Health

HEALTHY AND (FOR A BRIEF TIME) WEALTHY
I had a brief, bizarre career as a health reporter for Muscle Media magazine. Here's how it worked: I had done some health reporting for Diversion magazine, and the editor of Muscle Media had seen it. He apparently liked what he saw since he called me to say he'd like me to write an article for them and that one of his associate editors would get back to me. She did and after explaining that they wanted a profile of body builder Porter Freeman, here's how the conversation went:
Me: So what do you pay for this?
She: a dollar a word.
Me (thinking that's a good rate but probably for a brief article): And how many words?
She: Oh, 2,000 or 3,000, whatever you think is best.
Me (sputtering slightly in disbelief, and thinking, of course I'll write long, at a dollar a word): And how many sources do you want me to talk to?
She: Other people? (Pause) Gee, I don't think that's necessary.
A one-source story at a dollar-a-word with the word limit up to me. Was I dreaming?
It got better. I finished the article way ahead of schedule and two days after I turned it in, the associate editor called me again.
She: We were very pleased with the last article. We'd like you to do another. But we need it in a hurry. Could you manage it in a week?
Me: Sure. How long?
She: 1500 to 2500 words. You decide.
Me: Same rate?
She (hesitating – oh, oh, I think, here it comes) Well, we are asking you to do this in a hurry, so we'd like to give you $1.50 a word on this one.
They must have had money to burn. What's even more bizarre is that they gave me two more stories in the next three weeks (earning me, in total for the gigs, something like $10,000; they paid promptly, too). And then, like a a mirage after you've arrived, it all, suddenly, stopped. No more calls. No more offers. No explanations.
The coda to this opera without music, was that they heavily (and from what I could see, arbitrarily) rewrote my final story – and bylined it with a pen name, to boot (it appears here in its original form). I never understood it all, and always thought, "Maybe they're too fit and their muscles are squeezing their brains. Needless to say, I wish it had gone on longer. Sigh.