements of a good book were a kick-ass cover and a handful of truly horrific scares. Now I know better — the scares have to be placed at strategic moments within a three-act structure. But my passion, awe, and respect for writing has only deepened over the years. I know from experience how incredible and freeing the process can be when it’s working. I also know that there are moments when giving birth to a Chevrolet appears more feasible than squeezing out another sentence. Writing is work, and writers need to be compensated for that work, regardless of a corporation’s desires to suck a maximum of profits out of the opportunities for content dispersal that new media platforms are making possible.

Check out this fantastic blog entry by the extremely talented fellow-hyphenate Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Serenity fame for further discussion, and his reactions to the first week of the WGA strike.