A Traveller in Lancaster

A couple weeks ago I found myself driving through rural North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware on my way to TravellerCon in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Anything to avoid I-95. This was my first gaming convention since Slugfest '92 (Santa Cruz, CA) and my first time playing Traveller. The setting has inspired so many authors through the years (including The Expanse and Firefly, allegedly). I drove the 900-mile round trip to listen to audiobooks and collect my thoughts. The conference was great, as were the people. And I got a chance to playtest a tournament-like approach that explored a novel way of tracking character growth.

While I re-acclimate myself to the Postal Marines series, the conference helped to rekindle creative juices. Which leads to the meme about authors looking to abandon a work-in-progress while they explore those ideas. My original concept for Postal Marines was sixteen books, and while I work on the first of the Naval Quartet I'll be fleshing out the rest of the series. (If you're a fan of memes, I created some for authors.)

My travels are not yet finished. Today we embark on an Odyssey across the US to Author Nation. We drove I-40 from Vegas to Raleigh (making it my sixth I-40 cross-country), so we'll be taking I-70 to Kansas City and I-80 to Salt Lake City to visit friends, then return using a mix of I-40 and I-20. Hopefully we won't meet any cyclops and sirens will call after other travelers. Author Nation is a chance to meet up with old author friends and make new ones.

All the while, I endeavor to keep a solid writing pace. I've finished about a third of the first Naval Quartet. Let's see if I can maintain some self-discipline on the road. I've tracked progress with a wall calendar before, so this year I'll be running a 14-month calendar. Author Nation triggers my new year as an author, so I start in November and run through next year's December.