Elizabeth Page is an Emmy-winning writer for One Life to Live. She recently wrote a guest column for The New York Daily News about the end of the writers' strike...

I make my living writing soap operas. I love my job. I spend my days writing about women who make a difference - who run corporations and seduce delicious men and raise troublesome but beautiful kids. And all in high heels.

Soap opera writers - or "daytime" writers as we're called in the biz - get paid once a week. Unlike screenwriters, we're "paycheck" writers, living from week to week.

So when our union went out on strike Nov. 5, my husband and I didn't have enough money stashed away to support ourselves, our 15-year-old daughter and two cats for however long it took to settle this strike.

Christmas was grim. My husband and I agreed not to give each other anything. We bought a few things for my daughter. And we played a lot of Scrabble. We cut out restaurants, movies and any fun that cost money.

Read the full column now.