So, you say you want to freelance

Sometimes its hard to get publishers to accept your stuff. Sometimes its hard to get publishers who accept your stuff to actually remember they ever accepted it in the first place.


Behold, Decision Games, purveyors of Strategy&Tactics, Modern War and other fine magazines:

Hi Will,

This is the list of articles I currently have scheduled for you:

Hunter Ligget_FYI_S&T 301_November 2016

Tarleton_FYI_S&T 309_March 2018  

American Revolution Strategy_Feature_S&T 310_May 2018

Canadians at Vimy_FYI_S&T 312_September 2018

...

Got that little nugget from the editor yesterday. No big deal really until one considers the fact that the lead time for these pieces is astonishing. Below are the submission dates, in order, for those articles:

2008
2003
2003
2008

They forgot they had them. They freakin' forgot they had them. What's worse is the new editor found them again. I said go ahead and publish them. Why not? Yeah sure.

Two thousand and freakin' three. Can you believe it? George W. Bush was in his first term. Facebook did not yet exist. No one yet knew what a blog was. The IPhone was still four years away. I was living in a rented, rustic farmhouse in Peapack, NJ where I had recently rediscovered Led Zeppelin. That's like being in 2003 and someone saying your article from 1988 is going to be published this year.

Oh, they also stiffed me $400 for designing the Meuse-Argonne Folio game

'Not a problem Will. Thanks for your contributions and excellent articles!'

I bet.