As the Writers Guild strike approaches the 3-month mark, some people have grown curious about how writers spend their time when they’re not being paid to write:

For Writers, the Agony of Spare Time - New York Times

Hollywood Writers Turn to Plan B: The Novel - Los Angeles Times

Not that anybody asked, but here are some of the things I’ve been doing for the past three months:

Creating Pencil Propaganda

Early on, some clever writers and fans decided that we needed to create fear in the hearts of moguls.  How?  By sending them tons of pencils.  Okay, it made a lot of sense at the time.  Anyway, Rob and I wrote a short video entitled The Mighty Pencil which did for pencils what Bugs Bunny did for War Bonds.

Not Writing

When the strike began, my friend Jonathan Green and his writing partner Gabe Miller started the rather clever web site, What We’re Not Writing.  They graciously asked me to not write some things for them.  Being your typical lazy writer, I jumped at the chance to not write, and contributed this and this.

Increasing Global Understanding

Okay, that’s a slight overstatement.  But Rob and I did write a rather charming (if we do say so ourselves) short romantic comedy titled Global Warming about an American woman and an Indian man who fall in love  over the Internet.  Don’t worry, the script was authorized by the Guild as part of StrikeTV, a project which is set to debut sometime in February.

Watching Classic Movies

Once the strike struck, I refused to watch television on principle (the principle being that American Gladiators and Clash of the Choirs really sucked).  There was one important exception to this rule: Turner Classic Movies.  With movies ranging from the fantastically brilliant to the hilariously dated, my TiVo ranneth over.  Highlights included: The Hustler;

War of the Worlds; The Poseidon Adventure; Skidoo; All Fall Down; A Raisin in the Sun; Ben Hur; The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; Twelve Angry Men; The Little Foxes; and On the Waterfront.  Now if only poor Robert Osborne could escape from that over-lit apartment, all would be right with the world.

Reading Books

Remember books?  I didn’t.  In fact, I wasn’t sure what all those rectangular objects where doing in my living room; I just knew they were somehow important.  So I was pleasantly surprised when I began reading them and felt absolutely no need to check my e-mail every 10 seconds.  Some of my favorites include: Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s autobiography, Infidel; Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography; Hawaii, a historical fiction about the state by James Michener; and the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.