Nine months ago, I wrote about switching to a Light Phone 3.

Long story short: I dig this dumb phone life.

THIS SHIT IS MY SHIT.

But!

There are compromises and workarounds, and I’m here to share those with you today.

LIVING IN A TWO-PHONE WORLD

The Light Phone is my main phone.

I use the official Light data plan, which is $45 for unlimited everything.

In my car, I keep my old iPhone mini.

I know. You just closed out this Substack.

DUDE, BOBBY, YOU GOT TWO PHONES?

Listen.

Yes, I could hook up Bluetooth to my Light Phone and play podcasts and music on it. And yeah, I could mount the light phone’s primitive map onto my dash. But, I have a long commute that starts eaaaarly in the morning, and I don’t wanna dick around. I just need my maps and my music quickly.

I already use Spectrum for my home internet, which means a cheapo unlimited data plan for my iPhone is only $30. Plus I get free Dodgers when I buy internet and mobile, which, at that price, is worth it alone.

All told, that’s $75 total, which is less than what I was paying for just an iPhone through Verizon. (I believe that was over $100. Maybe $110?)

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, DUDE?

It means I have a car phone. It’s like I’m living in the 80s.

The car phone stays in the car. Period. End of story.

The only time I ever take that bad boy out is if I absolutely need it. (Some concert venues annoyingly won’t let you inside without an app. The same goes with my gym.)

OKAY, TALK TO ME ABOUT THE LIGHT PHONE NOW, DUDE

Listen. If you like your smartphone, God Bless. This ain’t for you.

However, if you find yourself trying to wean yourself off by deleting apps, changing color settings, etc.

Do yourself a favor. You were meant for this dumb phone life.

ALL OF THE BENEFITS YOU READ ABOUT ARE TRUE:

• No doom scrolling = Less anxiety/depression.

• Eliminating constant distractions = Living more in the moment

• Being bored = healthy for your art. (There were so many moments where I got an idea for the book I’m working on by not having a distraction device on me.)

• As a parent, I’m no longer teaching my kid that my phone is more important than him. And in turn, telling him that a device should not be that important to him either.

• Smug sense of superiority *

LET ME BE CLEAR

Using a dumb phone invites friction into your life.

This is the enemy of all contemporary tech!

But, take my hand…and invite friction.

It’s gonna be fine.

TEXTS

If I get a text from you with a link, guess what? I can’t click on that shit. But I will automatically receive an email with said link.

Can I be honest? I LIKE THAT. Call me a sick fuck! But I like not getting distracted by your link!

Because if I were to click on that link, then whoops, I’m on the fucking internet again, doomscrolling.

Now I just wait till I’m by a computer or a tablet and engage with said link on my own time.

As for the texting experience…it’s fine. It gets the job done. And you can use speech-to-text. Having said that, I’m more apt just to call someone these days.

OKAY. There is one flaw I need to mention, and it’s random. Sometimes in group chats, if someone sends me a link, it just…doesn’t come through. This seems isolated to my friend Marcus. So, maybe Marcus’s iPhone has a vendetta with my ass.

3/18/26 UPDATE: From what I understand, both Apple (iMessage) and Google (RCS) might be responsible for the missing links. Once I figure out how to rectify the issue, I will update this page.

PHOTOS

The Light Phone camera produces lo-fi, soft images, almost like a disposable point-and-shoot. I dig it! The only bummer comes with sending the photo.

If I forward the photo to my email (easy option on the phone!) or use USB, the picture looks great! Lo-Fi! Nice!

If I text it, it gets compressed to shit.

I believe this has something to do with iMessage’s superior bandwidth vs. regular text. But, anyway, it sucks.

Videos are borderline average…But the only way I can retrieve them is via USB. I can’t email those or text them. Overall, I don’t use it often.

DIRECTORY/MAPS

The Light phone has a lo-fi directory system. Say I’m in a new city, and I want to see where the closest coffee shop is. I just type in coffee, and it gives me a Yelp-style guide with phone number, store hours, etc. From there, I click the little map icon and get turn-by-turn GPS directions.

I’ve used this many times, and it works fine!

The only bummer is that the directory mode doesn’t automatically set to your current location. You have to put in the zip code. I don’t know why this is! The map doesn’t have this defect.

NOTES/ALARMS/ETC

All this works fine.

BONUS: The alarms are very pleasant.

CALENDAR

Personal calendars work fine, and you can set reminder alarms just like any smartphone.

Sadly, shared Google calendars are a no-go….

Light! If you’re reading, we really need the ability to sync shared calendars. My wife and I have a shared calendar, and I can’t view it on my phone. This is a stressor on our marriage, and quite frankly, I really need you, Light.

Fix this!

SPAM CALLS

One thing I took for granted on my iPhone was the ability to send all unknown calls straight to voicemail. The Light phone doesn’t have that, which means my phone is going off way more times a day. I hope there’s a fix for this soon….

3/18/26 UPDATE: Praise be! Today’s update gives us the option to block spam calls!

WHAT ABOUT MOVIE TICKETS?

At first, I would print those suckers out, but then I realized I could just text an image of the ticket from my laptop/iPad/iPhone, then pull it up on my light phone.

RIDESHARE?

Guys, maybe I’m just old, but I’m not using rideshare much these days. In those rare instances, I just take my car phone.

SOME OTHER OBSERVATIONS

With a smartphone no longer in my pocket, I can finally identify social media for what it is: a drug.

I enjoy cocktails, sure! But if I drank every night, I would feel like shit. (I know this as fact. RE: Pandemic.) It’s the same thing with social media. Once in a while, maybe I’ll descend into the feed on my iPad, but I view it through the lens of a vice, a thing to do once in a while. In moderation.

An interesting byproduct of this is that when I do engage in the endless scroll, I don’t have the taste for it as much. It’s like going off sugar for a while and then eating a donut. It’s too much, dude!

THE RIZZ OF IT ALL

I think the most surprising part of using my light phone was…the reaction it gets.

Often when I pull it out at movie theaters, folks are like…whoa, WHAT IS THAT?

I’ve never been a fashionable person, but if getting this sort of attention revs your engines, there’s that…

AND LAST

Getting a dumb phone might feel like a drastic move.

It’s all in your head.

It ain’t that serious.

We all have tablets and laptops nearby at a moment’s notice.

Even with my critiques above, I would still take the light phone over anything else these days. I have zero desire for a smartphone to be on me 24-7 anymore.

I’ll say it.

I find smartphones cringe!

Did I go too far??!?!?!?

* Listen, there’s no way to write about ditching a smartphone without coming off a little smug. I understand that. You think I’m not self-aware? Christ, I’m the most self-aware person there is! It’s literally debilitating!!!!

This week: the film itself PLUS over 30 minutes of bonus features.

IndieWire called TUB a “Soon to be Classic”. It went on to sell over 500 self-produced DVDS and went viral on Reddit as soon as it went online.

I pulled the film from YouTube for various reasons a decade ago, and these DVD special features have never been released for free online!

Watch them all from the comfort of your couch with the new Substack TV app now on Apple TV/Google.

Order of Events:

00:00 - Intro

00:53 - TUB

13:17 - The Making of TUB

15:51 - Pitching TUB

19:59 - Sundance Diary

22:58 - Deleted Scene

23:33 - BTS Photos with Sundance Podcast Interview

29:53 - Commentary with Writer/Director (me), DP (Matthew Sanchez), and Lead Actor (Eric Levy)

42:18 - “Revenge of the Gobbler” - The short film collaboration between Matt/Eric/Bobby prior to TUB

The film was TUB. A short I wrote/directed as my thesis for Columbia University’s MFA program. If you don’t know what that short was about, this poster I made might sum it up best:

You can now watch the film with over 30 minutes of bonus content on Substack TV:

In film school, I had tried for years to get student grant money for it, but one day, a beloved professor pulled me aside and said,

“Bobby — you know I get what you’re trying to do, but a lot of professors don’t. I don’t think you’re going to get a grant.”

Message received.

After several years of trying to get this thing made with my school’s financial support, I knew what I had to do.

Take out another student loan and make it myself.

By that point, I had so much student debt that it felt like Monopoly money. I thought, “What’s another 10K?”

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My sensibilities weren’t really aligned with “Columbia Film” at the time, and after the first semester, I called my mom about dropping out. I stayed and was eventually rescued by a trio of wonderful professors: Katherine Dieckmann, Andy Bienen, and Tom Kalin. They understood my comic sensibility and nourished it.

But despite using my own money for TUB, I still faced an uphill climb. During one screenplay review session at Columbia, a professor called me “a pervert.” And couldn’t imagine “how I could balance such disparate tones in one short.”

It stung a little, but at that point, nothing could hurt me. I had fantasized about the tone of the movie for years, had already taken out a loan, and had my eyes on the prize.

(After it got into Sundance, I heard the “pervert” professor screened it for students multiple times.)

We made the movie passionately with friends and a great crew. But after we finished, I believed I had failed. I could see all the compromises, could “feel” the weight of the production still on my shoulders.

For a while, I did not submit to film festivals.

I was still in NYC at the time, but Eric Levy, TUB’s lead actor, had moved to LA. After he watched the film, he said,

“Dude. It’s great. Upload the film, and I’ll burn a DVD and drop it off at the Sundance office. It’s literally the last day of submissions.”

It’s a cliche, but I’ll never forget getting the call. I was back home in NJ during Thanksgiving, making a pumpkin pie…and boom. My life changed.

The festival experience was pure magic. At that point at Sundance, there was no “midnight shorts” program. So, TUB played alongside dramas and low-key comedies.

The beauty of those Sundance screenings is that no one fucking saw us coming.

Before getting to the festival, I realized the biggest theater we’d be screening in was The Library Center. So, I highlighted it in red on my business card and told everyone to go to that screening.

(If you’ve been to Sundance, you know that one doesn’t need to do that. Every screening, even for shorts, is packed.)

That first screening had the usual bag of nerves, but once I heard the first guffaw from the crowd, I turned to Matthew Sanchez, my soft-spoken director of photography, and smiled.

We had done it.

I know this sounds like exaggeration, but by the time we got to our biggest screening, people were falling out of the aisles with laughter. On the street, I was stopped several times for autographs.

This was all over a short film.

It was a magical time, and the short would become my calling card for years later, an asset absolutely integral to getting my first feature, The Cleanse, financed.

Instead of babbling any more, check out this video below, which couldn’t be more open-hearted about my Sundance experience.

Thank you, Park City, for the memories!

It was raining in Los Angeles, and the cafe I usually stop in before work was closed. I’ve carved out an hour of writing before work every day, and I was determined not to miss a day. So I hunkered down in my car and wrote in the rain.

There are so many terrible things in this world. So many things that cause me anxiety. But, for that hour every day, no force can touch me. The only news that concerns me for this one hour is the news in this little corner of the world that I’m creating. The only doomscrolling is the hell I’m putting my main character through.

For years, I would lament that I only had an hour a day to write. But that feeling has slipped by me. Instead, I look forward to this one hour, and because I have no distractions, I truly feel alive to possibilities. I’ve always rolled my eyes when writers say “the characters were telling me what to write”, but sometimes, sometimes, it does feel like that.

You read something back, and you wonder who wrote that?

Where did that come from?

It’s exciting to feel like a stranger to yourself.

Driving into work after my one-hour sojourn, I’m sometimes swirling with emotions. Music overtakes me. Grief. Happiness. Melancholy. A song can knock me off kilter. I feel raw and alive.

These extreme emotions are things I’ve felt my entire life. It’s always been coupled with the desire to transmute those swirling feelings into something worth reading. Something worth a damn. That endless chase to connect with another human being, even if it’s for a laugh.

Writing is hard, they say.

How do you find an audience, they say.

How do you make a living?

Yes, yes, yes, but also:

Is it not wonderful?

In the age of AI doom and gloom, let’s not forget the feeling that passes through you as you struggle with the words, trying to get them to align into some sort of shape. Some sort of human feeling to pass to another human being. One more time, this time with feeling, one more day, one foot in front of the other. And you’re off off and away.

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Get my book signed and personalized, and save a few bucks! Purchase here.

Earlier this year, I decided I would self-produce the audiobook for Situation Nowhere. My day job is voice directing for Rockstar Games, and before that I edited countless audio and video pieces. Considering I have 100% ownership over the audiobook, I figured, why not self-produce? I got the skills!

I had no idea how much work it would be.

And in a way, I’m glad I didn’t. Instead of going into the technical weeds on how I produced it, I wanted to offer a clear-eyed view of what your options are once you get the damn thing done.

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Okay.

I know this.

You know this.

The main player is Audible.

The most direct way to get your book on that platform is to visit ACX.com.

You can get your stuff on Audible through other distributors. But they collect an additional fee. After reviewing the revenue split, I decided to go direct. Because, spoiler alert: the revenue split sucks.

ACX.com will get you on Audible/Apple Books.
They set the price. You have no control over it.

Insane.

Another crazy thing? Audible and Apple are linked at the hip. If you want to upload to Audible, then it automatically sends it to Apple.

I succumbed to Audible/Apple because…well, they have a monopoly on the audiobook thing.

Speaking of…

REVENUE SPLITS

If you go exclusively with Audible for seven years, you get 40%.
If you go non-exclusively and sell elsewhere, you get 25%.

Audible set my book for $19.95, which meant I got $7.98.

BUT NO SO FAST!

Audible has a popular subscription plan. For $14.95, customers receive a credit to purchase a new audiobook. If someone buys Situation Nowhere with a credit, we’re no longer taking 40% of $19.95. In that world, It’s more like $5 to $6.23 per book.

Let me remind you that this is what happens when you give Audible COMPLETE OWNERSHIP of your audiobook. For Seven Years.

But, there is a way to opt out—

THE 90 DAY WINDOW CLAUSE

After 90 days of Audible exclusivity, you have the option to switch from exclusive to non-exclusive.

I decided to grant Audible this “exclusive 90 day window” and see how it goes.

It went…fine?

And because of it’s…fineness…I decided to hit eject and go non-exclusive.

THE OTHER PLAYERS

As of today, you can get my audiobook at several new spots.

Because these places aren’t insane, I get to set the price this time.

GOOGLE PLAY

They offer a 52% split.
As a result, I’ve priced my audiobook at $14.95.

The way I see it? If Audible only shares 25% with authors, then consumers have to pay full price there.

They discounted the audiobook to $13.95 as soon as I hit publish. I emailed support, and they said any discounts would not be reflected in the revenue split. I would get the full amount. “The discount is there to attract customers.”

KOBO

I own a Kobo and love it! The Instapaper integration is a real game-changer.

Like Audible, Kobo also has a subscription plan, and the split varies from 32% to 45%. Because of this, I’ve priced it at $17.95 there.

NOTE: Kobo requires an additional step for audiobooks. Basically, once you create an author account, you have to email someone details about your audiobook. It took a couple of days. Fairly painless.

WEEBLY

Weebly is straightforward. They charge 2.9% plus a 35-cent processing fee.

Because of this, I’m able to offer the audiobook at its cheapest price:

$9.95.

The only con is that unlike the above options, Weebly doesn’t offer a way to stream these files from an app. At Weebly, you’ll get an email with a link to a zip file containing the MP3 chapters and the cover art.

Getting the Mp3s onto a phone or what have you is up to you. But if you are down for that sort of thing, you can buy this thing for half the price of Audible.

WHAT ABOUT SPOTIFY?

Spotify offers a 50% split.

IN THEORY!

Unfortunately, they also offer 15 hours of free audiobook listening to anyone with a Spotify Premium account.

I’d probably make 50 cents if someone listened to my book there.

In other words, Spotify is trying to do to authors what it did to musicians. Devalue the fuck out of us.

And that is why my book is not on Spotify.

DOES ANY OF THIS MATTER FOR AN INDIE BOOK?
Guys, I don’t know.

Did you ever think that maybe I have some sort of sick fetish for figuring this sort of thing out?

Can we not kink shame?

:::LINKS BELOW:::

$BUYMYAUDIOBOOK$

$9.95 - MP3 Download
$14.95 - Google Play (currently on sale for $13.95)
$17.95 - Kobo
$19.95 - Audible

To go along with this audio post, please enjoy these drawings:

Above: A minion.

Above: Rando drawing from school.

Sincerely,

Daddy Miller Dot Com

(This comes a week after Meta’s similar announcement.)

I decided to send the news to some of my artist friends.

The following are real text messages.

NOT AI!

Ah. God bless my friends and their mostly sarcastic responses.

For anyone who has read my book (CHEAP PLUG), you know my faith in humanity RE: AI, isn’t too high these days. I want to believe that this OpenAI video slop app won’t be a success…but…

I have a feeling we’re doomed.

To quote Marcus Jones, whose initial response inspired this post, “it’s on the kids to reject this shit.”

Old Man Miller has been rejecting this shit from the word go!

Bobby’s Commute is a call-in show recorded exclusively in a car…while trapped in rush hour traffic in Los Angeles, CA.

Bobby’s Commute is a call-in show recorded exclusively in a car…while trapped in rush hour traffic in Los Angeles, CA.

Hey all,

I wanted to talk about Eddington. Here’s a shiny audio post about it:

Don’t worry. No spoilers!

Go see it before it leaves theaters and let me know what you think.

<3
Bobby

Bobby’s Commute is a call-in show recorded exclusively in a car…while trapped in rush hour traffic in Los Angeles, CA.

I miss my pre-Internet brain.

Those were the words that called to me at a Douglas Coupland exhibit in Vancouver, Canada, sometime during the Summer of 2014.

The sentiment has stuck with me.

Whenever I'm on vacation, my brain feels different. Free. Relaxed. Eventually, I realized it was because of one reason. I wasn’t glued to my smartphone. I was living in the moment.

I know. Really? Living in the moment?

But it’s true.

I used to Yelp restaurants, desperate to curate the perfect experience. But, often the best meal, the most memorable meal, isn’t something I planned. It’s a restaurant I stumbled into.

This is what I’m chasing right now. Stumbling into things.

Right now, the algorithm is my enemy.

These days, logging into Instagram and seeing ads curated to my “tastes” is a real drag. I’m tired of robots recommending songs to me on Spotify. I'm exhausted by engagement-bait AI slop everywhere I go.

Most of all, I’m done with tech companies harvesting me for my sweet data.

Guys. I'm this close to getting a physical newspaper subscription and only consuming news once a day.

Is this my midlife crisis?

I bought a Light Phone 3 last month. It’s a “high-end” dumb phone with no email, web browser, or social media access. It's been a purchase years in the making. A destination I've been pointing to since I saw that art exhibit in 2014.

Switching to a Light Phone doesn't mean I'm not on social media. I am. It just means I no longer have it on me 24/7. With an iPad mounted in my kitchen and a laptop usually nearby, the "sacrifice" of going to a dumb phone really isn't that dramatic.

The other thing I like about a dumb phone? It forces ideas and questions to marinate. If I don’t know something, I have to fucking sit with it.

Is it crazy to say I’m enjoying this?

Selfishly, I also crave this interior space for writing. I want to go deeper, less knee-jerk. How can I create something great if I’m constantly getting my head snapped back by something buzzing on my phone?

So, yeah, there are psychological, artistic, and even spiritual reasons for ditching a smartphone. But the thing that pushed me off the deep end was the rise of AI. Once it began infiltrating the iPhone, I knew my days were numbered.

Listen. I could live with companies collecting my data to run curated ads. What’s the harm in them listening in on all of my conversations and then feeding me ads based on said conversations? That’s fine, right? Not weird at all!

But companies using my data to flood the internet with AI slop, drain the planet’s resources, kill jobs, and make us all profoundly dumber — that was a bridge too far.

You may be under the impression that you can’t live without a smartphone. Or without AI. Or whatever else tech companies are selling. But I’m here to tell you.

It’s actually really easy to opt out.

I know that’s a clickbait headline. Before you come at me, remember, I famously proclaimed AI art was for losers back in 2023. So, relax. But my view has evolved, and it’s been spearheaded by tech bros on social media. Their responses to AI-generated film clips are usually:

“Hollywood doesn’t make anything original anymore. AI movies will be just as good.”

At first, I wanted to attack these people. “It’s not our fault!” I wanted to say. “We filmmakers didn’t spend years learning our craft/being poor/ruining relationships just to reboot pre-existing IP!”

But then I realized I was being a hypocrite.

I directed Critters Attack! for Chrissake.

There were red flags all over that little low-budget movie. (Example: I had two weeks to hand in a final cut.) But my managers talked me into it. “It’s like doing a studio film, but without the risk.”

The risk they speak of is real. I’ve seen filmmakers direct giant franchise movies and dip out of the business, broken from having to direct by committee, ideas constantly second-guessed. Other more fortunate ones seem to get their voice through the franchise machine. It’s a gamble.

But the problem isn’t with the executives in Hollywood.

When I was going on general meetings, I would often meet with execs who looked forlorn, beaten up. Like someone took their lunch money.

“Before you say anything, we’re not listening to any original pitches,” they’d start. “It has to be something we already own.”

I have sympathy for these execs. Like me, they didn’t get into this business to work on reboots. Yes, there are outliers. Cronenberg’s The Fly is one of my top ten movies! Ditto for The Thing! But there used to be a time where our culture wasn’t JUST reboots/sequels.

We can keep pointing fingers for the decline of the movies as a popular art form, but the corporations have hit on something that works for them. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course. Studio heads believe the only thing that can make money is spectacle-driven IP. Advertising dollars are trained on this purpose. Audiences come out. Rinse and repeat.

I mourn for my child’s future. I mourn for the notion that he will not experience what I did watching Gremlins or ET for the first time. Or The Matrix. Fight Club. Magnolia. American Beauty. Hell, anything from 1999, really. He will be forced to watch regurgitated IP, reboots, and sequels from my youth. His generation will have nothing original to hold onto at the movies.

That is profoundly sad.

Enter AI. Could there be a technology better suited for this current moment of private equity filmmaking? With cinema already resorting to endless reboots and sequels, why not automate the whole damn thing with AI? Remove the artists from the equation!

But I’d like to posit a counterpoint:

Nah, son.

This has to be the moment artists push back.

Would I love to see a million artists march on Silicon Valley this year? A grand protest against the mass copyright infringement perpetrated by companies like OpenAI and Meta? 100%. Let me know. I’ll find a babysitter.

But let’s face it. Outside of massive societal backlash, we ain’t got a pot to piss in. I see no political party rallying behind AI regulation, and I know firsthand that the studios are privately negotiating sales of their libraries to LLMs.

Maybe the calvary ain’t coming.

So, what do we have left?

It’s our art. It’s all we ever had, anyway.

We need to get back to expressing what it is to be human and alive. Get off the internet, go into the woods, dig deep. Get weird! Swing for the fences! For me, it was pivoting to writing a novel. For others, it might be crowdfunding a personal film. Or hell, it might be locking into the IP machine and fighting tirelessly to make your franchise film alive and idiosyncratic. Lord knows I should have fought harder on Critters Attack!

Whatever it is, it has to start now.

We must prove to ourselves and the world that what we create is better than AI.

If not, we’re a Studio Ghibli meme away from irrelevance.

Last Saturday night was the first time I’d read fiction in public since high school English class.

The evening was stacked with writing talent, and then there was me—some dude who had literally never done it before.

Because I was reading with a band, I felt like I needed a piece with some energy. I chose a chapter from Situation Nowhere that comes out of the blue. It was a good old-fashioned rant about “content creators” and big tech’s slow devaluation of art. It was the only thing that felt standalone in the book.

I was nervous all day, and by the time I was about to read, my stomach had clenched. I knew if I could crack a joke first and get people laughing, I’d settle in. It worked, and surprisingly, the reading was a ton of fun. I’d even say thrilling! When I finished, I realized the piece probably came off angry. “The book’s funnier than that,” I ended.

After I left the stage, I beelined to the bar, then settled in and enjoyed a cocktail. As I watched Kevin Maloney close out the evening, reading from his hilarious book, Horse Girl Fever, I thought, man, I can’t wait to do this again.

Thanks to Maudlin House, all the amazing writers, and Movie Club band for putting together a special night.

Aug Stone has a more thorough recount of his time at AWP. I suggest you read it!

Here’s LEAKED VIDEO of the reading:

LATER THAT NIGHT

A long line had formed outside the Clash/Rose/Car Crash Collective party.

My friend Kevin was already inside. “I just talked to the doorman,” he said on the phone. “If you give him a copy of your book, he’ll let you in.”

Sure enough. I skipped the line, slid the book to the doorman, and entered “the first AWP afterparty that people care about.”

Later that night, Jessamyn Violet (my Maudlin House mate!) heard the story and had me take a photo with him. To say I was drunk by that point is an understatement.

LOS ANGELES FRIENDS:
You can now buy a signed copy at Skylight Books.

Sorry if posting this picture is gross, but listen, Skylight Books is a big deal for me. Can you just let me have this? Do I ask for much?

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

I had a great talk with about my book for .
We get INTO it, folks.

The Bulwark

Dystopian Mediocrity

I am pleased to be rejoined this week by Bobby Miller to discuss his new novel, Situation Nowhere. Imagine Brazil by way of Idiocracy but goopier: That’s Situation Nowhere. We talked about some of his influences, the state of our increasingly recursive culture, and why we need to bring back shaming folks for selling out. If you’re in Los Angeles, check …

Listen now

a year ago · 63 likes · 4 comments · Sonny Bunch

Friends,

The years-long journey comes to a close today. My debut novel, Situation Nowhere, is out.

You’ve read the advance praise.

Seen the trailer:

Now read this from Maudlin House, my publisher:

A bleakly hilarious fever dream, Situation Nowhere drags you through the absurdity of modern life with razor-sharp wit. Bobby Miller delivers a brutal and oddly tender ride through exploding energy drinks, corporate conspiracies, and cult-fueled chaos. Perfect for anyone who laughs when they really shouldn't.

You can order everywhere at SituationNowhere.com

Still not convinced?

Listen to me on with :

The Bulwark

Dystopian Mediocrity

I am pleased to be rejoined this week by Bobby Miller to discuss his new novel, Situation Nowhere. Imagine Brazil by way of Idiocracy but goopier: That’s Situation Nowhere. We talked about some of his influences, the state of our increasingly recursive culture, and why we need to bring back shaming folks for selling out. If you’re in Los Angeles, check …

Listen now

a year ago · 63 likes · 4 comments · Sonny Bunch

THANK YOU

To my wife Daron Nefcy for her countless reads. Sam Pink, whose early edits made me a better writer. And to , who published my first short story and gave me the confidence to attempt this crazy book. (I thank more people in the back of the book, okay???)

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Before writing a word of the book, I was determined to publish three short stories in three different online journals. I wanted to prove to myself that people wanted what I was selling and earn my stripes.

I WAS SERIOUS ABOUT THIS.

In order of pub date:

Voyage Of The Damned (Maudlin House)

Virtue Signals (Bending Genres)

I Wish Kevin Was a Bag of Sand (Expat Press)

This process took an ENTIRE YEAR. But I learned a lot and read way more than I ever had. One of the first writers I responded to was Garth Miró. His short stories were great, and his novel, THE VACATION, is one of my favorites.

One big thing Garth told me was to hire a copy editor before submitting it anywhere. Other authors echoed this advice.

HIRING A COPY EDITOR

There were a few editors I was contemplating, but Garth gave me one salient piece of advice: Hire someone whose writing you like. He recommended Sam Pink.

I’ll be honest. I was nervous about the suggestion because I’m a big Sam Pink Fan. I had owned most of his books by that point. But I took the plunge, and luckily, Sam didn’t tell me to go fuck myself.

Working with Sam is like working with a sculptor. He zeroed in on the sections that I overwrote and helped streamline my prose. But what I love most about Sam is his notion of “cartoon logic.” As a filmmaker, there’s always a push and pull in me to be absurd and comic but also grounded and serious. Sam called me out on my bullshit. He intuitively knew this was a funny novel and encouraged me to go further.

Our conversations were always galvanizing. (His recent book, THE EVENT, is a surreal, satirical left turn for him that I quite enjoyed.)

THE QUERY LETTER

There is a formal process for getting an agent or publisher, and it revolves around the query letter. If you want to know how to write one, this is a good place to start.

My whole approach to this process has been one of ZERO EXPECTATIONS. The reason I wrote a book was because I had something bursting out of me. I needed to get it out. I had no grand allusions of me being an author for a living.

I say this because once you finish your book, you need to enter this next phase without any preconceived notions.

Some folks want an agent BAD, and they put all their eggs in that basket. For me, I wanted this book to E-X-I-S-T. If that was with a small press or self-published, that was fine.

Still, I chose to query agents first, with the idea that I would stagger small presses after that.

The process of querying is pretty straightforward. In fact, it was alarmingly straightforward coming from the film business. Basically, agents have their contact info on various sites with a “manuscript wish list” of stuff they like. You submit a query letter and hope they are intrigued enough to request your manuscript.

These are the three websites I used:

Query Tracker - Agent contact info, along with details on what they’re looking for.

Publishers Marketplace - Find out which books are selling and roughly for how much. Gives you a good snapshot on which agents are the busiest.

Manuscript Wish List - A good supplement to QueryTracker.

I used all three of these sites to boil down agents and small presses open to dark comedy, satire, and science fiction. Most people recommend you work in batches. Query your top ten people, wait a bit, then go down the line and query ten more. This allows you to tweak your letter if people aren’t biting, etc.

Anyway, I sent out that first batch.

And brother.

The silence was real.

Other authors warned me! They warned me REAL GOOD! Querying is a nightmare! You’re cold-emailing folks who are busy managing their clients. You’re in the dreaded “slush pile.”

During this time, I freaked out a bit. I emailed every film producer I knew with, “Random question, but do you work with any book agents?”

Everyone shrugged. But one producer knew of a film/TV rights agent. They slipped them my book, and…

This person loved it! And wanted to sell the rights!

The reaction put wind in my sails. This thing connected!

It did put me in a slightly awkward position. The whole point of this was getting the book into the world; it wasn’t about it moving into movie development hell. I asked the rights agent if it mattered what press I chose. Would they still be interested in shopping it if it went to a smaller press or self-published?

They told me it didn’t matter what I did. They still wanted to shop the book.

Fantastic.

I then used that factoid in future queries: “Hey, this got the attention of a film/TV rights agent!”

Did anyone care?

I’m not sure.

After a few months, I was getting some nibbles. Around this time, I also sent the book to small presses.

I got interest almost immediately!

This small press loved the book and called it “shelf ready”, but it wasn’t quite right for their brand. It was maybe the nicest rejection message I ever got. I texted it to one of my friends, and they replied, “Oh, that’s annoying!” I thought, no-no-no, this is good! This press was horror-centric and my book admittedly only has light touches of the stuff. This was a GREAT response because it meant that the book worked!

Months passed.

Until…

THE ONE CRAZY MONTH

At some point, several small presses were interested in the book. I eventually went with Mallory at Maudlin House. She had published my very first short story, and it seemed like a great fit, a full-circle moment.

But then, out of nowhere — my first choice for an agent — emails me.

WAIT, WHAT?!!!

I was pretty sure I was going agentless in this endeavor. But shit! This was my first choice! I had to talk to him! He was great and had a few notes, all good ones! And I was in a dilemma.

I didn’t want to ruin the deal with Maudlin House, but I was also seduced by the idea of potentially selling this to a bigger publisher. I mean, why not?

Mallory was super generous in giving me a window to “explore bigger fish.” I took the agent's notes, and they improved the book. But I wasn’t sure this book was necessarily a “big publisher book.” It’s pretty out there. Eventually, he agreed.

As someone who has agents and managers on the film side, I can’t tell you how rare it is for an agent to say, " No, let’s NOT take this out and try to make some $$$. The best move is to release this with a small press.”

And so-

I SIGNED A CONTRACT WITH MAUDLIN HOUSE

Because of the back-and-forth with my agent, my time to finalize the book had shrunk. I had to boogie! Mallory sent the book to a stable of beta readers for feedback. Meanwhile, we started talking about the cover.

I’m a fan of Erik Hoel’s substack. And his posts frequently showcase art by Alexander Naughton. Alexander’s work was poppy and surreal:

The process was pretty straightforward. Mallory and her partner, Bulent, were excellent collaborators. We were a united force, giving Alexander detailed and precise notes. If you’ve visited Maudlin’s website, you know they understand good design.

THE EDIT

After receiving feedback from beta readers, Mallory sent me her notes, and it was my job to take one final pass. After that, the book was given to a proofreader and then sent back to me, laid out, for one last look.

I have no idea how anyone else does it. But that’s how Maudlin House did it, and I was happy with the process.

BLURBS

Guys, I was going after blurbs while I was querying. Was that a good idea? Maybe not. But I was confident in the book and wanted to get the ball rolling.

Several blurbs were from people I didn’t know personally. I liked their work and thought they might like what I was doing.

Asking for a blurb is a BIG ASK, and I treated it as such. Plenty of folks ghosted me, but enough got back to me to fill a few pages.

OKAY. WHAT DID I LEARN?

1.) Patience is a virtue.

2.) There are so many tips and tricks for querying online. This post included. But at the end of the day, you write your own ticket. There are no rules. The only real rule is never to be boring. Always try to be engaging. Stand up and sell yourself. That used to be something I found very gross. But, having had to do it many times in the film business, I now treat it as a game. There’s Bobby, the artist, the one trying to make something. And then there’s agent bobby. Agent bobby is gonna play the game and try to honor artist Bobby’s time and vision.

3.) When in doubt, self-publish. And I say this with a caveat. The thing with my book is that I never got feedback that said, “THIS SUCKS, FUCK YOU.” If I were getting that feedback consistently, then yes, I would rethink self-publishing cause maybe, just maybe, the thing I was working with sucked. But, if the feedback is good — from strangers — then sometimes, the market, the vibe, the whatever, is off. And you have to take matters into your own hands. This is not a weakness. Take Sam Pink. This dude self-publishes all the time. And it’s awesome. He has an audience that he creates stuff for and doesn’t need a publisher. Does that make what he’s doing any less valid? Hell no. If anything, I feel like I’m in on a secret reading Sam Pink. It feels special. And when the writing’s good, who gives a shit?

PS. I have consolidated all of these “novel process” posts here.

My book is out next Tuesday, March 25th. After that, I promise to stop all this self-promotional book talk!

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I have a Kobo for reading e-ink books and stuff from the library, but I longed for an e-ink tablet that allowed me to revise hundreds of pages. I tried the Remarkable and tablets from Boox, but both had quirks I couldn’t live with. Yes, of course, I’ve used an iPad. But again, I’m trying to escape the ecosystem.

Enter the SuperNote Manta. A 10.7-inch E-Ink Device designed for writers.

First, this is the best writing “feel” of a tablet I’ve ever experienced. It doesn’t feel like plastic skating across glass. But closer to a pen on an actual pad of paper. I didn’t think this would be such a selling point until I began using it. It’s addicting.

PDF REVISING

This was the main reason I bought this device. It’s a feature that a lot of E-Ink tablets completely fumble. I want to be able to mark up a large PDF document and then pull those annotations onto my computer.

When I do this using SuperNote, I can select “Annotation summary” on my computer and view all of my annotations at once. From there, I just click on the page I want to see. (You can also make all your annotations appear red or blue.)

Other E-Ink Devices flatten your annotations, meaning you can’t quickly discern what pages you revised.

NOTEBOOK / IDEA GENERATION

Honestly, I was sold on the device based on the PDF functionality above. But the Manta became handy for another part of my writing process: idea generation.

I’m working on an outline for my next book, and I wondered if I could upload a PDF of said document to my SuperNote and create a “non-linear notebook”. A document where I could mark up pages but also create new ones.

Using the “template feature,” you can.

In the outline, there would be moments when I was struck with a new idea and wanted to write about it. I would insert a fresh page and go to town. Then, I would go back to the outline and create a clickable link to the new page.

For example, I might underline a word and say, “Some new thoughts on this.” I could then click on that and be sent to the page with new thoughts.

Another random feature I enjoyed is the star feature. If you draw a star anywhere on the document, it’ll create a bookmark that you can jump to later.

I used the star as a “RESEARCH THIS” annotation. Later, when I was near a book I was using to research, I could take out my Supernote and bounce around to the sections where I needed more information.

THE NEWS

Another thing I’m trying to cut back on is using my phone in front of my 4-year-old. Usually, when he’s watching something on TV, I find myself doomscrolling, reading news, or Substacks.

I thought that getting some news apps on this e-ink device would prevent me from clicking on social media, not only for my own sake but also for my young son. The last thing I want him to think is that smartphones are Gods that deserve all the attention in the world.

It requires some work, but it is possible to side-load apps on your Supernote. Meaning I was able to download the Substack app and various news apps.

The experience isn’t perfect. There are no page-forward and page-back buttons for this stuff. So, you have to scroll, which isn’t the best on E-ink. But it works well enough for short-form articles.

The other cool thing is that it’s a drawing pad! So, I can turn it into an activity when my 4-year-old looks over to see what I’m doing. I started a little notepad for him to draw things in. Like this:

ARE THERE CONS?

Yeah, dude. Of course. You thought there were no cons? What kind of world DO YOU LIVE IN?

It’s expensive. And you have to buy one of their ceramic-tipped pens. My favorite is the Lamy Safari Vista.

There’s a bit of e-ink ghosting sometimes. But that can quickly be resolved by refreshing the screen with a finger swipe.

The cover is only available in a very dull, sterile grey.

BUT—

There’s something magical about revising my new outline in this way. When I use it, a layer of noise vanishes from my mind. As I try to find more ways to get back to my pre-internet brain, I can’t help but fall in love with this device.

But the big headline is that writing this book was one of the most creative experiences of my life. I want that for you, too!

THE OUTLINE

For years, I’ve written outlines before writing a screenplay. I know some people believe outlining is for cowards. But I need an outline. So honestly, those people can go fuck themselves.

My outlines are roughly 16-22 pages long. They contain brief scene descriptions, bits of dialogue, etc., and are unpolished pieces that no one except me will ever see. In the screenplay world, I knew I had a movie if I had an outline around this length.

I had no idea if that would translate to a book.

I took a leap of faith. Figuring that if I came up short, it would be a novella.

SOFTWARE I USED

I’ve been a fan of Scrivener for years. Whenever I have an idea, I start a Scrivener project file. It does several things I love. First, you can treat it as a filing cabinet. Did you find an article that relates to your book? Drop it in. Have a scrap of dialogue you don’t know what to do with? Throw it in!

It’s also where I write my outline and, eventually, the book itself.

But Scrivener’s killer feature is how it allows you to chop up your manuscript into bits. Chapters, scenes, etc. In doing so, the book becomes “non-linear.” You can drag a chapter behind another one. It also allows you to have tunnel vision. Want to focus on just one chapter? You can.

So much of writing is a mental game you play with yourself. For me, there’s something about editing a chapter in Scrivener that feels less daunting. The weight of the entire manuscript isn’t suffocating you.

I used to use Evernote for general note-taking, but the app has become so bloated that I opted for a newcomer, BEAR. I’ve used it for several years now, and it’s fantastic.

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THE FIRST DRAFT

I knew that coming from feature films, my instincts would probably be overly plotty. I wanted to rewire my brain for the first draft, so I decided not to write with the outline next to me. Instead, I wrote a few choice keywords on a note card: things that needed to happen, vibes. The first had to be exploratory.

At the risk of receiving a wedgie and being thrown into a school locker, I wrote my entire first draft of SITUATION NOWHERE on a freewrite typewriter. Namely the FreeWrite Traveler. This is my preferred version of their devices. (Portable, easy, and I don’t feel like a douchebag using it in a cafe.)

I made sure to write every day. Sometimes, at bizarre times, in between bottle feedings. But typically, I just woke up early, before the kid and wife were awake. I had minimal time, one hour reliably, and I knew the only way to get through this was to adopt a drafting process that was about moving forward.

Freewrite typewriters are hard to edit on, so part of the philosophy of the device is “flow state.” Always moving forward. With that, I never moved backward in the manuscript. Never used my brain to edit. If I made an error or started a paragraph wrong, I would literally write:

“Actually, this is the start of the paragraph,” and then write it.

To my amazement, I usually had a good chunk of writing done within an hour. Anywhere from 1k-2k words.

From here, it became a simple math calculation: If I could do this for 50 days in a row, I’d have a novel the size of The Great Gatsby. A short novel, mind you, but it’s the fucking Great Gatsby.

Two months.

Two months of putting one foot in front of the other.

Two months of discipline.

By my calculation, that wasn’t THAT different from writing a screenplay.

The novel became less daunting.

Every evening, I would take the raw writing from the Freewrite typewriter and create a chapter or scene within my Scrivener document. I never liked writing at night; my mind always too depleted from the day. But, I found editing at night to kinda work for me.

I wasn’t getting too far into the weeds on this edit pass. Mostly because I just didn’t have enough time. This edit was just about making it readable to me later. Another happy accident to this nighttime approach was that it got the book back into my head before sleeping.

The outline was always there, in the background, something I could utilize if I needed to see the big picture again, but for the most part, I operated with just the current page in front of me. (And that note card.)

Can I be honest? The first draft was a pleasure. I typed and typed and never looked back. Honestly, it was one of the most pleasurable experiences of my creative life. It lasted about three months.

READING THE FIRST DRAFT / DOING THE SECOND DRAFT

This was another story.

I wanted to give myself a month or two before reading the first draft, and I filled that time with other books and writing. I tried to forget I had written the thing.

I finally read that first draft. And brother, it was rough.

I decided now wasn’t the time to get into the weeds on sentences. “Line edits,” as it were. It was about zooming out and figuring out the big picture. I printed the entire manuscript, double-spaced, got out a red pen, and began noting the big stuff.

Some people made fun of me for buying this huge binder but damn it. You gotta do whatever it is that feels good:

I then used this physical copy as my guide through the edits. This is where I finally got into the weeds of prose and style. I don’t recall how long this part took, but I knew this second draft was the one I would share with my wife.

THE THIRD DRAFT

That second draft, the one I finally show someone, is the first true test. I only gave this draft to my wife, but I would probably open it up to more folks in the future.

Based on my wife’s notes, I entered the third draft.

And here’s where I would do something different. I would…

Re-write from scratch.

I read about this in Matt Bell's Refuse to Be Done. Apparently, it’s taught in creative writing classes, but whoops, I never had one of those!

Anyway, after I reread the manuscript and noted any errors, I forced myself to retype everything from scratch. That doesn’t mean typing the thing up from memory, mind you. It means I’m retyping it from the printed manuscript with the notes.

This process is a pain in the ass, but it forces you to re-examine all the words. It’s honestly the BIGGEST game-changer for my writing.

TO RECAP UP TO THIS POINT

The first draft is for just me. The second draft is just for close friends. The third draft that’s rewritten from scratch? I say, share it with strangers at that point. I didn’t do that on Situation Nowhere, but I will on the next one.

But how do you find non-friends to read your book? There are plenty of options, but if you have the cash, Fiverr is pretty great. For a reasonable price, you can get feedback from strangers. Just search for “novel beta readers.” The other cool thing is that I could target different folks—men, women, young, and old—to see how it plays across demographics.

EVERY DRAFT AFTER THIS

I have no idea how many drafts I completed—probably at least a dozen. But I believe that with these above tweaks, I could have reached a draft I’m happy with much sooner.

Listen. We’re just getting started. I have more to say about editing your book, getting it to agents, publishers, and all the rest.

More soon!

But, then came the tsunami of headlines.

Never-ending.

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When I speak to most left-leaning folks, the sentiment is pretty clear. Everyone wants to stick their heads in the sand for four years.

And brother, I get it.

Last year, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and in my dealing or not dealing with that information, I slowly developed "TMJ-like symptoms" and ended up in physical therapy. Couple that with a kid, a real-ass job, the desire to write more novels, see friends. Family. It’s…a lot. I’m feeling the head-in-sand bit.

But, I believe there is another path.

It's something I've been doing a lot lately…

I pretend I'm an alien from another planet.

It's pretty simple, really. I read the news. All of it. But I read it as if I'm on a distant planet, dispassionate, cold, and disconnected.

My head is not in the sand! Nope!

I'm just a Goddamn alien you guys!

This may sound like a comedy bit. But, I'm telling you, viewing all of this from the cosmos allows me to see the grand absurdity!

And most importantly, I’m not stressed out in front of my kid 24-7. (I’m trying my best not to infect him with anxiety.)

Also: I’m not built for this! I’m not Jesus Christ! Or Superman from that Bryan Singer Superman movie.

You know that part where he goes up into space and gets real stressed out because he can hear everyone’s problems?

Wait, you guys don’t remember that part?

Oh, we don't talk about that Superman anymore.

Got it.

Am I a terrible liberal for feeling this way? Shouldn't I be out on the streets? Yelling about stuff on social media?!! Speaking truth to power!

I dunno. Maybe I am terrible! Or maybe I just want to be like the rest of the country. The one's who vote for the people they want and expect those people to do their jobs. Why do I have to lead a resistance? I can’t even sit comfortably in a chair for too long!

And listen, I have my pet issues. The things that make my blood boil in ways unimaginable. And I'll hit the pavement if need be.

Until then?

I live on a cold distant planet.