"Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it." -- Ernest Hemingway

TV Douglas McGrath offers a really useful explanation for why the writer's strike in the US is happening: "When video came into being, a new accommodation was made, allowing a small residual for tapes and then DVDs. I am not being hyperbolic when I say "small." For a DVD sold for $19.99, we are paid 4 cents. To put that in perspective, that means that to pay for one tank of gas, a writer needs to sell 1,500 DVDs. To put it another way, it's a penny less than if we returned an empty can of Coke."