"We did it, Joe!"

The strike is over... now what?

After 148 days, the 2023 Writers Strike is officially over.

Since the news dropped on Sunday, I’ve seen so many posts of WGA members and emerging writers expressing their conflicting emotions around the strike’s end. Most feel victorious at the win. Others are anxious about the future. Some feel sad about the loss of a picket line community.

Personally, I am just so fucking relieved.

The past five months have been some of the hardest of my career… and I once went through an eighteen month period of writing unemployment! (That’s a story for another post.)

Why was this strike so tough?

For one thing, I felt really… alone. Sure, I walked the picket lines, but I never felt that overwhelming sense of camaraderie and purpose that others have described. Maybe because I’m based in New York, where as WGA NegCom member Greg Iwinski articulated in our post-strike meeting, “we’re just… meaner.” Or, maybe because I’m a bit more of an introvert than I previously thought. (“An introverted writer? For spring? Groundbreaking.”)

Adding to the feeling of isolation was that so many of the takes I saw on Twitter felt really disparate from my own strike reality. Choruses of “I can do this as long as it takes!” had me pacing around my apartment, wondering aloud, “…HOW?!” Was I somehow less financially stable and weaker-willed than everyone else in the guild? Or was that just social media bravado in the name of solidarity that I took too personally? (Assuredly the latter.)

But, the biggest hit for me during this time was the lack of potential.

The potential for a meeting to lead to a job. The potential for a script to sell. The potential for a project to get greenlit.

I am a hustler. My screenwriting philosophy is to put as many irons on the fire as I can and then relentlessly light matches until something catches. The potential of starting that fire is what keeps me going in this career.