Forced
👋🏻
Turns out being stuck on a plane with no internet is a good time to write.
Normally on planes (or any means of transportation where I am not the one in control), I sleep. There is something about the thrum of engines that knocks me out. The urge to sleep was strong. I had just eaten Chipotle. It was a night flight. The lights were dim. I had Lofi Girl playing. I was waiting for permission to pull out my laptop. I was drifting.
But I promised myself (and you) that I would write on the plane. So I scoured my downloaded music and found something far more upbeat that I knew I could write to—Imploding the Mirage by The Killers. That woke me up right away.
Pulled my laptop1 out and got to work. I re-read, edited, and proofed the intro I wrote. I like starting sessions by doing that. Gets my head in the space to write new words about the subject. Then I dove into the next section and wrote some 400 new words about Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat and Nintendo EAD. Good stuff.
This two-ish hour flight was another forcing function that made me sit down and write. No excuses. It was just me, my new AirPods Pro (oh my gosh the noise cancellation is phenomenal). It forced me to stare the work down and come up with something. Words must go on the page. There's no opportunity to doodle, scroll, or browse. No excuse to procrastinate – really, no way to even procrastinate. Everything was in service of The Thing™.
There was some gnarly turbulence that made me put the laptop away. I couldn't even see what I was typing. Overall though, I got good work done. Looking forward to doing the same on my way home and during my early mornings on this trip.
Until next time...
P.S. - I had to mention this somewhere. At the start of the flight, I watched this woman just swipe between all her home screens. I couldn't look away. So many pages and apps. But it was her Dock that stunned me. The four most important apps to her were Target, Camera, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and Universal's theme park app. The last I get, since we were flying out of Florida. I could see that as a temporary placement, assuming she was a tourist. Camera is also justifiable to some degree. But Target and BB&B? What?
This letter is one block from the newsletter Memory Card by Max Roberts. Thoughts? Send me an email at max@maxfrequency.net.
Max is the writer and producer behind Max Frequency. cultivate and curate curiosity—both for himself and for others—by delighting in the details and growing greatness from small beginnings.
He's written a rich history and dive on the making of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II, celebrated the 15th anniversary of Super Smash Bros. Brawl with the voice behind its hype, and examined how Zelda "stole" Fortnite's best mechanic.
Memory Card is a real-ish time, raw, drip feed newsletter of his creative process for telling these stories. It’s how The Thing™ gets made.
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