For years, I was the kid who read under her covers with a flashlight once my parents thought I was asleep. I burned through the biography section at Norton Elementary School and was practically on a first name basis with the librarian there. For the rest of my school career—high school and some college—I read John Jakes, Colleen McCullough, Jacqueline Susann and Sidney Sheldon—instead of my assigned readings of the Brontës and JD Salinger. I got around to them, though, after I had Annie and Christopher, and then I added current bestsellers and some bodice-rippers. And of course all the Harry Potters. Twice.
The point is, I was a reader. A voracious, happy reader who always had a book or two going and definitely had one with me whenever I was at a soccer game or dentist’s appointment. And always on a plane. I remember once I sat next to a young woman who had some steamy-covered novel in her lap when we struck up a conversation about what we were reading. I told her, “I just couldn’t decide what to bring with me!” and she looked at my copy of the collected stories of Sherlock Holmes and replied, “I can tell.” Then we lit up our cigarettes and read our books for most of the flight.
So, it’s a mystery to me why, for the last too many years, I haven’t felt that same urge to have a book in my hand at any given moment of the day. Ironic, isn’t it? I wrote a book, I teach writing, I support and promote writers and authors all the time, but when I find I have a couple of free hours or land in bed a little earlier than expected, I’m more likely to be on my phone than grabbing my latest book to escape into.
It was embarrassing, to be honest. I felt a little bit like an imposter sometimes. My world is books and writing and I could barely drag my eyes across a page anymore. A woman in one of my writing classes put a name to it for me once: reader’s block. Apparently she had gone through a period of time when her life demanded her energy elsewhere—it wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in reading anymore, it was that she couldn’t. I told her I knew exactly what she was talking about.
Even more ironic was that I served on the Connecticut Book Awards committee and that was the whole job—reading books! Which I did, and get this—I loved it! I was so happy to be reading books by Connecticut authors who might possibly win a prize, but once we tallied our scores and submitted our lists, I stopped reading again. I’ve got an enormous TBR pile—several in fact--placed strategically around the house, as if I’ll forget I’m not reading and accidentally pick one up. As a way to support the authors who have published with She Writes Press, and other authors I’ve met along the way, I have prioritized those authors’ books, and the stacks grow higher and higher.
I continue to fret about this . . . I love reading! Why couldn’t I incorporate it back into my life when it was obvious it was something I enjoyed. Then one day, I got Jane Friedman’s Electric Speed newsletter in my inbox. I usually read those, and when I don’t have time, I put them in their own folder for later. In this one in particular she wrote about the guilt she was feeling from not reading a book outside of work for years! She had reader’s block, too? Knowing this made me feel much better that I didn’t have some affliction I had to hide, and, in fact it’s probably a lot more common than I thought. I still don’t quite understand it—although exhaustion, stress and transitions might explain some of it—but I’m more patient with myself as far as addressing it.
Each time I read a book it recalls the pleasure from a thousand times before when I could gain insight into another little world. Discovering new ways of thinking, being entertained—or terrified—and feeling disappointed when I closed the back cover. I’m not never reading again, I just have to find the right time and place. Because there is always a good book to read.
(If you need a recommendation, just ask me! Or, check out the SWP authors’ list.)