A Less Perfect Union...

    Given that Substack is a platform originally constituted to grant writers an avenue to succeed without the traditional constraints of editors, heads of marketing and advertising, or advertisers who can twist writers’ proverbial scrotums if they should dare speak ill of their clients’ products and services, it seems to make sense that a lot of writers here would stand with the members of the Writers Guild of American and their cohorts in the SAG-AFTRA, and that they would trumpet that support here. It seems logical, in its way.

     Thankfully, I’ve never been accused of making much sense.

     Allow me a seemingly unrelated list here. Don’t worry, it’ll make sense soon enough:

Damnation of the Realm: Freedom or the Fire Volume 1

The Dread Knight’s Redemption: Freedom or the Fire Volume 2

A Hunter and His Prey

The Glove of Shadows

Lizard at Arms…And More

The Elf Queen’s Bounty

Servants of Destiny

Strange Camp Fellows

From Home, To Home

Family Lives

Fodder Squad

Not So Epic

Motor City Shambler

Forward, Shamble!

The Last Will and Testament of Bob the Zombie

Roads Through Amelia

In Amelia We Do Not Trust

Or Else

Crasher

Empty Prayer

Unfinished Fugitive

A Midwestern Yankee in King Ovin’s Court

The Chained One

Kingdom No More

This, Is M Division

Righteous Tyrant

Working the Program

The Big Tour

Ganges

American Goblin

Fire Drill

     That’s a fair-sized list, 31 total works, with 3 being short story collections, and 2 being novellas rather than full-length novels. Not bad, eh? Here’s the thing: I wrote those. All of them. On my own, without a room full of highly-paid co-creators. It’s NOTHING compared to the output of folks like Alan Dean Foster, or Stephen King, or Harlan Ellison, I’m well aware. Nor, however, is it something to sneeze at, and it’s a little tiresome for me to read about the quibbles and megrims of these WGA writers, none of whom I imagine could do the creative heavy lifting required for even a third of the world building and character development I’ve spent almost 20 years working through.

     Knowing how to write for young activist audiences, many of whom by the way won’t pay full price to watch your show or movie, doesn’t mean you actually have the skills of a decent storyteller. Maybe nobody wants to admit it, but I imagine between 50 and 70 percent of these WGA writers are not, and never will be, talented enough to deserve what they’re demanding from studios in this strike.

    Does that seem too harsh? Guess what- I don’t give a shit. These folks have been coddled long enough, and deserve every bit of hellfire I can spew.

     Blaming audiences for your failed projects is not a good look. Do you know why I don’t get tons of sales on my works, beyond the fact that I end up sharing a lot of them free of charge? Because I’m a very niche storyteller, and I suck at self-promotion. That’s on me! I’m not going to blame potential readers who I didn’t effectively reach out to for my lack of success, because it isn’t their fault! The masses don’t read me, because I fail to write FOR them! I write FOR genre fiction wonks and enthusiasts, people who enjoy horror and fantasy and sometimes sci-fi. I know my audience, and even then, I’m not great at reaching out to them. That’s a shortcoming that I have to work on.

     Some folks may wonder why more people online aren’t taking the side of the WGA, why support for them isn’t universal. I can explain why that is. You see, close to half of the folks who might have once spoken up to support the WGA and SAG folks have been silenced, suspended and/or banned entirely online for ideological wrongthink, and the very people who encouraged, applauded, endorsed and in some cases DEMANDED that very same censorship are these very same Hollyweird hypocrites, so they can go get fucked.

     I don’t recall these writers or actors shedding a single goddamn tear for other union workers who lost their livelihoods when Covid lockdowns put them out of work, or when their employers tried to dick over the unions of the ‘little people’.

     And no, these studios and production companies aren’t innocent in any of this shit either, okay? The entire industry feeds off the revenue brought in from the pockets of regular, everyday people who are just looking for some entertainment, and both Guilds and these studios have spent the better part of the last 50-70 years telling everyone outside of New York, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. that they are dirty, grubby know-nothings and nobodies, and these coastal darlings should get everything they want and then some while sneering down their noses at ‘flyover people’.

     ‘But Josh, what about technical folks and caterers, grips and audio engineers and extras and set designers who depend on the motion picture and television industry for their own work?’ Take your skills and find work elsewhere, folks. That’s what you’ve been telling small town factory workers for literally decades when their local employers disappeared or relocated to places like Mexico or China, isn’t it? Now that something similar in terms of hardship is happening to you, now WE should care? Get bent.

     This may read as sour grapes, I’m sure, and I’ll confess, that’s probably not an invalid point to bring up. I have enough self-awareness to understand that my own fetid jealousy plays into my attitude in this somewhere along the way. I’ve written a LOT of material over the years, but you know what? I work a regular job, too, live in Minnesota with my wife and 4 kids at home, and we live a decent middle class life. I have no real room to bitch and moan, so for the most part, I try not to.

     Except, as a fan of genre fiction in all its mediums, I actually have plenty of room to gripe at these people. As a storyteller who loves a lot of indie works, I also have a serious question for smaller-scale creators: do we really need Hollywood anymore? What’s keeping a small team of dedicated newcomers to the creative scene from forging agreements with small, independently operated theaters to premiere indie films? Why shouldn’t a direct-to-digital film or show not make its first appearance on, say, Rumble? Or Bitchute? Hell, why not even (as much as I hate them) YouTube?

     If you can make something great, why not crowdfund it on GiveSendGo, or Subscribestar, or Patreon, or GoFundMe? Why not encourage a new system, and render these elitist assholes and snobs obsolete? They bitch that AI will replace them because moneyed studios will use it to save money on talent and product: so why not go somewhere that will maybe pay less, but that will actually appreciate your talents and what you bring to the table?

     Do you think I make videos on Bitchute for a payday? “Ganges” was entirely free to read on my Substack for over a year before I put it behind a paywall, folks. It isn’t always about getting paid for some artists.

     Not that I wouldn’t take a payday, though, don’t get me wrong. If Netflix offered me a solid $50k for the rights to adapt one of my short stories into an original film, and used an AI program to turn it from prose into a screenplay, then guess what? I’m taking that deal, because 1) I’ve got kids and bills to pay, and 2) I tell stories. That’s what I do, and I’m willing to put in the grind to create more such stories for them to use toward their success and my own.

     Would that make me a ‘scab’, as these Guild members would call me? In some folks’ estimation, undoubtedly. But let me ask you this: do you think any of these Guild folks would give a tin shit if I felt my employers were giving me a raw deal? Not on your life.

    One last point to make for now as a kind of parting shot- don’t spend years and years trying to moralize and browbeat everybody into paying your way and supporting your perspectives, then turn around and cry foul when someone shows up to do the work you do, and they do it better, cheaper, and outside of a union’s constraints. You’re snarled at small-town conservatives and moderates who raised this concern for years when they’ve tried to point out that they’re getting undercut by competition in their areas for labor. When they pointed out that flooding an area with people willing to do the same work for less money depresses wages in those smaller, sometimes more suburban or rural communities, you’ve all told them to ‘find better work’, or ‘get educated to do something else’. But you’re not so high-and-mighty now that your replacements are just over the horizon, especially since many of them aren’t even human, are you?

     When the WGA or SAG gives a shit about average, everyday people, maybe then I’ll be convinced to care about what happens to them. Otherwise, they can pound sand, because I’ve got a story to send to the folks at Netflix…..