My first year in LA I wrote four drafts of a feature script on spec for a producer of an Oscar-nominated movie. As soon as he was happy with the script he ghosted me. W/o a word. Never spoke to me again. No idea what he did with it. The exploitation is ceaseless at every level. https://twitter.com/evilgalprods/status/1388527612775976972

I was brand new and dead broke and very ignorant and unworldly. I was non-union and had no representation and no real friends in the industry. I was just some kid who wrote well. It taught me not to work for free, but we shouldn't have to learn those lessons that way.

My second year in LA a fairly high-level screenwriter (wrote a feature that just came out, in fact) I'd met told me point blank he'd take *my* spec script to his manager and agents *if* I'd put his name on it as co-writer. I said no. It's not just producers who exploit writers.

That was almost 10 years ago and I STILL randomly think about that guy. It wasn't the unmitigated gall of asking me to put his name on my work that he'd had NOTHING to do with creating, it was his utter shamelessness. It was business as usual. He'd clearly done it before.

Honestly the worst part was that it was hard for me to say no. That guy had a ton of credits/experience. He had a powerful agent I'd heard of. That kind of access was unthinkable. It was actually a struggle to tell him I wouldn't let him put his name on my work. That's f'ed, man.

That's just free work. You want to talk about getting paid AND exploited at the same time? I've worked for d*ckbags in this town who operate entire non-union multi-million-dollar media empires and get away with it completely unchallenged.

I wrote an entire season of a TV series for a guy who ran his company out of suites at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills. He paid me a couple hundred bucks a script. He sold the series to one of the biggest most well-known content distributors in the world. No residuals for me.

Again, at the time I didn't know any better. I was desperately broke and apart from needing the money, I was willing to do anything to "break in" to the industry. And it was a real TV series. No one had taught me what acceptable working conditions were for something like that.

That's what these dudes prey upon. Writers who don't know any better and have no recourse. And that guy's company was totally legit. I was paid by check. I was 1099'ed. Nothing shady about it. Unless you understand the business of TV from the inside.

And the guy who owned/operated that company? His dad was a legendary TV writer and producer. You know all his shows. And his dad was integrally involved in the company. The dude ABSOLUTELY knew better. More than that, he knew how to get around/skirt any applicable labor law.

I could go on all day. My first few years in LA trying to break in as a screenwriter I worked for an absolute nightmare parade of total scumbags. It broke me a lot more than I realized at the time, or a long time after. It's a big part of why I went back to writing novels.

I'm doing fine now. I've got a great career going. So, whatever. I will still go on to create the TV I want to create on my own terms. And so many TV writers in particular are doing GREAT labor org work in this industry for other writers. But this stuff is still a huge problem.