Sorry, Tim, beat ya to the punch. :)

I could wail about my current dead end rut in newspapers after about 12 years experience, but I think I'd rather mention some funny things in my writing/editing careers:

* In 1991 I was associate editor at this rinky dink daily paper in Virginia. I did a rotating set of 1-2 pages each day and also a U.S. news page every day. We used the UPI wire and dedicated not-quite-PC terminals, so I just needed to pull interesting stories and write headlines for them. No mouse/mices except for the advertising department's Macs, so you did a lot of function key tapping to do anything. Although I don't look back on the experience fondly, it was great training in writing coherent headlines quickly and doing basic layout. I had mostly been a reporter until then. But hey, that's not funny!

Well okay, I shared this horrible, mostly unventilated office with two other editors. Under the assistant editor's desk was this huge hole, no lie, which led directly to the printing press in the floor beneath us. Every time there was a press run, this flume of inky smoke would waft up through the hole. Thank God for the one window!

We had one lousy little portable refrigerator. I'd put my sandwiches and juice or sodas in there. Inevitably, by dinnertime I'd come back and find little inky fingerprints on my half drunken orange juice and my half-eaten sandwiches. I didn't try the Arsenic experiment like I wanted to. :-0

We eventually moved to brand new digs in a new office park (which eventually led to financial troubles and my layoff). At the new offices, they had the bright idea to hinge the men's room door in such a way that when you opened the door (inwards) people outside got a nice view of you using the urinal. Hot damn!

Well that's all the funnies for now. Now someone can post something serious about writing and editiing careers. :)

Hmmm...well, I can't top your stories. I always had a nice cube to work in, as nice as cubes can be, I suppose. Here's my one oddball tale, though.

We were moving to a new building. To save money, we decided to do the phone wiring ourselves. They offered to pay some of us extra to come in on a weekend and help string the phone wires for the two floors we were occupying. I went ahead and helped for the extra cash. I simply followed orders so it was ok. Finally we got to the CEO's office, and he had a private bathroom. He wanted a phone in his bathroom so he could talk while taking a crap. We were pissed at him over some recent layoffs due to some poor decisions on his part, in our opinion, so we carefully tested the placement of the phone and put it just high enough so he couldn't reach it while sitting on the can. It amused us to know that if his phone rang, he's have to get up at least to grab the receiver. Ah, the small victories of the working class!

As to the tech writing, I had the most fun with my first job. We had a large team of four full-time writers and two part-timers. Half of us (not me) had Ph.D's in english. We use to sit around and discuss literature during our department meetings. It was kind of cool. Our boss was a Spenserian, one of the guys was writing his dissertation on Tristram Shandy and was an 18th century expert, I was a contemporary poetry expert, and we had an Americanist. It was a lot of fun. Then the entire department except for me got laid off. That was a drag.

"It amused us to know that if his phone rang, he's have to get up at least to grab the receiver. "

Hilarious. You have to send that to Dilbert's Scott Adams!

Hey, you guys keep this thread going!

I don't have any writing career stuff to share. The closest thing I've done is working for a while for a small advertising agency in Little Rock. Our main client was a family-owned funeral home. To stress the "family-owned" aspect, we ran ads with pictures of the family we took during a photo shoot at a local park. For one ad, we used the infant granddaughter of the funeral home's owner. Cute little baby girl playing around with sunglasses. Our main target demographic was old ladies, so they'd love stuff like that.

But it didn't occur to us that there's a strange cognitive dissonance when you put the name of a funeral home under the picture of a baby. People who saw the ad wondered if the little girl had died.

Needless to say, I didn't last longer than a few years in advertising...

-Tom

Lessee, some other weird newspaper stories.....

* Back in my first stint at my current newspaper in about late 1989, our editor at the time seemed pretty much insane. We were used to him cussing at us all the time (my nickname was "Gil***dammit" for a long time) but he started cussing at readers and people just coming in off the street. Finally we called a "confidential" meeting with the general manager and angrily recited all the insane things he was doing and abusiveness etc. The GM assured us he would talk to our editor but would not mention any names. "I assure you all that we talked about will be kept in the strictest of confidence," he said.

A week later our editor calls us into the conference room and says, "Gene [the GM] gave me a point-by-point list of everything you all said about me, by name!" and thus ensued the most uncomfortable meeting I've ever experienced. :0 Needless to say, I don't ever trust what a company's general manager ever says anymore.

Geo said: "Sorry, Tim, beat ya to the punch. :)"

No problem. My DSL line went down last night. Damn the bad luck. For the most part, DSL is great, but when there's a problem it's a bitch because the ISP blames the telco and the telco blames the ISP, and Mr. Elhajj is left to shake his fist at sky.

I'm glad the thread's up. Funny anecdotes are great! I'd also love to hear more about the business of writing. How people got their foot in the door, plans for the future, interesting markets, that sort of thing. I know a lot of the people who post here work in the gaming press, but I'm assuming most of us also have writing day jobs?

Myself, I've worked as a tech writer for the past 5 years. I already wrote how I got started in the other thread, so I won't bother to repeat.

I've also done some game reviewing, but haven't been able to turn it into more than a hobby. That's mostly my fault because I only enjoy a few games, most of which are in a specific genre, and can't bring myself to work with something I don't like.

I had hoped we might even have someone here who was involved in the pending writer's strike in LA and could share some insights. From the outside, it just seems so odd to see writers weilding what seems like such an enormous amount of power.

Tom said: "Hey, you guys keep this thread going! I don't have any writing career stuff to share."

Okay, men. All together now:

BULLSH*T!

What'd ya mean you don't have any writing stories to share? You're Tom Slick, superhero writer sent from another planet to leap tall buildings in a single bound... You should be bubbling over with stories, setting this thread on fire with tales of lust, deciet and illicit stories...

HOW CAN YOU WRITE FOR SO MANY WEB SITES AND NOT HAVE ANY WRITING STORIES?

;)

The writer's strike thing is odd. I'd think for many shows you could have the guy who fetches the coffee sit down and pound out a script and it wouldn't make a lot of difference.

As far as other writing I've done, I did a Prima guide. I just queried them and got the assignment. I think someone told me they were looking for writers. I didn't enjoy the experience since I had so little time to play the game, Evolution for the Dreamcast, and I had to take 1000 screenshots. The killer was that I had to hook a device to my parallel port to take the screenshots, and I was getting about 5 FPS in the game as a result of all the data being piped through the parallel port. It was agonizing.

The good side is that it paid $5000. Some writers get $7000, but I was a rookie. I probably lost $2000 in work I had to turn down, though.

If you could have these guides scheduled well (an impossibility) you could do one a month and make a nice living. The problem is that the game will slip so that May's guide gets pushed to June and then June's guide has to go to someone else. Also, the hint book industry is struggling too, though probably for different reasons than the websites and magazines are. In fact, I don't think anyone did a Tropico guide. Strange.

"for many shows you could have the guy who fetches the coffee sit down and pound out a script and it wouldn't make a lot of difference"

Heh--the show might come off a little more believable. But, yeah, I know what you mean. There is quite a bit of crap, especially on TV.

But the strike covers movies, too, right? I like a lot of the writing I see in movies (although, I admit, I don't see many these days).

What gets me is having to join a union to work as a writer. I'm used to just hustling my way in the door and picking up as I go along. How much of a chance is there for that if you've got to join a bloody union. Also, you would think that the fact that you have to join a union would sort of guarantee that you're going to get quality writers and that quality writers would guarantee quality scripts. Well--as evidenced by 90% of what you see on TV--so much for that idea. Where do all these union writers who can't write a decent television script come from, I wonder.

Hey Mark, is Dallas still at Prima? I had the impression that they hacked up all outsourced writing assignments with the layoffs? Wonder if they're still doing the fast track guides?

"The good side is that it paid $5000. Some writers get $7000, but I was a rookie. I probably lost $2000 in work I had to turn down, though."

Wow, that's not bad. You still come out ahead 3k. And even the lower rate is still a decent wage if you could keep it going for an entire year.

Me, I've never been able to make game writing work from a finacial persepctive. I think one of the reasons you see so much crappy writing is that most writers don't get paid. And it takes a lot of work to write a decent review! I can imagine what it must take to write a decent guide, let alone take 1000 screens. Feh.

I hate it when I am rushed into delivering a project. I like my work to look polished. It's even worse if you're going to do a game guide and they're going to put your name on the thing. It's going to sit on shelves for years and if it's not accurate, folks are going to point at it and say, dont' buy that book, it sucks. Not to mention Usenet. Oiy.

David, I don't know what's going on with Prima. It's been nearly a year and a half since I did the guide and had any contact. A quick check of their website shows fast track guides for Pokemon Stadium 2 and Myst III: Exile, so I guess they're still doing them.

Tim, yeah, you don't want to have your name on a poor effort. I'd only take on certain types of games if I was going to do another one -- no console titles, no 4x games, no long RPGs like Baldur's Gate, etc. I think my ideal game would be an RTS.

"HOW CAN YOU WRITE FOR SO MANY WEB SITES AND NOT HAVE ANY WRITING STORIES?"

I thought we were talking about the Real World. I've got plenty of stories about this silly industry, but I thought the thread was going to be about Actual People at Their Actual Jobs. :) I've been a slacker of one kind or another for far too long to have any of those kind of stories...

-Tom

---

Quote:

I'm glad the thread's up. Funny anecdotes are great! I'd also love to hear more about the business of writing. How people got their foot in the door, plans for the future, interesting markets, that sort of thing. I know a lot of the people who post here work in the gaming press, but I'm assuming most of us also have writing day jobs?

---

Lessee, foot in the door. I'm the only newspaper guy here I guess so my story was....

I worked heavily for my college paper my last year (ew, $35 a week as assistant news editor), and had this naive illusion it would lead me right into newspaper work after college. Instead I spent a year as part-time editorial assistant at a counselors' association, doing a poor job of proofreading, checking bluelines and losing my mind.... By spring '88 I'd turned 23 and was terminally depressed that I'd never get to even try being a reporter.

One of my fellow former college paper staffers was getting married. Another one, my former news editor there, was talking to me on the phone. She'd gotten a reporter's job at a local paper. She basically took pity on me and said, "well George, I can help you get some writing assignments at my paper. I know you'd do a good job." Eventually they hired me part-time as a proofreader and for a few hectic months I worked two part-time jobs and freelanced articles for them when I could.

Eventually I wrote some massive 50 column inch article about the school system. The publisher liked it so much and was so disappointed in my proofreading skills by contrast (well, it ain't my forte) that I lost the proofreading job but got many more freelance assignments and meetings to cover.

Anyway, that's really my foot in the door. I'm afraid the news editor and I drifted out of touch after exchanging Xmas cards a few years. She and my newswriting class teacher really had an influence on my life and career as I spent my first 3 years of college struggling to figure out What I Wanted to Do. Whether it was a good influence or not, I can't say, as I don't know what I would've become on the Road Less Traveled. Probably some pasty English professor with tweed jackets with patches on them. :)

My interesting writing stories...geez not as interesting as Geo's but....

1) While working for MCI/WORLDCOM I came up within idea to a lighthearted fun newsletter about the company with a focus of what most relevant to our technical group. I showed it too some bosses, they said nice idea a put it on hold for a time bring. A few months later a corporate newsletter was launched. Interestingly an editorial I wrote was used and half the content and themes I created found there way into the newsletter. OF course, I got zero credit, when I called them on it, they said threat they had already been considering a similar idea and that the use of my editorial had been an error. Hahaha...er ok I guess that one wasn't that funny.

Ok how about the unofficial fastrack guide for Prima I got paid $2000 for that never got published (basically a mini unauthorized hint guide). They wanted me to do another one but I passed on it figuring why do all the work just to be mothballed.

MY favorite �makes me mad� story�I wrote for UGO (gamepen) a review. The text was drastically changed and a 2 star rating went up to a four star review, without my consent. This was waaaay back, and I never said anything, just never wrote for them again! I didn't even know for a while as the review ended up showing on one of the affiliate sites...

Man, having someone steal your work and take credit for it is really low. Some dinky website stole two of my reviews and put someone else's name on them. I got them to take them down, though.

An editor changing your score from 2 stars to 4 is pretty hard to take too.

About getting $2k for a guide that wasn't published, they could do that all the time to me and it wouldn't matter. It surprised me, but seeing my name in print didn't do anything for me, even going back to the first work I ever got published years and years ago. I thought I would be excited, but I never was. The Prima guide I did, for example, I just gave the box of copies I got to my kids to scribble on and I don't even know where they are now.

I'm not saying that this is the right attitude to have. I'm just pretty mercenary about it. When I write for someone else what's important is that I get paid. This site is the only thing I do for free.

>After the whole sordid Evil Avatar affair came to an end

That sounds like a good story...

My writing/editing career primarily concerns the dazzling world of legal publishing. Talk about excitement. For several years I was an editor then managing editor for a legal publisher in New York. When I started, all the editorial work was done on paper with typewriters, scissors and scotch tape. Very high tech. We moved into computerized editing with (man, I shudder when I think back on this) a Wang VS system in the mid '80s. I developed a reputation as the office geek when I deciphered the instructions for saving files locally and converting them to WordPerfect. It was all very plesant. I had a real office with a window and door and a couple of chairs for visitors. But the biggest excitement associated with the job was that we shared the same building with King Features Syndicate, so occasionally we would see celebrities in the lobby or elevators.

I would up as a senior acquisitions editor for another legal publisher in Colorado Springs. There I had a corner office with a view of Pikes Peak. Very snazzy. Unfortunately, my wife constantly suffered from altitude sickness in Colorado Springs, so after about I year, I moved into the world of law school computing here in Chicago. As it turned out, our timing was excellent, because the publisher's parent company soon decided to get out of the legal publishing business and sold off the assets.

I'm still involved in legal writing and editing on a free lance basis. My credits as an author include co-authoring a set of books on consumer credit and contributing to a set of books on federal civil procedure. I told you it was exciting.

"I'm still involved in legal writing and editing on a free lance basis. My credits as an author include co-authoring a set of books on consumer credit and contributing to a set of books on federal civil procedure. I told you it was exciting."

Oh well. There's a reason why they call it work. It's tough to dislodge yourself from jobs like this one and tech writing. The salary tends to be better than you can get at newspapers or magazines for entry-level jobs, yet it's hard to change jobs and make the jump to a more senior position when you have specialized writing experience like we do.

I'm hopeful that I get this gambling writing job not just because it sounds more interesting than tech writing, but also because it will give me more traditional publishing experience to go along with my freelance game writing. Unfortunately it pays less than tech writing. OTOH, they're fine with me continuing to freelance. Most of them freelance too. One of the guys wrote a "Complete Idiot's" guide to online gambling. He told me had about as much fun with it as I did with my Prima guide. Neither one of us has lined up for seconds. :)

Here's a few weird things about this gambling writing job. It's focused on online gambling, which is a $3 billion a year industry now, and growing rapidly -- porn and gambling are the ways to make money on the Internet. Anyway, this place is affliated with something called IGN, which has nothing to do with the IGN we know. Further, they refer to online gambling as interactive gaming. Finally, this small 16-person company has another person there with the last name of Asher, and we're not related. Asher's not a real common name, either. Just some weird coincidences.

I don't have writing stories so much as I have 'regular day job' stories. They're too depressing to tell, but I can summarize by saying that even some of the unbelievable stuff you read about in Dilbert really happens.

Some of the people I've seen in management...whoo. I'm sure Jeff Lackey could also tell some stories about amazing managers.

"I don't have writing stories so much as I have 'regular day job' stories. They're too depressing to tell, but I can summarize by saying that even some of the unbelievable stuff you read about in Dilbert really happens."

Along those same lines, with CGW being my first writing gig, I'll at least say working at a comic book store has given me some zany madcap stories.

-Thierry

Same goes for my working at McDonald's and this Home Depot-like place. Man, I hate working retail. I love dealing with PR people, but customers? hell no... especially working in that hardware store when I was 17... I mean, I was the youngest person in the place, so every old guy who came in and said "I know you have this stuff, so where is it?" would totally blow up in my face about how I'm too young to know anything when I said "no, sir. I've worked here for a year and a half, and I know for a fact that we've never carried that." Then he'd say, "I've been coming here for 5 years, and you've always had this thing," to which I would cleverly reply, "I'm sorry sir, but we've only been open for 2 years." Then comes the inevitable "oh, fuck! you fucking kids don't know fucking shit" as he storms down the aisle in search of someone older than me.
"You're welcome, sir. Have a happy easter." (incidentally, it was Easter Sunday)

Tom O. said: "Man, I hate working retail"

You got that right. Before I was a programmer, I worked in restaurants, book stores, the university, and a comic shop.

Dealing with the public is always tough. But doing it in restaurants is the worst. There, you have to take their shit and clean it up too.

I am just glad I am a database developer/DBA. It pays steady and I can post here all day when we are slow. :) Which turns out to be a lot lately.

I used to work as a bar back and that was a pretty decent job with not much customer interaction. My best non-professional job was driving for Dominos. I got paid $12 an hour to drive around listening to my radio all night. Easy money. Being a valet was fun as well. Don't ever have a fast car valet parked unless you tip the guy heavily to begin with. I am surpised I was never arrested. :)

-- Xaroc

"I hate working retail"

Yup, roger that.

I worked in a deli in NYC for years while I was getting my BA. It was a very small, family owned Irish deli on the Upper East Side. I had a really hard time dealing with being so close to people with so much wealth. It didn't help that I utterly broke all the time, either.

Since it was NYC, I felt I had a license to at least be surly, if not downright rude. It was the only Deli for a five-block radius so we got crazy business during the morning--line out the door and into the street. They kept me because I was capable, but were always trying to get me to be nice to the customers.

Lessee, never worked retail but I did do a little part-time job as a parking attendant at the Patriot Center arena in Virginia when it first opened (1985-6).

I think my first time out they posted me near the main exit road to the arena. It went something like:
"Hey you! Excuse me! How do I get back to the beltway?"
"Take a right, two more rights, a left and then go to the beltway."
"Hey! How do I get to the beltway?"
"Um, take three rights, a left and then look for the beltway signs."
"HEY! YOU! How do I get to I-66?"
"Um, take a right, er... no, take a left, another left, a right, a right then keep going to the I-66 signs."
"What was the part after 'another left'?"
"****!"

Most of this was done while frantically waving an aluminum flashlight. I did get to, as a perk, sit in on a couple concerts including a Heart concert in early 1986. Towards the end of my tenure they passed out walkie talkies to some of us, and we had these relatively cool, though not very warm, jackets.

I remember I was way, way too meek at the time for the position. I just couldn't get into barking directions out to 149 straight direction requests nor could I wave the flashlight with the necessary aggressiveness.

As time went on I noticed other parking attendants quitting left and right and just not showing up on their assigned dates. It paid very little, and I was continually exhausted afterwards. Finally I went to the supervisor one day and said I needed to spend more time focusing on studies, and I wanted to be "released" from parking attendant-dom.

The supervisor barked something about "Maybe someday you're going to need me as a reference and I'll tell 'em [Geo] didn't give enough notice when he quit!"
I recalled muttering "Yeah, well, great" as he gave me my last paycheck and I walked out the door thinking "Fat Chance!"....

"I hate working retail"

Without getting into an involved retail story, I will say one general thing about working at the comic book store.

I.DID.NOT.READ.EVERY.FUCKING.COMIC.BOOK.OUT.THERE.

So really, when you talk to me about the massive retcon in Amazing Spider-Man #422, which conflicts with a guest appearance in Avengers #127, I'm not agreeing with you, I'M JUST NODDING MY HEAD TO MAKE YOU GO AWAY!

Just because I geek out and read a shitload of comic books doesn't mean that I read everything and can tell you what issue Wolverine tore through Galactus' colon.

To make this game-related, I also haven't played every damn game ever.

-Short, Shirty Scoot

"I.DID.NOT.READ.EVERY.FUCKING.COMIC.BOOK.OUT.THERE"

Well, now we all know how to wind Scooter up. So, Scoot, what was the comic where Spidey gets his groove back?

Worked in a comic book store, eh? I managed a small bookstore for a couple of years. I really enjoyed it. It was fun being surrounded with books and most of the customers were nice. The only thing I hated was that the name of the store was "Discount Books" but we didn't actually discount any books. So people would ask, "What's the discount?" and I would say, "There is no discount." Then they'd get crabby and I'd have to tell them that the ownership had changed (a lie) and that the new owners were planning on changing the name. That was the story I was supposed to tell. Sometimes I'd just be crabby myself and say, "The owners came up with the name and set the prices on the books. Sorry."

We got theatre people who came in, too. One time Julie Harris was starring in a play and she'd come in and get the New York Times each day. She was very nice. During the same period in time I was gabbing on the phone with my girlfriend (later to be my wife) when this tall guy walked in with a sea captain's hat on. I laughed and told my wife that this guy looked like Charles Nelson Reilly, right down to the goofy hat. Well, it was Charles Nelson Reilly! He was directing the play. He ended up being a lot of fun and would joke around with me every day he came in.

He also bought a lot of porno magazines. The poor guy was obviously embarrassed to buy gay mags, so he'd buy four or five girlie mags and toss in a copy of Blue Boy or Mandate.

Heh, that's really funny!

My wife and I watch the Game Show Network quite a bit, and see Charles Nelson Reilly on Match Game just about every night. This just makes that even funnier! (Of course, if it weren't for the Game Show Network, I wouldn't even know who Charles Nelson Reilly was...)

As long as we're veering that way... two celebrity stories from sharing the same office building as King Features Syndicate:

1) Got on the elevator once and wound up sharing it with Rupert Murdoch. He was friendly enough, but I remember noting that he wore those semi-transparent black dress socks that I always associated with loan sharks and used car salesmen. Figures, I guess.

2) We had a company softball team that played in the Central Park League. One evening a bunch of us troop onto the elevator in our softball togs and standing there is Ted Turner. Captain Courageous says, "I here you guys beat the Dodgers last night." Without missing a beat, one of my co-workers replies, "So buy us!" Turner thought that was pretty funny.

Those are funny stories, Jason. Turner seems like he's probably a lot more fun than Murdoch.

I guess running business empires is the ultimate game for these guys. I'm pretty sure that by the time I had my second million in the bank, I'd be at home playing computer games instead of at the office.

Hey, that's what I do now! :)

See, the real trick would be to put your second million in the bank by playing computer games at home. If you can pull that off, I'll salute you!

Wow, dude, did you just out Charles Nelson Reilly?

I bet Charles wishes he got all his pr0n from the Usenet now.

You mean he was still "in?"

Huh. Coulda fooled me.

LOL, I only assumed he was from the way Mark described his behaviour buying the porno mags. Maybe I'm just acting too PC for my own good?

I dunno. Sounded to me like that was a while ago. I think it's pretty common knowledge now. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think he's been out for awhile.

Yeah, this was nearly 20 years ago. I doubt Reilly's preferences were ever really in doubt.

The funny thing about outing public figures is that there are publications that do it all the time, but the mainstream press won't pick up the stories. The gay community has a pretty good grapevine and knows who's who. I had a friend who was a gay activist and he told me about a number of public figures who were still in the closet.

Oh, yeah? Any stories to share there? Anyone we might be interested in knowing about?

Well, there's Tom (No, not Mr. Click).

I'm not doubting your word about the mags that cater to this type info and how it's not picked up by the mainstream, Mark. I think this is just one example where this type of story is so big that it has catapulted itself to the mainstream press.

"No, not Mr. Click"

That should have been Chick!