Wednesday, 5 March 2014

The five-year story


    In 1999 I approached The Gazette, Montreal’s English daily newspaper, with a request to profile their printing plant maintenance operation. “Yes,” they said, “but let’s do it after we’ve moved into our new building. Call us in a year for an update.” I did. “Call us in another year.” I did. “Give us another year. The building isn’t finished.”


   This yearly ritual continued until, on a bitterly cold December 17, 2003, I finally got my cook's tour. I climbed over the printing presses. I saw the mailroom, where extra sections and ads are inserted in the newspapers. I learned about equipment maintenance. My story ran in the February 2004 issue of Machinery & Equipment MRO magazine and I received payment that May.


   Most of my projects are research-ready, but there is usually one or two in the queue that will take months to set up. That would be painful for a new writer with a hungry wallet, but full-time freelancing isn’t about quick cash. It’s a long-haul operation, the patient accumulation of projects, wisdom, client magazines, credibility and pay. Before you know it, you’ll have published a thousand articles and wonder where in the world the years went.


Copyright © Carroll McCormick 2014

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