Star-Gazette Nov. 16, 2007 Page 7A

It's all about the big green envelope

Look at that ... I'm writing.

I'm not supposed to be writing. ... Am I?

Stop it, Ed. .... Stop writing now. Writers shouldn't write ... Stop ... The writers are on strike!

Oh wait, it's OK. I'm allowed to write this. I was just merely distracted by the beat up plastic card in my wallet that says "Writers Guild of America, west." I got it right here, buried somewhere between my credit cards and that old shooting range membership. It's right here. ... see?

Oops. Not it in my wallet anymore. Well, I had it there, once. I earned it while living in California during my nine-year hiatus from the Star-Gazette. That was when I wrote for the L.A. Times, taught at community colleges, and once co-wrote a story for "Star Trek: Voyager."

That little television writing credit gave me associate membership in the guild, the same group that is now picketing studios in New York City and Los Angeles. But Tina Fey and the staff "30 Rock," "Saturday Night Live" and "The Daily Show" arenπt worried about wordsmiths who toil away on newspapers; they are concerned about something that comes to their homes in a big green envelope.

It's called a residual, and every now and then, whenever my episode goes on air, I get one of those checks too. Lately, mine's been about $50 to $100. To compare how much money we are talking about, think of a glass of beer — or maybe water if youπre so inclined. When you are finished with your drink — when the glass is "empty" — the amount of beer still in the glass is the residual.

So when the studios sell a DVD for $15, they take a very big drink and the writer gets 4 cents.

So, why a strike? Why now? And who cares anyway? They're just writers.

First off, the actors don't just think up these stories on their own. They don't just make up the dialogue along the way, either. Think about all your favorite shows — "Lost," "Heroes" or "Pushing Daisies" perhaps. Somebody sits in a room somewhere and thought it all up ... often out of nothing.

Either by myself or with my writing partner, Jeff, I pitched idea after idea to the producers of "Voyager" throughout the course of its seven-year run. At each pitch meeting, we typically would try to sell four stories. To prepare that many stories usually meant months of work, hours of "talking trek" over lunches, in our respective habitats, in bars and at the beach. My wife would have to endure my never-ending discussions about aliens, starships and alternate worlds as we walked the dogs.

But in the end, after dozens of story ideas, Jeff and I only sold that first one. To live as a writer is to live with rejection.

That's why those green envelopes are so important. Not only does a writer have to be able to deal with rejection on an emotional level, but on a financial one as well. Getting residual checks from studios when they rebroadcast your work can mean the difference in making the rent or the mortgage. It means getting health care for your kids.

The green envelope means that those periods of rejection, development hell and just plain waiting are survivable. The writer can still be free to create.

What the writers fear is that in this age of online videos and new digital media that the studios will be able to repurpose their work and make money without having to pay residuals. Writers working without residuals would be like scientists and engineers working without patents, watching others profit from their ideas.

This may be a long strike. So, what do we do about it?

Frankly, I think it's time for us to just turn off the TV. For one, it might show the studios that they can't count on keeping their audience with reality TV shows and a pile of previously ignored scripts. For another, it might just be the thing we need to recharge our brains, take stock in our families, and catch up on our reading and hobbies.

But can we really survive that long without our favorite shows?

Sure, why not? It's only television.

Ed Bond is a copy editor at the Star-Gazette, an adjunct faculty member in Ithaca College's journalism department and can be found on the Internet Movie Database at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1247277/, although he actually did not guest star in the 1950s detective series, "The Man Behind the Badge."