Why Boredom Is Good (for Writers)

And a little bit more on Substack and the state of books

Substack and Books Coverage

Earlier this week, I spoke to a journalist about Substack and the state of publishing—I’ll link the piece when/if it goes up—and I said that one thing Substack is doing is filling the hole left by shuttering book review sections. It’s harder than ever for authors, especially fiction writers, to get reviews and interviews in traditional media. Space for coverage shrinks each year. Substack is a rare bright spot. The platform rewards longform and serious engagement over hot takes and memes. People really do read and talk about books here! I’m a little skeptical that Substack is replacing or changing traditional publishing per se. Maybe it will. Early days and so on. But, I think it has already become one of the main spaces for actual coverage of books.

Case in point: the day of that conversation I had a very fun interview with Blake Lefray go up—check it out if you want to hear me talk about science fiction, novel writing, and other bookish things—and then the next day I discovered a thoughtful review of my novel Metallic Realms by Andy Lee. Add those to previous Substack-hosted reviews that Metallic Realms has received from The Underline and The Bulwark, among others, as well as an excerpt in The Metropolitan Review, and, well, my novel has gotten almost as much coverage here as in “traditional media.” I doubt I’m alone in that.

Another case in point: As I was giving this newsletter a final edit, I saw Kathleen Schmidt’s Publishing Confidential—a great newsletter to read if you want to understand publicity—post an article titled “Does Legacy Media Sell Books?” The answer seems to be… not really, especially for fiction “with book reviews in major newspapers disappearing and book coverage in print magazines relegated to a page (if that).” Schmidt later says: “Frankly, publicity directors should meet with newsletter writers with a substantial subscriber base because they’d get more mileage out of that.”

I don’t think Substack alone can replace traditional media coverage. And as long as I’m rounding up Metallic Realms press, I was very happy to see the book recommended by Scientific American this week and Vox last week! Still, Substack has been a boon for books in this regard.

---

Ennui (1892) by Robert Seymour

Boredom Is Good, Actually (At Least for Writers)

If the enemy of the artist was once the blank page, today it is the flashing screen. You know what I mean. The text messages, notifications, and endless distractions of ever-multiplying apps only a few finger swipes away. Most successful artists I know spend their time tricking themselves into avoiding the screens. Shutting down the WiFi. Locking the phone in a drawer. Downloading apps to block other apps. The problem isn’t the internet itself. It’s the ease of eliminating boredom through passive content consumption. Artists need boredom, I think. Productive boredom. Time and space to think without distractions and let the ideas bubble, split, congeal, and grow in your mind.

Of course, the internet is useful. Email is good for correspondence. Word processors are a lifesaver. I’m certainly not arguing against using technology. I’m only saying that the creative mind needs some distraction-free time to think. If necessity is the mother of invention, boredom is the mother of inspiration.

At least this is how it seems to me. I posted this thought on BlueSky and Notes, which seemed to resonate with a lot of people. Hopefully, it made some of them log off and go outside for a stroll. That’s what I did.

As with any viral post, I got some angry replies that seemed to confirm that social media—even more literary platforms like Substack—doesn’t help with reading comprehension. Several people thought I was insulting video games despite not mentioning video games. One person told me to stop demanding everyone be an artist (?). The oddest replies, to me, were the ones along the lines of “How DARE you. If my artistic practice is watching 10 hours of TikTok a day then that’s valid and I’ll do what I want!” To those people, I can only say: I agree. My tossed off post is not your mother. It isn’t your father. It isn’t your priest or boss or AI companion driving you to psychosis. It holds no power over you. Scroll away.

But, I figured I might as well elaborate here.

I said productive boredom, because let’s be honest: most of the time, the internet is tedious. My version of hell would be some demon tallying up all the hours of my life I’ve wasted pointlessly refreshing email, reloading websites, and scrolling feeds with only minimal attention. The infinite distractions are themselves endlessly dull. (This is why I’ve never quite understood the clamor for “the internet novel” that will “capture the experience of living online.” That doesn’t sound impossible. It just sounds dull!)

Is it a coincidence that the dominant art form of the social media age is the meme? That although more people have more access to the tools to produce and distribute art, they largely spend their time copy and pasting with minimal (if any) tweaking. Macro images, twitter joke formats, TikTok dances—these are methods of creating without creativity. Where minimal effort gets the maximal reward doled out in likes and shares. GenAI offers the next step, allowing users to create infinite content without any effort at all.

Plenty has been said about the problems of the smart phone age and how social media is melting our minds. Mostly, the focus has been on decimated attention spans and how it is ever-more-difficult to engage seriously with art of any length. There’s certainly truth to that. Studies as well. Hell, in a literal sense much of the art and entertainment today is made on the assumption of half-engagement—a fact epitomized by reports of Netflix execs instructing show writers to have characters “announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along.” It’s hard to blame the execs though. Half my timeline expressed outrage at this quote when the article appeared… but they all scroll their phones while watching TV too.

I’m embarrassed to admit that my engagement with, and enjoyment of, film dramatically increased once my wife and I decided to put our phones away while watching movies. (It really is embarrassing to have to treat yourself like a toddler, isn’t it?) So, I do think that’s a problem. And lest anyone accuse me of “kids these days” complaining, I think this affects every age category.

But from the point of view of artistic generation, rather than consumption, I think that there is an issue with losing productive boredom. Idle time the mind can fill with concepts, arguments, and plans. Perhaps it is useful to have a little notebook to jot the ideas down—or, yes, a phone’s notes app if you’re diligent about not checking anything else—but even a mind alone will do. This is admittedly a writer’s POV. But there’s a similar use in doodling on a notepad or noodling with a guitar. All artists benefit from idle time and space.

This is hardly an original thought, of course. Similar arguments have been made for centuries. I always remember Virginia Woolf’s metaphor in A Room of One’s Own when she describes idly watching a stream when her “thought…had let its line down into the stream.” Her thought catches a little wriggly fish of an idea, which “put back into the mind, it became at once very exciting, and important; and as it darted and sank, and flashed hither and thither, set up such a wash and tumult of ideas that it was impossible to sit still.” Then she’s distracted by a man screaming about a sexist rule against women walking on the lawn that sends “my little fish into hiding.” Woolf is obviously making larger points about feminism, education, and the society she lived in. But this point about ideas needing to swim and grow in the mind without distraction applies to anyone.

David Lynch uses another fishing metaphor in Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, arguing for not just idle thought but deep meditation: “Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.”

Maybe you’re not big on fishing. Pick your own metaphor. Perhaps ideas are seeds that need the soil of the mind to sprout and the light of time to bloom. The point is only that ideas often need time outside of the work too. Putting the “butt in the chair” and writing remains key. But some time thinking about your work outside of the chair is important too. One of my old professors used to say that the time thinking about your work while taking a bath or walking around the block should count as your writing time too.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that I get many of my best ideas at night when I’m trying to sleep. It’s as if my brain is saying, Fuck you, man, you anesthetized me all day and now I’m finally awake and ready to think some damn thoughts! Or why the replies to my post on this were a stream of “I get my best ideas [in the shower / taking a walk / staring out the window / sitting on a bench with nothing but a notebook.]”

The most important things to set aside time for, as a writer, are reading and writing. But if you are able, it’s good to set aside time for productive boredom. For jotting down random ideas, turning over ideas, or just letting your mind wander. Likely, you already have those slots of time. It’s just a matter of turning off the digital distractions. Commuting without the podcast. Hitting the gym without music. Eating lunch without checking your phone. If you arrive early to an appointment, finding a bench and sitting and just thinking.

Or not. Don’t feel the need to angrily tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life…

Future Stuff

I have some interviews coming up here at Counter Craft and then I think I’m going to attempt a longer series on a dirty four-letter word: plot.

I’m someone who quite loves a plotless book. But I’ve always found the hatred of plot, the idea that this fundamental aspect of storytelling is undignified or simple-minded or even “fascist” (yes, I’ve heard people say that) has always struck me as silly. Plot is like any other aspect of fiction. Easy to do poorly and hard to do well.

While I roll my eyes at blanket dismissal of plot, I also bristle at the rigid plot formulas found in screenwriting books and How to Write a Bestseller in 5 Easy Steps! type guides. So, I won’t be writing any kind of plot rulebook. I will attempt to write about what I think are very flexible yet useful principles that can apply to almost any type of story. Principles that apply to a realist short story about a crumbling marriage as much as a superhero action flick. We’ll see if that works. I’m writing this note to force myself to do it.

---

My new novel Metallic Realms is out in stores! Reviews have called the book “Brilliant” (Esquire), “riveting” (Publishers Weekly), “hilariously clever” (Elle), “a total blast” (Chicago Tribune), and “just plain wonderful” (Booklist). My previous books are the science fiction noir novel The Body Scout and the genre-bending story collection Upright Beasts. If you enjoy this newsletter, perhaps you’ll enjoy one or more of those books too.