Yes, in fact, I am on strike.

A number of GottaBook readers have written asking if I'm on strike out here in Hollywood. Yes, I am. The Writers Guild of America, of which I've been a member since 1992, is currently striking, and I have walked the picket lines every day this week and will march as needed going forward. If I'm gonna blog about the strike regularly, I'll do it elsewhere, and I also won't try and dispel or comment on all the bad information floating around (though feel free to get in touch if you have questions I might be able to answer (and, of course, I might not be able to!)). All that said, the issues at play here simply cannot be ignored.

If you're a writer or illustrator or any sort of "content creator," you damn well better be paying attention and understand that this strike is about one thing -- writers asking to be paid fairly for what they do.

To simplify one of the core issues a bit (though not that much, come to think about it): imagine selling your manuscript/illustration then being told that the publisher will print one copy of it instead of the normal 10,000 copies. Ahh, but at the same time, they'll put your book/illustration online, sell ads that they place in it and/or charge people to download it. But since there's "no way to know if this internet thing will work," you'd be told that you'd be dooming the digital business to failure if you got any compensation. Yup -- you would get NO money for any of the digital stuff. And honestly? It gets worse from there...

Unlike in the children's book world, those of us lucky enough to write for movies and television have a collective bargaining agreement with the major "publishers." So, we do what unions do in times like this: we strike, refusing to accept a deal that destroys us going forward. No one on the lines wants to be there. We're all painfully aware of the impact on us and on everyone in the business. Some of us would rather continue hiding from the sun and fresh air! We'd all rather be writing than striking. But until that day comes when we have an acceptable deal... we're writers joined proudly with actors and others who understand that we have to take a stand, and we have to take it now.