The Diary of an Editor
Month 1; Week 1; Day 1:Muddled Times has just gone live!! Time to relax! Log onto MUD2, appear in the tearoom and let people know that Muddled Times is ready to be read. Send an e-mail to everyone on the mailing list, think about sending a mail to Gameplay but decide to leave that until the next day. Collapse into bed, but am on too much of a high with ideas spinning around to sleep properly.
Stress levels ***** (but rapidly falling)
Month 1; Week 1; Day 2:Log on, read e-mails and mud-mails about Muddled Times, go to the Muddled Times site to correct mistakes I missed the night before that people have mailed me about. Send e-mail to Gameplay advertising the latest edition of Muddled Times. Shove my Muddled Times folder to somewhere out of sight.
Stress levels 0
Month 1; Week 2:Slowly one or two articles and letters start to trickle in for the next issue. Having decided to have a break from all things Muddled Times I leave e-mails in my mail folder and only reply to those that need an immediate answer.
Stress levels 0
Month 1; Week 3:E-mails and articles still very slowly trickling in. I have the occasional idea for an article or concept for Muddled Times. I write these down on post-it notes if I remember and stick the post-it notes into my Muddled Times folder if I can recover it from where I last threw it.
Stress levels 0
Month 1; Week 4:Suddenly realise it is nearing the end of the month and it dawns on me that I'm going to have to start thinking about Muddled Times again!
Stress levels *
Month 2; Week 1; Day 1:Wake up, realise it is the start of the month, and then inwardly groan. One month to go until Muddled Times is out again! Mentally list all the things that need doing, run out of mental list space. Convince myself that one month is plenty of time and relax again.
Stress levels *
Month 2; Week 1; Days 2+Catch up on all the Muddled Times related e-mails that I had left alone before. Arrange to interview a chosen player. E-mails go back and forth trying to fix up a convenient time for both of us, which usually proves difficult, as invariably I'm on-call for work the evenings or weekend that the interviewee suggests. Eventually finding a two-hour slot in both our busy schedules the interview takes place. At this point all high-life players should note that playing your high-life personae during this point of the Muddled Times bimonthly cycle is not to be recommended. At least one high-life has died during the time that I have been conducting most of the interviews! Complete the interview and make sure that it is saved safely in my Muddled Times folder (computer one, not real one this time) so I can leave the huge headache of editing it until later - much later. Curse when I receive an e-mail from the interviewee asking if they can vet the completed version before it goes into Muddled Times. Editing the interview is usually one of the last things I do, now I am going to have to change my schedule, stop myself when I realise that the interviewee shouldn't really have any right to vet something they had agreed and willingly done. Mail back the interviewee out of courtesy saying I will send them a semi-edited version when it is ready. Post a message on the MUD2 bulletin board and the Gameplay forums reminding people of the deadline for the next issue (not that people stick to it!). Send out e-mails to all the regular columnists and sub-editors thanking them for their hard work, giving them the date of the next deadline and to discuss a few ideas with various people.
Stress levels **
Month 2; Week 2:Start planning the layout of the magazine, in particular the newbie section. Start to plan my article for this section and make sure that there are enough other authors/articles to fill the newbie section. If not, start talking to people who have shown an interest in Muddled Times and newbie issues about ideas. Also try and find people who play mud who have artistic talents who could draw/paint/design icons for the site. Take a look at my notes for ideas of articles, put some aside for myself to write at a later date and discuss the other ideas with people. During tearoom chats I find myself dismayed that people have started articles for Muddled Times or other websites but have discarded them for fear of them being "boring" or "not good enough". Start allocating received articles to the various sub-editors and send them off. Discuss website concept ideas with Foddy, he tells me what is and what isn't possible (my knowledge of websites was zero before starting Muddled Times, and it isn't all that much more, but I'm learning things all the time!) and shows me what new ideas he has had for the site.
Stress levels **
Month 2; Week 3:More time spent in the tearoom chatting to people about ideas for various articles and encouraging people to send their work in when they are too shy to do so. Remind people that they can always use aliases if they are that uncertain about what they have written. I remind the regular contributors to Muddled Times that time is running out. Make frantic adjustments to the diary at work so I can book more time off work for Muddled Times. Momentarily worry about the amount of annual leave I have left, and then worry more about the time left until Muddled Times is due out and the lack of articles that I have been promised.
Stress levels ***
Month 2; Week 4; Day 1:Remind the regular contributors that the deadline is NOW! Receive a couple of e-mails back from regulars saying that they won't be able to finish their article in time for this issue - argh! I'll have to find replacements to keep the sections nicely balanced.
Stress levels ****
Month 2; Week 4; Day 2:Still not received everything from regulars yet - more frantic e-mails go out, I receive some of the articles, they get dutifully sent off to the sub-editors Bigphil or Cordelia with apologies for the last minute work.
Stress levels ****
Month 2; Week 4; Day 3:Start editing the interview, send a first draft to the interviewee if requested, and spend too long editing the interview. Whose idea was it to put interviews, IN COLOUR, in each issue?? Oh ... mine ... Thank god for Turrican who supplied me with the ONLY decent (so far) client that logs in colour! Finish off my articles and send out more e-mails to people who had promised me articles, trying not to sound TOO panicky in the mails.
Stress levels ****
Month 2; Week 4; Day 4:More e-mailing, start jiggling around articles in the layout plan, start nail biting (bad habit that I stopped years ago!!).
Stress levels ****
Month 2; Week 4; Days 5-7:Spend the next 2-3 days (and some nights) solidly working on Muddled Times, work no longer exists, my friends and family suddenly find me unavailable. Make last minute adjustments to my articles, receive and edit all the articles that I've been nagging people about since the deadline. HTML mark-up (by hand!) all the articles not already done so. Please note: I knew NOTHING about HTML before starting Muddled Times, but I'm slowly learning - I HATE tables though! Get annoyed at "helpful" wizzes who suggest, "Can't Word do that for you?" and Foddy tells them "No!!" I don't really understand why, I just do what I'm told ... I put all the articles on the site, spend ages flicking back and forth between the site and the editing page correcting lots of little mistakes and generally making the articles look "pretty". Give the edited interview to Foddy to put on the site as it is too large to go in as it is ... discover loads of problems with it. Foddy fiddles around with it a lot so the colours look correct in both Internet Explorer and Netscape.
Stress levels *****
Month 3; Week 1; Day 1:Its the eleventh hour, having been working for hours on end, eating only quick and easy snacks, it's all nearly ready ... nearly ... Lots of little corrections to make, most of the articles are still missing their synopses (writing the synopses I find to be one of the hardest parts of running Muddled Times!!), I haven't written the editorial yet and ... I'm still waiting for one more article!! It arrives!! The final article. I quickly scan through it checking its content, run it through a spell-checker, read it much more thoroughly correcting grammar, slang if appropriate and MUD2 specific terms. Mark it up, put it in the site then go back and forth correcting my HTML mark-up mistakes. I write my editorial, go through the same process with that and then ... IT'S FINISHED!! It is still the first of the month, and yet another issue of Muddled Times it out on time! As I collapse with relief I think about starting the interview earlier in the month and see if I can persuade people to send me things BEFORE the deadline - it will never happen though ... I smile smugly at all those people who said that Muddled Times wouldn't last more than a couple of issues.
Stress levels *****
Times and dates that Muddled Times has gone live:
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