"You were white as a sheet." That is how my friend described my appearance on that summer day in 1990 when I entered that fast food restaurant next to Paul Frelier's Historical Modles in Torrance. It is not surprising that I looked that way, considering the fact that I felt I had been kicked in the stomach by an unruly bronco. The scene must have been comical, with me standing in the doorway of El Pollo Loco, a copy of the roleplaying gaming magazine AUTODUEL QUARTERLY in my hand, my lack of verbal eloquence paling beside a collection of typeset pages that included a sterling example of my written eloquence. How ironic.

By way of explaining the scene described above, it is necessary to backtrack roughly two months to June 1990. It was then that I completed a ritual that is well known to writers everywhere. I carefully prepared two of my babies for a one-way trip from my home in Los Angeles to the offices of Steve Jackson Games in Austin, TX. These "babies" were, if you have not already deciphered the well-used metaphor, short pieces of fiction that I had penned. Having been a reader of AUTODUEL QUARTERLY for years, I had reason to believe that these two pieces were ideally suited for inclusion in the publication.

AUTODUEL QUARTERLY was what the gaming industry insiders call a "house organ:" a magazine published by a RPG company with the expressed sole purpose of promoting one or more of their games. In this case, It was Steve Jackson's popular CAR WARS gamc in which players assume the fictional roles of twenty first century freeway warriors. My two pieces of speculative fiction, "Time Bomb Town" and "Right of Way" just happened to feature such characters. I sent them to the editors of AUTODUEL QUARTERLY for possible inclusion in their fine publication.

A nineteenth century French novelist once declared writing "a profession in which you must constantly prove your talent to those who have none." Science fiction author Harlan Ellison, with own penchant for such militant pro-writer language, repeats this quote every chance he gets. Personally, my own view of the author editor relationship has never been so one sided. However, my experience with Steve Jackson Games forced me to consider a radical change in my point-of-view.

After mailing off my two submissions, I did what every good writer does: I wrote. Although I pondered the fate of my two Autoduelling stories, other projects beckoned me back to work at hand. Days, weeks, and months passed without word from Steve Jackson Games. I allowed an error of omission to take place here.

Specifically, I failed to undertake a written or telephoned query to Mr. Jackson as to the status of my babies. The follow-up query is something I do every time I do not receive a reply from an editor in a reasonable amount of time after I submit a work. This is something I encourage all writers to do. If you fear that something you wrote was somehow lost in the shuMe, contact the publication sent it to and confirm or dash your fears.

Having heard nothing from Steve Jackson Games or AUTODUEL QUARTERLY, I put the mystery of the lost stories in the back of my mind and left it there. Then came that fateful day in 1990 when I decided to pay a visit to the aforementioned Paul Frelier's Historical Models store in Torrance, CA. My friend, whose interest in lunch had superseded her interest in hobby shops, agreed to wait for my in the adjoining fast food outlet.

When I spotted a copy of AUTODUEL QUARTERLY in the shops magazine rack my senses perked. My interest in the publication had waned to the point that I allowed my subscription to expire some months previous. However, this was the magazine that I thought enough of to trust with the care of my babies. I picked up a copy and glanced at the cover. Five feature articles where mentioned on the glossy three-color cover, but one title loomed larger than the others, at least to my subjective perception: "Right of Way." I did a classic Chaplinesque double take. There it was in black and white! The title of my story!

I feverishly flipped to the table of contents page. There it was! I still remember the page number without removing the magazine from my files: page 33. I flipped to the page in question. My writers heart leaped with the glory that comes only with seeing one's words in print. My story filled four pages. It had been typeset beautifully. One of AUTODUEL's staff artists had even provided three illustrations specifically for my story. What a happy discovery.

But the I began to actually read the story. My heart ended its flight and began a slow steady descent. I knew my own words like the back of my hand, but these were somebody else's words. My title was there, as was my name. My opening quote, a hundred-word epigram culled from a wholly fictional scholarly article entitled "Morality and Psychological Conditioning in Modern Highway Combat," had been reproduced flawlessly. But that is where the editorial accuracy ended. I stood in the hobby shop and quickly read the story from beginning to end. My mouth stood agape. In my short experience as a free-lance writer, I had never before experienced such a thing. " Right of Way" had been embellished, added to, taken away trom, and generally mutilated by an unknown wordsmith. I was in no position to judge the quality or merit of these changes. The pertinent fact, which echoed again and again in my head, was that my story had been tinkered with by someone who did not even show the common courtesy to notify me beforehand.

It is maddening enough to think that the editor of AUTODUEL QUARTERLY saw fit to accept my story for publication and publish it without notifying me. But what outraged me was the sheer audaciousness of thoroughly retooling a piece of writing without letting the writer know that the piece had even reached the editorial offices.

I couldn't help but wonder how the folks at Steve Jackson Games expected me to react when I finally read the revised version of my story. Did they somehow think that I would not notice? Did they think of my unexpected collaboration with an unknown and uncredited ghostwriter? Would I still consider the story "mine?" There was my name, my title, and my first paragraph. But that was it. Every paragraph of "Right of Way" beyond the first had been rewritten in some way.

Needless to say, I purchased the copy at the hobby shop. I think I mumbled something about "mystery" to the bewildered clerk as I made my purchase. And there I stood in the doorway of El Pollo Loco.

According to the testimony of my friend, I resembled a deer that had been caught in the headlights of a Mac truck. In retrospect, not a wholly unexpected reaction.By the time I arrived home that day, I had moved from numbness and bewilderment to anger. Steve Jackson Games would feel the wrath of a writer wronged. I swore a blood oath that Robert E. Howard's Conan of Cimmeria would have been proud of. I obsessed over what had been done to my story to the point that I did a careful comparison and contrast between my original manuscript and their version.

This was a revealing if not a satisfying exercise. What was fascinating was how my original text had been manipulated, shifted around, modified, added to, and sometimes even retained. It was if the editors lacked the intestinal fortitude to simply write their own story and slap my title on it. Instead, they used my words as a kind of skeleton upon which they happily draped their own verbage.

As I have said before, it is difficult and probably improper for me to comment on how these changes affected the quality of my original manuscript. But to this day, friends who read the revised story recognize immediately that the style ofthe piece is not mine.

I then endeavored to call Steve Jackson Games. I wanted answers. After failing to reach anyone with responsibilities greater than cleaning the office restroom that night, I waited until the next morning. It was then I hit paydirt. I cal led the company first thing in the morning, and managed to reach Mr. Jackson himself. I explained to him preciscly what had happened on my end, and demanded to hear what the story had been on his.

Jackson seemed surprised that a free-lance writer had gathered the intellectual resources to find the company's unlisted phone number, and the fortitude to act on the information. His surprise quickly gave way to gestures of apology as I demanded to know how such a thing could happen.

He told me that the company which bore his name was in serious financial trouble, and the AUTODUEL QUARTERLY editorial staff had been severely cut. He announced that the editor who mutilated my story with such shameless glee had been fired, and informed me that a check for my literary efforts was in the mail. A check for thirty five dollars, emblazoned with the eye-in-the-pyramid symbol that Steve Jackson Games is famous for, did indeed arrive in the mail several days later.

Interestingly enough, The envelope's postmark bore the date of my conversation with Mr. Jackson. As soon as my anger subsided and Mr. Jackson realized that I was not going to disembowel him over the phone, we were able to have a relatively enjoyable conversation.

At one point, Jackson told me that "the life of a writer often sucks." I agreed with him, not pointing out the obvious fact that encounters with editors such as the person he hired are some of the primary reasons why the life of a writer often sucks.

Writing is probably one ofthe most rewarding professions on the Earth. But like all professions, writing carries with it certain hazards. If you decide to take pen in hand and embark upon a career as a teller of tales, you should be prepared to find yourself explaining to your friends why you are as white as a sheet.

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