Boredom as a Writing Tool

I heard this quote a few years ago about how kids need to let themselves be bored because it's in those moments where they're not being entertained that they create things, and something like a question about how many authors, music composers, artists, and inventors will we miss out on because the rising generation doesn't let themselves get bored. I went searching for this quote and, while I didn't find exactly the one I was looking for, it turns out a lot of people have said similar things.

Robert M. Persig said, "Boredom always precedes a period of great creativity."

Kim Raver said, "I think it's necessary to let kids get bored once in a while--that's how they learn to be creative."

In Nicholas Kardaras's book, Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids -- And How to Break the Trance, he says, “If you really want a child to thrive and blossom, lose the screens for the first few years of their lives[...] Most importantly, let them experience boredom; there is nothing healthier for a child than to learn how to use their own interior resources to work through the challenges of being bored. This then acts as the fertile ground for developing their powers of observation, cultivating patience and developing an active imagination-- the most developmentally and neurosynaptically important skill that they can learn.”

This child is about to do something awesome

I skimmed several articles and noted reddit threads where people said basically the same thing: creativity happens when kids (and adults) are bored, and the fact is we live in an age where we are almost never bored. We always have these little screens in our pockets and if ever there's a moment of downtime, we inevitably pull it out and start scrolling.

I'm not here to judge or to say smart phones phones or social media are evil. What I want to talk about is my own worry that by constantly using my smart phone I have deprived my brain of enough down time to think of stories. 

Lately I've noticed that I haven't been able to make a lot of progress on issues in my novels. Usually when I run into a section where things feel off or I'm stuck trying to figure out the next plot point, I actually come up with the answer when I'm away from my computer, just pondering things out. But that hasn't been happening for a while.

I have two sections in two different books in the series I'm currently working on that I've been stuck on for a while. The first is a section that has already been written and which I have been trying to edit, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. There's not a lot of action, and it's rather long, and the timeline is a bit off. It's boring to edit and I'm sure it's boring to read. The second is a section that I haven't written yet and is full of action, but I don't know exactly what should happen. 

Normally with things like this I would just let it simmer for a few days and the answer would come to me randomly and I would then write it when I next got to my computer.

But that wasn't happening and I couldn't tell why.

Then, at church we were talking about distractions, and I remembered this quote that I can't find about disconnecting from electronics and letting our kids (and ourselves) be bored. I realized that I hadn’t been doing that. I have had plenty of quiet moments lately where I have nothing going on (I have a newborn that needs feeding) but instead of sitting and thinking, I immediately reach for my phone. There's no time for my brain to work out problems when it's being constantly entertained.

When I was little we sometimes called TV the one-eyed monster. I think that monster is smaller now.

So I tried to cut back a little on the electronics. At least a few times a day, if I had a moment of quiet, I let the quiet remain and I let myself be alone with my thoughts.

And already I have come up with a few ideas for how to fix the first section.

Boredom is a writing tool. We need to be bored at least a little everyday to let our brains entertain itself. Often, for me, it will do that by telling itself a story, and then I can tell that story to others.

So if you can't come up with what comes next in your stories, or how to fix a problem section, try sitting with nothing to do. Let your mind wander. With nothing else to distract it, it might come up with a solution.