A standard piece of publishing industry advice is that you need to read voraciously in any genres you plan to work in, or already do work in. If I had a dollar for each time I’ve heard this, I wouldn’t be precisely rich, but I’d certainly have enough ready cash to take my family out for a very nice dinner.
This is a maxim that used to make me feel like a failure as both a reader and a writer.
Why? Because for the past eight years, I’ve been in the mother of all reading slumps. It started not when I had kids, but at the time that I started juggling working as an author with having kids. Parenting is a singularly all-consuming endeavor. Writing for publication, likewise. And they both involve a LOT of reading. Reading Goodnight Moon fourteen times in a row (or in our family’s case, an infamous storybook called DW’s Guide to Preschool). Reading your own novels fourteen times in a row, your sense of enthusiasm for them withering into disdain with each successive pass (I always say that the best part of publishing a book is knowing I never have to read it again).
Like I said. Both parenting and publishing require a lot of reading, but not the sort that exactly sparks joy. More the kind that progressively saps your will to live. So for eight years now, I’ve been in a reading slump so vicious that I was lucky to read four or five books in a year, outside of those roles. Mostly I stuck to magazines with glossy pictures of immaculately-maintained English countryside gardens. That was, for a very long time, the only form of print that didn’t make my brain feel like imploding.
And throughout it all, I felt really bad about the fact that I didn’t read more. I wasn’t current on the big, highly-praised break out titles in my category and genre. I wasn’t even current on books my own author friends wrote. At the end of the day, if I had an hour or two to spare, the last thing in the world I wanted was to pick up another book. I gamed instead, or watched Star Trek, or juicy costume dramas.
I’m here to tell you that if this is where you’re at, there is nothing wrong with you. And you don’t need to feel pressured to undertake an activity that feels so off-putting you’d rather sit and stare at a wall. Sometimes, we’re just not in a reading season of life, even as self-proclaimed bookworms. Sometimes, we’re in a season of life where we have to read so much for reasons beyond our own pleasure that choosing books for fun is out of the question. None of the fun is left. It has all been sucked out of the pages.
But it will come back. And there are some gentle ways you can implement to hasten its return. I know, because this year, I set out to break my reading slump. To a degree, I managed. Here are the steps I undertook to do so.
Log Every Book
If you read to your kids, or for professional development, or in some sort of work capacity, log it. Those are valid reads. They don’t suddenly fail to count because you undertook them for a reason outside of personal pleasure. This year, I hit that magical place where my kids are older enough to follow more complex chapter books, and was able to introduce them to a lot of stories I absolutely adored as a kid. Was I technically reading them for myself? No. But I read them, and I logged every last one. My favorite resource for this is Storygraph, though your logging system can be as simple as a pen and post-it note.
Visit Uncharted Territory
If you are required for any reason to read in a particular category or genre, do not, and I repeat, do NOT, try to force yourself to read within it for pleasure as well. My sainted Oma Bergmann was fond of saying that a change is as good as a rest, and as usual, she was right. This year, I managed to maintain interest in books I was reading just for me by staying completely outside of YA as a category, and speculative fiction as a genre. I read a couple of adult novels (women’s fiction). But mostly I read nonfiction. I’ve always loved a well-crafted nonfic, and diving down rabbit holes related to whatever my passion of the moment happens to be is one of my defining traits. Right now, I’m super interested in creating an enriching and rewarding home education experience for my kids, so I read a lot of books on that topic.
Try think outside the box when attempting to find reading material that suits. Foray into nonfiction, poetry, romance, mystery novels–whatever might actually get you excited about a book when that enthusiasm has waned.
Don’t Be Afraid to DNF
For those who aren’t familiar with the term, in book circles, DNF means “Did Not Finish”. I am a huge proponent of DNFing with abandon, and have been since before my current reading slump. Unless you are required to complete a book for some reason, life is just too short to slog through something you don’t enjoy! If the first chapter or first few pages don’t seem like your cup of tea, stop, and move to the next thing. The world is full of books–somewhere out there is one you’ll like better. But pay attention to patterns–if you keep DNFing books within a specific genre or category, maybe it’s just not for you right now. Maybe you should shift gears and implement Tip #2.
Having Fun Isn’t Hard When You’ve Got a Library Card
Acquaint or reacquaint yourself with the local library. If you follow the advice laid in Tip #3, you’ll need to. All that DNFing will get expensive if you buy every last thing you read! The library is a booklover’s buffet–there’s tons to choose from, and you can pick whatever looks good for you. But unlike a buffet, it’s free and you can return whatever you don’t like. If, like me, you’re strapped for time and your attention is fragmented while at the library (I go there with the kids, and library trips are primarily structured around their needs as readers), make liberal use of the holds system. Pick out a variety of titles that you think you might enjoy, reserve them via your library’s online system or over the phone, and then simply pick them up at the front desk at your next visit. This process, more than anything else, has facilitated my return to the domain of the written word over the last year.
Hopefully if you’re in a reading slump of your own, some or all of these tips and tricks will be helpful to you. But the most important thing is to be gentle with yourself–there’s no moral virtue implicit in finishing a certain number of books a year, or even in being a reader at all. While many books contain stories of great value, books are patient–they’ll still be waiting when you’re ready for them.