'Survival jobs,' ex-careers and side hustles: How Hollywood writers are making ends meet 100 days into the strike

Members of the Writers Guild of America have been on strike for 100 days, and writers are getting creative to keep striking even longer.

The TV and film writers' union has been striking since May 2 after the WGA did not reach a new contract agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents 350 major studios and streamers.

The last WGA strike, which started in 2007, lasted for 100 days and led to 37,700 lost jobs and a $2.1 billion blow to the California economy, according to the Milken Institute, an economic think tank.

In July, a Deadline article cited anonymous executives saying studios were willing to let the strike last "until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses."

Many writers, including Kyra Jones, a TV writer in Los Angeles, saw the piece as an intimidation tactic.

"We know they think they're going to outlast us because we're not resourceful enough to make ends meet," Jones, 30, tells CNBC Make It. But given the way the industry works, particularly in a streaming era, she says studios have "have forced us to find ways to make ends meet, because you might have to deal with a year-long unemployment."

Striking writers like Jones say they're financially preparing to stay on the picket lines by returning to old careers, wading into new ones and taking on plenty of side projects.

One hundred days in, Jones says, "what's fueling me is we didn't come this far just to give up and sign a s----- deal."

Jones joined the WGA in 2021 and has already seen the highs and lows of what it means to earn a living as a screenwriter.

In 2021, she wrote for the Hulu show "Woke" and ABC musical drama "Queens" back-to-back, earning her $200,000 before paying out her agents and lawyers. Soon after, work was hard to come by, and she was unemployed for a year. In 2022, she brought in around $38,000 between jobless benefits, side hustles and residuals.

She landed a gig developing a show for Freeform shortly before the strike began.

Now, Jones works part-time in her previous profession as a survivor advocate and sex educator at Northwestern University, where she advises students virtually and racks up enough hours to nearly cover her $1,950 monthly rent. The rest of her expenses go on a credit card, where she's tallied up $8,000 in debt. "It's definitely more than I've ever had," but she still considers it "manageable."

Jones feels cushioned by the fact that she'll return to a show as soon as the strike is over, and she'll likely pick up more hours in her Northwestern job once the school year starts.

In New York City, Chisa Hutchinson, 43, is a playwright and began writing for TV and film in 2019, including the Hulu drama "Tell Me Lies." With entertainment projects on pause, she's returned to her roots as a playwright, including teaching workshops. In the fall, she'll also spend more time in her professorship teaching at the University of Delaware, including one class aptly about "Writing that Pays the Rent."

"As a screenwriter, I've never been one to put all of my eggs in one basket. I don't know many writers who do," she says of the profession. "Screenwriting money is nice and all, but when it's unreliable, it forces you to be adaptable and seek out other ways to not only do what you love, but get paid for it."

"It's a highly adaptable interest — words," she adds. "Whatever way I can use my words, I do that."

While she probably won't be going on a "lavish vacation" any time soon, her streams of income are "enough to cover whatever I need. I'm set, I'm clothed, I have a roof over my head, and it's enough to keep me on the picket line."

Earning a living during the strike isn't as easy as applying to any job. Writers in the middle of a project have to be ready to return to work as soon as the strike is over, and not all employers offer that flexibility.

Many end up taking what Brandi Nicole calls "survival jobs" working as servers, substitute teachers, retail associates, temp agency roles and gig work. The industry has "conditioned us to be able to sustain ourselves at this point in time," she adds.

For Nicole, 40, who has written for the Showtime crime drama "Your Honor," the work stoppage has opened new paths. She briefly relocated to LA in early 2023 to write for a new show but, due to the strike, returned home to Memphis in June, where the cost of living is lower and where she raises her three boys ages 9, 15 and 18.

Though it's cheaper to live in Memphis than LA, she's taken out a strike loan, an interest-free loan provided by the WGA to those in financial need, to cover some of her bills. She also received two $100 grocery cards from the Humanitas "Groceries for Writers" effort. But things recently took a turn for the better: This week, Nicole started a job working for a private investigation firm for criminal defense cases.

Not only does it "feed the storyteller in me" as a crime drama writer, Nicole says, she's also passionate about helping Black and Brown people who are disproportionately impacted by the carceral system. She's never done this kind of work before but was told by the firm director that her ability to "get people to open up from all walks of life" will make her a great investigator.

Many writers are using the strike period to work on other creative projects. Jones, for example, has become something of an expert at crocheting to the point where people are offering to pay $120-plus for original works, while Nicole has started writing plays for the first time.

"Pens are down as far as projects go but my desire to write doesn't stop," says Dylan Guerra, 29, a WGA strike captain in New York who's written for HBO's "The Other Two." "I've been working on that weird screenplay that I'm not writing for anybody other than myself, and I'm finding it's unlocking new avenues in my voice that I'm excited by."

The strike has bolstered his sense of community, too. He finds that through picketing, he feels even more connected to other writers than when he was part of a writers' room.

"100 days is a big scary number and we definitely feel like we've been in this for a while," he adds. "But there's also a marathon mentality — we've all found our own ways of getting through this."

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is a member of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work & life? Sign up for our new newsletter!

Get CNBC's free Warren Buffett Guide to Investing, which distills the billionaire's No. 1 best piece of advice for regular investors, do's and don'ts, and three key investing principles into a clear and simple guidebook.

Check out: The top Hollywood exec made $498 million in the last 5 years—384 times as much as the average writer