Wow. It’s been 30 days since I posted anything here. Let me catch you up a bit on what’s been going on.

First, the GAMA Trade Show in Las Vegas was great. I ran the freelancers’ seminar track, and while we didn’t have too many people show up (it’s a retailer show, after all), those that did got as much information as they could stomach since they had the panel’s full attention. While at the show, a number of possible gigs floated my way. There’s nothing I can talk about yet, but that collectible card game I mysteriously mentioned earlier in the year got greenlit and should be on shelves before Christmas. Best of all, I got to hang out with lots of good friends. A special thanks to Ken Hite, Christian Moore, Owen Seyler, Jonni Emrich, and Peter Adkison for showing me a great time many nights running.

Since I came back, I’ve been running on all barrels, trying to finish off The Road to Death. This is the sequel to Marked for Death, the first in my Eberron trilogy, which Wizards of the Coast published last month. I finished the first draft before midnight last night, and I think I’ll need a new keyboard, as the old one may have melted from the friction of typing so fast.

I also poked my nose in at Nexus last weekend, the gaming convention held here in my hometown on the Beloit College campus. The people there were great, and they treated me like royalty. Include that it’s less than two miles from my house, and you can’t beat it.

More soon. Right now, I’m running off to Odyssey Con, a science-fiction/fantasy/gaming/film convention in beautiful Madison, Wisconsin. You can catch me in some afternoon panels there, when I’m not hanging out with Ken Hite (again) and John Kovalic.

I leave Sunday for the sunny climes of Las Vegas and the GAMA Trade Show, which usually keeps me indoors the entire time. I’m moderating the freelancers’ seminar track there and appearing on panels with Keith Baker, Ken Hite, Brian E. Lewis, and Aaron Rosenberg. If you’re in for the show, be sure to poke your nose in for a minute, even if just to heckle.

In early April, I have three other events to enjoy. You can read all about them on the Upcoming Appearances page. They’re all in Wisconsin (Beloit and Madison). I’m just spreading the home state love.

Later in the year, I’ll be at Gen Con for sure, but I haven’t firmed up plans for anything else yet. I may hit Origins, Comic-Con International, and Wizard World Chicago, or I might just stay home and write. It’s the freelancer’s perennial dilemma. Either way, I hope our paths cross sometime this year.

My good friend Jim Kitchen, late of Games Workshop US, came up with a great idea today: Gamers should donate games and novels to their local libraries.

Many of us got started on our lifelong love of genre fiction (whether in movies, novels, games, or something else) in our local library. I know I went to mine every week to read everything I could find on the shelves. Many libraries, though, have what might charitably be called “a good start, if that” when it comes to fiction or game books from the adventure gaming industry.

One way to solve this problem would be for gamers to donate such books to their local libraries. This allows you to not only support your favorite games or books and your local library but also to hopefully get more people interested in such products.

The trick, of course, is that most libraries aren’t interested in your battered, well-loved DMG. They want new products in pristine shape. Their members will give the books enough abuse without them already having a head start.

So, Jim suggests, why don’t the companies allow gamers to buy games and novels from their favorite publishers at some sort of discount to encourage such donations? (He suggests the standard retailer discount of roughly 50%.) To make sure that unscrupulous souls don’t just use this as an excuse to order their own games at steep discounts, the company would ship the products directly to the library.

If I was running a company, I’d be all over this idea. Not only do you get your best fans to buy your books again, but they also then give them to a good cause, to a place where loads of people can see and enjoy them and maybe get hooked on your products. As long as you trust that there aren’t a passel of ethically challenged gamer-librarians out there trying to bleed you dry, there doesn’t seem to be a downside to this.

Of course, I’m often not as right as I’d like to be. I’d love to hear some feedback on this. Hit that “comment” button hard.

Sometimes when you write games and fiction all day long, you wonder why it is you’re not doing something more important. Fortunately, my wife is a social worker, so I can console myself with the thought that she, at least, is helping to make the world a better place. In the meantime, I try to do what little I can with my craft.

Case in point: the Asian tsunami disaster grabbed the attention of people around the globe. In this respect, game designers are no different than anyone else. When confronted with a crisis of that magnitude, we want to chip in somehow. To that end, Chris Helton of Battlefield Press is producing a charity jam book called Gamers for Hope. Contributors include such game industry luminaries as Aaron Acevedo, John Kovalic, S. John Ross, Steven Kenson, Robin D. Laws, Aaron Rosenberg, Marcus Rowland, Lester Smith, and Jeff Tidball, among others.

Gamers for Hope will be available as a PDF sometime soon. When I know more about it, I’ll be sure to post here so you can do the right thing too and snatch it up right away.