Hey Fear Friends,
Thanks to everyone who entered the Get Afraid Journal giveaway from Podcast Brunch Club. I just wanted to say congrats to Lori for winning the raffle!
For any new subscribers, my name’s Jed and if you want to get in touch, just hit reply.
💻 Update: National Novel Writing Month
I’ve fallen behind on my attempt to win National Novel Writing Month.
So far, I’ve written 22,511 words of Rogue Logistics. At this point, I should have racked up 31,673! I’m not sure I’ll hit 50k by the end of the month.
The challenge has been more fun than I thought it’d be though. It’s liberating to write whatever comes to mind, no matter how crazy. I have interns flying around on cables, exploding cans of biscuits, and drones dropping knives.
The first draft doesn’t have to be good. I just need enough story to build on during rewrites. It’s also interesting because I don’t have time to plan ahead and I certainly don’t have time to go back and edit anything.
I wanted to fully participate in NaNoWriMo, so I went to a write-in at my local library.
I found their meeting rooms, but I couldn’t find numbers on the doors. I followed the sound of people talking into a room and grabbed a seat. Everyone at the table looked at me strangely.
I asked, “Is this National Novel Writing Month?”
“Urm, no, this is Adult Literacy Class,” someone replied.
“Oh, I have the wrong room.”
I left a bit embarrassed and found a different door at the end of the hall.
When I walked in I saw free drinks and snacks. There were also tables forming a rectangle in the middle of the room, surrounded by writers on laptops. Almost every chair was taken.
I took a seat and waited in silence for a few minutes. I had no idea what to expect, so I started writing to pass the time. Apparently that’s all it was going to be. Writing together, in silence. A little while after my realization our hosts welcomed us and we went around the room and introduced ourselves. Then we started writing quietly again until our first writing sprint.
The organizer set a timer and we competed to see who could write the most words in 10 minutes. I wasn’t even close to winning. I loved the idea of sprints though, because if I put down 300 useless words, I might discover 20 good ones.
We sat mostly in silence and wrote for 2.5 hours. It was a little strange. I expected more structure or writing exercises.
I had a hard time writing with other people. Instead of concentrating on my own story I’d get distracted. “That person’s getting a drink. Should I get a drink? What’s her novel about? I have to pee. Should I leave my stuff?”
It was encouraging to see the sheer number of NaNoWriMo participants, but I’m not sure if I’d go to another write-in. I’m a bigger fan of solitary writing.
— Jed
🤖 Dance of the Roombas
Since Rogue Logistics is set in a warehouse, I’ve been doing a lot of research on fulfillment centers. My main character is a picker/packer who uses a scanner to pick items off of shelves. I’ve been picturing my story in a traditional warehouse with stacks of shelving and maybe a few robots.
I’ve since learned that some Amazon fulfillment centers use robotic drive units called “pods” that literally lift an entire shelf and carry it to the picker. The robots dance around each other by following a barcoded grid on the ground. Basically, pickers don’t walk and grab items from the shelf, a robot brings the shelf to them.
It’s cool technology, but also kind of scary? To protect employees, Amazon created wearable vests. It broadcasts a safety radius that alerts robots to slow down and stop when they’re near a human, so hopefully nobody gets run over.
Enjoy picturing this wild automation the next time you order something with same day delivery.
If you’ve found a method that helps you navigate your fears. Let me know and I’ll look into it for the newsletter. See you fearly soon. 🙄
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