Yawn

Is it possible to write about boredom without being boring?

The careful writer knows that boredom is both friend and enemy. A reader bored with life seeks refuge in a book--but a reader finding boredom in a book tosses the book aside and returns to real life.

The writer sifts and sorts the material of everyday life to engage the mind of this easily distracted reader, gliding past the dull spots or transforming them into epic drama as Joyce did in Ulysses. If the mere act of walking down the street can evoke the terrors of Scylla and Charybdis, then boredom has been banned from the book.

Nevertheless boredom is a common experience, filling huge chunks of anyone's ordinary life but falling quickly out of memory. Over time, boredom becomes a blank, leaving no apparent mark on the mind.

How can I turn that blank into something memorable? How can I recreate for readers the experience of boredom without violating the essence of boredom? Let's face it: if I can succeed in making boredom interesting, then it's just not boring anymore.

So is it possible to write about boring without being interesting?