Nobody wanted to be working in the office at 6:00 p.m. on the last night of contract talks. By 8:00 p.m., after a couple cups of coffee too many and more conversation through the ranks than I’d heard in a previous season of network television, I found out that I wouldn’t be working in a writers’ room again for quite some time. There was consolation in email chains with fellow assistants coming to life, a couple phone calls from friends working as production assistants on other shows, and that same text from crewmembers and producers alike: Here we go. Here we go, indeed.

Fifteen years ago, my parents sold my childhood home, pulled my siblings and me out of school, and left show business behind. That was the last time the Writers Guild of America (WGA) struck. Friends lost homes, left the state. I didn’t know much about the politics behind contract negotiations at the time — all I’d seen was the devastation of a work stoppage in the entertainment industry.

Growing up in Los Angeles with ambitions to write, it wasn’t uncommon to be told, “stay out of Hollywood.” Tough business, feast or famine, you’ll never make it, etc. Fifteen years later, they were right: it is a tough business, and I haven’t made it. But it can be made better by supporting striking writers and actors once again, whatever the cost.