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...

One of the reasons I always want more participation from the community, not
just more material from the "established" Freelance Traveller writers, is
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.

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. _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.

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.

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_.

(Maybe I'll rework this a bit, depending on how this thread develops, and
use it as my Page 1 blather in issue 100... :) )

®Traveller is a registered trademark of
Far Future Enterprises, 1977-2020. Use of
the trademark in this notice and in the
referenced materials is not intended to
infringe or devalue the trademark.

--
Jeff Zeitlin, Editor
Freelance Traveller
    The Electronic Fan-Supported Traveller® Resource
xxxxxx@freelancetraveller.com
http://www.freelancetraveller.com

Freelance Traveller extends its thanks to the following
enterprises for hosting services:

onCloud/CyberWeb Enterprises (http://www.oncloud.io)
The Traveller Downport (http://www.downport.com)