I'm breaking out of this time loop...

Enough doomscrolling. I'll create a different world and set fire to it.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how I was going to attempt to take my brain back from the Internet by implementing the notebook rule. The short version: every time I want to get online for anything aside from work, I have to write down what I’m choosing to do in a notebook first. The idea is that this step makes online time mindful, rather than mindless.

Three months later, and I’m not really using the notebooks anymore. But doing it even for just six or so weeks made a difference. I do actually think when I open YouTube or Substack or whatever else now. I think about what I’m choosing to read or watch. Same with podcasts. Is there something I actually want to listen to while I shop for groceries? Or am I just trying to fill my head with mindless chatter?

So yes, I do feel like my time online has shifted from mindless to mindful, more or less. The problem: now I’m just mindfully choosing to aimlessly wander around the Internet.

At my book packaging job, I’m currently working on a project that involves the time loop trope. One of my favorite things about time loop stories is when characters accept they can’t break out of the loop and start using it to learn something. Like Cristin Milioti studying quantum physics in Palm Springs, or Bill Murray becoming fluent in French (and mastering piano) in Groundhog Day. What could you could accomplish if you had the same day over and over?

Part of my day—the part I spend randomly wandering around online—is a time loop. What could I accomplish if I used that time for something else?

It’s no secret that social media, and being chronically online in general, is terrible for our mental health. But we keep choosing it over and over, all of us trapped in silo-doomscroll-time-loops of our own making. I texted with a friend this weekend who was legitimately having a panic attack caused by doomscrolling and yet they kept doing it. At what point does this become actual self-harm? (I think a lot of us crossed that line a long time ago.)

Social media is like a funhouse mirror. It distorts our view of the world, magnifying the worst of it and shrinking the best. That’s on us as humans, though. We gawk at the horror. We click on the scary/scandalous stuff. We tell media outlets and influencers that we more of that please. A lot of monsters would die if we just stopped looking. Remember Treehouse of Horror VI?

My completely unscientific hypothesis: if everyone spent 20% less time online in the next year, the world would be an exponentially happier, calmer place by summer of 2025. I’m ready to try.

I have a thriller novel plotted and partially drafted that I haven’t touched in months. I have a sci-fi horror serial with a full cast of characters and a fully realized setting and backstory that I’ve been wanting to work on for weeks. How many hours have I spent stuck in my online time loop? I honestly don’t want to know.

Six months from now, I could have a draft of that thriller. I could launch my serial here on Substack. Or I could have nothing to show but who-knows-how many hours wasted on online garbage I don’t even remember, that enriched my life in no way at all.

I’m using this newsletter to hold myself accountable. I’m writing the thriller, I’m launching the serial. And I’m going to document my process right here every Monday.

Do you ever feel stuck in that online time loop? What would you rather do with all that time?

The posts I publish here will remain free. But I have a new series called Ask the Editor, which publishes every Friday. The short pitch: Dear Abby for writers.

The longer pitch: paid subscribers ($5/month or $50/year, cancel anytime) will receive a link to a form where they can submit pretty much anything within a two page limit. Things like…

• Queries

• Synopses

• Pages from their novel

• Questions about writing or traditional publishing

• A current problem or situation in their writing journey (ie: trying to decide if an agent is a schmagent, disagreeing with beta feedback, etc)

• A rant about this whole “trying to get published” endeavor to a sympathetic ear

Every Friday, I’ll respond to/critique as many submissions as I can and publish them together in one post. Because they’ll be behind a paywall, there’s some privacy—your query, pages, or rant about that one really horrible rejection won’t be online for editors to discover when they Google you.

Hope to see you there!

Michelle