and other scribe's struggles!
If publishers, newspapers, magazines, movie and television production companies had to start paying writers a wage they deserve they'd have to cut their other budgets infinitesimally. When I think budgets~ in an indirect way ~ I'm specifically saying allotments toward various people on their payrolls. If you actually eyeballed such a thing~ their payroll that is~ you'd see a very uneven and unfair distribution of funds. I don't know how much hype the numbers are for actors and actresses but it's quite apparent that they are garnering more than the " lion's share" of pay while the writers take in unbelievably low amounts.
When I think of how much work goes into writing- research, travel, paperwork, rough drafts and all the various draft stages plus rewrites- and sometimes photography- in scripts, books, newspapers, cereal boxes, anthologies, biographies etc. it makes me cringe to think how little I might make- if anything (for a freelance writer!) In short, no one will ever work so hard for so little money like they will as a writer. Best-selling authors are rare, despite what the media would have you believe but they also have their stories of hardship for anyone willing to listen to how long it took for them to get taken seriously and start making money.
I've heard a lot of snide references to the writer's strike in Hollywood on TV by people other than the top echelon money makers. They don't mince any words when they talk about them but how many know what it takes just to get where they are and who would be willing to take the paltry pay they get- comparatively speaking. In my own case, a couple of woodpeckers outside my window are doing better than I am eating up what's left of my grapes. I'm not kidding.
I would like to see writers make the kind of money that entrepreneurs, professional athletes and (ahem!) Hollywood stars rake in! Let's face it, they've d!@# well earned it, wouldn't you say?
The Castle Lady with bestselling hugs!
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