On Wed, 15 Apr 2020 08:51:50 +0100, Timothy Collinson - timothy.collinson
at port.ac.uk (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote to Freelance
Traveller:
>On Wed, 15 Apr 2020, 04:30 , <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> And my tongue in cheek suggestion was just along the lines of a jest. I
>> know Jeff works pretty conscientiously and hard to roll issues on time and
>> full of content.
>
>I know, I know. I don't envy him. I've "been there". The relentless
>march of the end of the month, the fear that you'll not have enough
>material, the desire to make it a coherent whole, lallygagging column
>writers, promises of stuff that never materialises, whack-a-mole with
>errors, material not quite fitting the way you want, last minute panics.
>On the upside, I'll bet he doesn't have to type as much I did with the hand
>written submissions of the late 80s, early 90s!
Almost certainly not; cut-and-paste as implemented by computers is really a
handy thing. That doesn't mean that there's _no_ typing, however;
correcting typos, outright errors of fact, and infelicitous wording isn't
just a matter of waving a rubber chicken at the computer...
Sorry, didn't mean to imply it was *easy*. Rubber chickens or not... perhaps we could have a photo.
One of the reasons I always want more participation from the community, not
just more material from the "established" Freelance Traveller writers, is
OK, Ok, I can take a hint. Less stuff from some quarters... :-)
that the more people who produce material on a regular basis I can look to,
the less I have to look to any one of them for material at any given time.
It's called "sharing the load" (though it should be "sharing the fun"), and
it's a very useful concept.
That's true.
Another reason is because I wanted to at least make an attempt at avoiding
the 'vanity magazine' syndrome, where the entire purpose of the 'magazine'
is to show off the "editor's" own writing.
Well if I recall 80s fanzines, that was pretty much them wasn't it? Not so much out of what I would (then) have described as vanity, so much as they were the ones who were keen. Or else I'm running The Traveller Adventure as a vanity project! It's really only because I was so desperate to *play*!
_Freelance Traveller_ was never
intended to be about me; I called it a "fan-supported" _resource_ from the
beginning, and fully intended it to be a lightly-curated place where the
_community_ could share their Traveller ideas and material. I like to think
that (a) I've succeeded at that, and (b) prompted others to create their
own resources for Traveller.
Yes on both counts. And well done - it isn't acknowledged enough.
That I've been publishing continually for over ten years now says that I
_have_ succeeded at (a); only the people who have set up other resources
can answer whether (b) is true.
I can say so. I'm willing to bet that quite a few things I've written which I'm currently finding useful in my own games wouldn't have happened without your encouragement.
Has it been easy? Well, I probably don't face as difficult a job as the
editors and publishers of DRAGON or WHITE DWARF, but I won't say that it's
_easy_. Among other things, there's the self-imposed obligation to put out
the magazine _on_schedule_, as much as possible, even if it means I have to
put in some time when I'd rather curl up in the recliner under the afghan
and sulk. There's also the real, but never really publicly acknowledged,
goal of upholding the quality standard of some of my commercial
predecessors - GDW's _Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society_, or DGP's
_Travellers' Digest_, for example. But overall, even if it hasn't been
_easy_, I'd have to say that it's been _enjoyable_, even _fun_.
That's good to hear.
(Maybe I'll rework this a bit, depending on how this thread develops, and
use it as my Page 1 blather in issue 100... :) )
Sounds like a plan. Disappointed though I am not to read your wide ranging retrospective!
have fun, take care
tc
