I've been thinking about the striking members of the Writers Guild of America. How many of them do you think were working on scripts at home during the strike?

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them were unable to shut off their ideas during the past few months. Creative people are creative no matter what. I'm between jobs myself, and what am I doing? Writing a blog.

The need to write creates problems. For example, few writers are paid well because there is an endless supply of us (some good and some bad, but all eager). Freelance writing rates don't go up. I admire the script writers just because they have the Writers Guild and belong to it. (Visit this link to learn about the National Writers Union, "the trade union for freelance and contract writers: journalists, book authors, business and technical writers, web content providers, and  poets." The NWU struggles to maintain membership.)

Another of my interests is intellectual property rights—who owns what you create and who has the right to copy it? Now that it's relatively easy to self-publish, writers want to be published so much they do it themselves and take the risk of having their material used without payment.

Besides believing creative people have to "do their thing," I believe humans are instinctively drawn to beauty including performances and well-written text as well as works of art. Because I believe people will create and people will enjoy their creations no matter what, I don't believe government funding of the arts is necessary—probably not an opinion you would expect from someone who believes government support and regulations are necessary for a lot of other things.

I think the members of the Writers Guild have done more to make the public and corporations appreciate writers than anyone has ever done before. I will always admire them for it.