For the last 8 years, I've been a professional TV writer in New York City, with credits on The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore, an upcoming FX limited series, and a couple of projects in development. I love getting paid to write about issues that matter to me, and I also like getting paid to write fart jokes. I'm pretty good at my job, especially the fart jokes.
But the reality of writing for TV is not the caviar-snorting, celeb-hobnobbing fantasy we, ironically, see on TV. When I'm in a writers' room, it feels magical. But those months of magic are often followed by a year or more of piecing together non-TV gigs, working for free to develop projects that probably won't ever get made, and stressing about losing my health insurance if I don't meet the income minimum to keep my union coverage. And I really need health insurance, because in 2009 I received a kidney from my aunt (it was a transplant, not, like, a weird Christmas gift), and I swore I'd take good care of it. Oh, and in 2019, I had cancer (I'm okay now).
Unfortunately, the era of streaming combined with corporate greed has turned what was already a tightrope walk for writers into a tightrope walk above a volcano while riding a unicycle and balancing a poodle on your pinkie. |
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