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Re: Whew! pretty long dry spell here is ASA



On 9/24/2020 8:43 AM, Bob La Londe wrote:
> On 9/23/2020 10:39 AM, Jim Davis wrote:
>> On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 at 9:05:01 PM UTC-4, Bob La Londe wrote:
>>>
>>>> So that's the end of my fishing story. Yours obviously is still in
>>>> progress. Cherish it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Best wishes for your wife's recovery
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You aren't to bad a story teller yourself.  Maybe break things up a
>>> little to make it easier to read.  I bet using the spoken word in person
>>> you would be tell it pretty well.
>>
>> Yeah, I just started typing and kept going. When I got done I saw it
>> all bunched together but it was late and I was beginning to nod off so
>> I just left it. Sorry.
>>
>
>
> Why I am not an outdoor writer
>
> I may simpley not be that good.  I've only ever submitted a couple
> things for publication and they have all been published, so maybe with
> practice I could be, but I had some experiences that made me quit trying.
>
> This is a little bit of a rant so feel free to skip it if you want
>
> I took a shot at outdoor writing a number of years ago.  One article was
> submitted to a regional rag, and they published it.  After I rewrote the
> article a dozen times, and butchered it removing most of the useful
> content to fit their idea of how short an article should be.  The
> agreement was I would do that in exchange for so many months free
> advertisement of my fishing website in their rag.  I spent a lot of time
> on the article, and when it was done it was useless, but my goal was to
> get my name out there and show some writing credits to show other rags.
> They might have known how to publish a magazine, but they didn't know
> shit about a useful and helpful fishing article.
>
> I expected to get a copy of the magazines that carried my advertisement.
>   I didn't.  When I asked about it I was told if I wanted a subscription
> I could buy one.  I asked that if they do that to all their advertisers.
>   Make them pay to see their ad was published.  Then I was told I was
> not an advertisers and if I wanted a subscription I could buy one.  I
> reminded them of the deal and mentioned I still had all the original
> emails.  The chief editor then claimed that my emails were forwarded to
> them with out that information.  I finally told them that under fair use
> I could publish expose' articles on outdoors websites showing their
> magazine if it was for the purpose of supporting an argument.  That I
> had proof they whelched on a deal.  They could sue me, and I could
> counter sue, and in the end they would lose, but I would rather they
> just honor the agreement.  Especially since I had reworked the article
> at their direction more like an employee than a free lance writer.
> Finally they capitulated and the next month I received a copy of their
> rag.  In the classified section about 1/2 an inch tall was a badly
> pixilated url for my website.  Just YumaBassMan.com stretched and
> distorted so badly it was barely readable
>
> That magazine didn't last another year.  They went to an online presence
> that was so disorganized and chaotic as to make it less useful than the
> article they made me butcher.
>
> I was so disheartened by the whole process I never submitted another
> article to another rag.  Not even the local newspaper who had in the
> past published some of my short essays unedited.
>
> I was smart enough to retain ownership of my work so that I could
> republish it if I wanted to.  They had limited rights to publish it in
> their magazine and I agreed not to publish it elsewhere for a limited
> period.  Here it is.  (my version) Back then I thought it was the Opus,
> but now I see it was just another so so article as I reread it.
>
> The Stick Worm Phenomenon
> http://yumabassman.com/forums-new/index.php/page,page3691.html
>
> After all of that I still wrote and published a few articles on my
> website.  Then one day I got a heads up that a commercial bass fishing
> website had stolen one of my articles word for word including typos.  I
> contacted them and said they either needed to remove my article or give
> me credit with a by line of my name and website url.  They responded by
> telling me it was a shitty article, and they were in the business of
> building a website and they weren't going to let me steal web traffic
> from them or profit off their works so they were going to remove my
> crappy article.  I was a little shocked.  Those thieving bastards stole
> from me, and then accused me of trying to steal from them?
>
> I thought that was the end of it.  Until many years later a friend of
> mine qualified to fish the Classic.  He did it through the Federation
> structure.  Its quite an ordeal to make it up to the classic that way. I
> posted a congratulatory message on his Facebook page.  A simple short
> sentence like, "Congratulations on qualifying Steve."  I received a
> nasty message from somebody I didn't know demanding to know why I didn't
> give them credit for saying that sentence first.  I didn't even know who
> they were.  It took me a while to figure out who they were and why they
> were being a jackass over me congratulating my friend on his
> accomplishment.  Yeah he was one of those guys from the paragraph above.
>   It turns out he had posted that sentence on a web forum I hadn't even
> seen, but now he thought because I also congratulated Steve it was the
> same as being a POS thief willfully and blatantly stealing other
> people's work.
>
> I think this was the article they stole.  I could be wrong.  It was a
> long time ago.
>
> Getting Started On Popper Fishing
> http://yumabassman.com/forums-new/index.php/page,page290.html
>
> I can't see trying to be in the writing business again.  It think it
> would totally ruin my enjoyment of writing.
>
> Special credit to Sarah Sneed who was the only English professor who
> ever TAUGHT me anything about actually writing.  English 102 Writing
> Research Papers.
>
> Now I just hack out something when I feel like it.  I often don't bother
> to proofread or edit anything.


I should add that through out the 1990s I was very active in the local
motorcycling community.  I am a life member of ABATE of Arizona, HOG,
and the American Motorcycle Association.  I had begun assembling a list
of "motorcycle games" and various other short articles on a subdomain
website on the old GeoCities site. www.geocities.com/onebikenut.  Last
tiem I checked about 30-40% of my work was still available on The Way
Back Machine.

I was approached by White Horse Press with the messages, "Please let us
know when you are ready to write your book."  I didn't have the
confidence to commit to something like that back then.  I also didn't
have the time as I was working long days often 7 days a week building up
The Security Consultant as a business.  Still, it was in the back of my
mind that a real (if small) publisher recognized my work.


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