Boredom is one of those feelings we avoid like the plague. Who likes being trapped in their house with nothing to watch, nothing to do, and no one to talk to. It’s a slow news day, nothing is going on, no memes, nothing good to consume.

So, what do we do? We keep on scrolling on the phone looking for something to keep us occupied.

What I realized after watching this video:

Boredom made me a fast writer.

This article supports that theory: Psychology today

From 2015 to 2017 while I was working in New York City, I had a dumb phone. It wasn’t a flip phone, but it did slide out so I could have access to a physical keyboard. It had very basic internet that I never used, but man, I almost never had typos in my text messages.

I loved that stupid phone, but eventually it broke and they stopped selling those models. I had to get a smart phone.

Bye boredom. Welcome to the rabbit hole of handheld internet.

I initially tried to resist using my phone by putting hard data limits. I set an alert that notified me if I went over a certain amount of data I allotted for myself that month. This worked for me for a long time, but then the smart phone I had kept running into problems with cell service. It was slow, reception was crap, and it was cheap.

I needed to upgrade to a higher-level phone because I couldn’t make phone calls to my wife from New York. In order to get a discount, the provider offered an incentive to upgrade to an unlimited plan for a cheaper phone price. So, I took the plunge and got a fast phone with excellent cell service. No more limits to my data plan either.

Now I could finally use apps like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and check my email without needing to go home. Never once thinking this unlimited access to the Internet would kill my boredom.

I released A Bitter Winter in 2018. It took me four years to write Narco Hotel which was half the length of A Bitter Winter.

Before smart phones, I could churn out a novel in two years.

Sure, there were other factors that also came into play. I moved out of my parent’s house and got my own place with my wife. With that came chores and the responsibility of figuring out what you’re going to cook every damn day.

Adulting and smart phones ultimately slashed the tires of my writing aspirations. Without boredom, I found myself unable to muster the energy to knuckle down and write books. There was always something to do and something to look up. I scrolled Reddit and found posts to comment on; Facebook for any local news in my area; and when I get home there’s cooking, chores, and watching shows with my wife.

There isn’t enough time in the day for boredom.

At my job, something always breaks or there’s a meeting to attend.

At home there’s always chores, a show to watch, a movie to watch, or a video game I could play.

Video games are still my kryptonite. Say what you want about video games, but without them I would have never written The Silver Ninja. A lot of obscure knowledge I have come from video games. RPGs with dialogue trees taught me how to read people and their motives. Troubleshooting technical problems with playing certain video games taught me how to get better at my job. Video games are something I will usually try to make time for.

But they also contribute to my decrease in writing output.

I could only imagine how much more unproductive I would be if I had kids.

What does this mean moving forward?

I’m going to try to find ways to lean into the boredom. Less cell phone screen time and alternating video game time with writing time. After a hard day of work, there’s nothing better than watching shows with my wife and playing some video games before bed.

Although I am officially a “hobbyist” writer (a writer who doesn’t write for money) this doesn’t mean I write less. It’s an acceptance that I have more responsibilities now.

The writing, when it’s good, is so much fun. But when it sucks? I’d rather go to work at my full-time job. Now that I’ve taken a break from The Silver Ninja, I have a brand-new story I want to dive into. Along with my paranormal detective horror stories, I have an epic dark fantasy I want to write and a thriller espionage series.

After I completed Narco Hotel, I believed I no longer had what it took to be an author.

Narco Hotel was such a struggle to finish, that I felt the full force of imposter syndrome. If writing a novella was a struggle, how could I write another book? But when I took a break to focus on my horror fiction, I realized I had way more stories in the file cabinet, they just weren’t exclusively Silver Ninja stories.

There’s this one book I’ve been dreaming about since 2012. An epic journey about a vampire on a quest to become human again. A werewolf who wants to break free of their curse. A magician in search of forbidden magic (all the same book).

Not the most compelling hook, I know, but the idea I have in my head is awesome. I cannot stop thinking about it.

So, I’m going to embrace the boredom and use that as the fuel to get my writing done.

Not sure if it’s going to work, I am very busy, but I’m going to give it a try. These stories are just as important to me as they are to my readers.