As you said, thanks to Jeff, Bruce, and Timothy!

Cheers!

I wish that I had had anything at all to contribute to Jeff when his plea for help went out. I'm not sure that I'll ever come up with anything worth the electrons, and I'm terrible about finishing getting my thoughts in order. Someday, perhaps.

Well, I think that as well and I'm led to believe every writer (every human being?!) goes through the imposter syndrome feeling their work isn't good enough. You just have to push through it and trust the likes of Jeff who has the experience and the courage (in my experience) to tell you when something isn't up to scratch. Or more accurately with Jeff - has the ability to point you to how it can be improved.

As for coming up with things - team up with a Belbin "plant" (https://www.belbin.com/about/belbin-team-roles/) as they're never short of ideas - even if 90% of them are crud [1]. Or alternatively, use brainstorming techniques to generate ideas (e.g. the random word technique - here's a site: https://www.randomlists.com/random-words - and see if that helps). I don't know... let's say you've got a standard merchant crew, they're looking for a cargo but you're not feeling the love of the standard 'generic' cargoes the rules offer. OK, one of my 12 (default) random words at the site was 'glass'... so... let's see... there's a cargo of glass artworks that needs shipping. Another word, I notice, is 'cheap'. So it's at the low end of the market and really fragile. The gravsleds for cargo handling (or maybe the main cargo hold grav setttings) choose that moment to go on the blink - give the engineer something to do - and the load needs to be very very carefully man/woman/sophont handled into the cargo bay. Piloting needs to be really smooth. Even your Jump transition. (So jobs for the Pilot and Astrogator). And woebetide you if there's an attack along the way... Meanwhile, two of my other 12 words were 'bawdy' and 'sick', so during Jump some of the passengers party rather too hard and one suffers from something nastier than a mere hangover like her mates. Can the medic at least make her comfortable if not save her life?

So that's at least the start of some adventure material. But you might be thinking of something more along the lines of an 'article' for FT rather than an adventure. So, ok. What have you got above? Dodgy cargos... dodgy passengers? Perhaps a bit of fiction talking that up? Maybe a set of such cargoes or passengers like 101 Cargoes or 101 Passengers? Or maybe a set of rules for autogenerating such things? I don't know, I'm just tossing things out. Inspiration can come from things around you (keep your eyes open commuting or reading or watching tv) or by being 'encouraged' like the above. I also have a theory that I could take any page at random from any of the Traveller books on my shelves and find something that gives me an idea. (Of course, some work better than others). I printed out the Starship Geomrophs and was browsing through that at the weekend and could hardly turn a page without thinking 'ooooh, that might be fun....' I've just read _Bleak House_ by Dickens and even in that, perhaps unlikely source, I suddenly had an idea for a nifty "locale" I'll either send Jeff's way or turn into a scene in an adventure. Or both if I'm lucky.

And getting thoughts in order... well I lecture engineers about their dissertations and keyword generation/searching etc and they seem to love - well, prefer - arranging their thoughts in lists. I teach others and they like mind maps. Either way, grab your diary for preference, but a notebook or piece of paper will do at a pinch and see if a list or a map doesn't clarify things. I say diary for preference because I find I often need to live with something for a week or two of thought and mouldering away at the back of my mind before things congeal and get some structure. If you do it on paper, you'll lose it but if it's in a diary that you carry with you, you can refer back to it in odd moments for another thought or a refresher about the project itself. Of course, having a diary with blank pages rather than fixed spaces helps for this... but don't start me on bullet journalling or I'll be here all night. (Google Ryder Carroll's 4 min video).

Finally, as for not finishing things. Well, believe it or not that's me. Back on the Belbin team roles I'm anything BUT a 'completer-finisher'. But by teaming up with a work colleague who was an ace 'completer-finisher' but couldn't function as a plant to save her life, we published our first professional, peer-reviewed journal article together. I'm still bad at 'finishing' and have way more projects on the go than I can reasonably complete, but either team up with someone with those skills or set aside time to just 'do it'. I have to do a lecture on blogging which includes sections on "writing" (as if I know anything) and one response I give to students who say they can't find time to write is that you'll never find time to write. It's not lying around waiting to be picked up. You have to schedule time to write. Just like they've scheduled being in the lecture. They saw it was important, put it in their diary and showed up. Most books I've seen 'on writing' mention sitting down to write - regardless - rather than waiting for inspiration. The same goes with seeing a project through to the end.

Sorry, I'm preaching now if not lecturing and I'm going on rather for something I just meant to be quick. My apologies, but I hope it can be taken as inspiration rather than irritation. Steal what you want; bin what you don't.

And with that, I really AM going to bed... good night.

[1] But we just like to know you at least *heard* them... ;-)