McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Readers Block?

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SunPhoenix:
Kind of reminds me that sometimes it just doesn't seem like time to read something like it took me about 7 or so years since having boughten Pulp Fiction to actually watching it. It wasn't until actually just sitting down and watching it that I end up just loving it. I have to attempt to do that with the Tolkien books which I've read through most of the first one but have never fully read the trilogy. Also may help that I like sometimes space in between reading books and should go to the library and read the single copies.

Darla:
I used to do that all the time.  I'd pick up book after book from the TBR pile, and just didn't feel like reading any of them.

I finally realized that I'd kept picking the same books over and over (and overlooking the same ones).  So they all felt stale.  Since I started a random system for picking books, making sure not to read two similar books in a row, and some goofy TBR challenges (things like "pick a book with gold lettering on the cover") to shake things up a bit, I hardly ever have the readers block anymore.

Ah, yes.  Making OCD Work For You.  I could write a pamphlet.  ;)

Of course, if you don't have a TBR pile, that makes the challenges a little more risky--picking up the first book at the library that you find with a verb in the title might net you something really odd.  But then again, that might just be what you need to break out of the readers block.

In another group, we have a quarterly reading challenge, which I've found really helpful for getting out of a reading rut, too.  Summer's was a book that won a Pulitzer; Fall's is a banned book. 

Mostly, in my experience, anyway, readers block is the result of being in a reading rut, so anything that gets you out of that will help.  Non-fiction is good, because it doesn't feel the same as reading a novel.  Or maybe ask for a recommendation for a really good read in a genre that's completely new to you.

Something else we were discussing elsewhere is how reading things you think you should read can really kill the desire to read.  I spent decades avoiding anything remotely resembling good-for-you reading after a period of time when I was trying to read what I thought I should read, or what people who I thought were smart recommended, and I ended up not feeling like reading at all. It was only a few months, but it affected my reading for a long time.

I've only just recently started picking up non-fiction and lit-fic again, very cautiously, making sure the recommendations come from people whose taste I tend to share, rather than people I think I should listen to.  So far, so good.  And I'm definitely mixing them in with fun reading.

Once reading = medicine, you might as well forget it.

Stuart1512:
Thanks for the advice oh and TBP? one thing that could be causing it is that i haven't really been feeling myself lately. I've been reading more comics than literature lately. I might buy Watchmen over the weekend, and i also ordered some more books yesterday to help my RB.

Red Seas Under Red Skies-Scott Lynch
Proven Guilty-Jim Butcher(I don't have Dead Beat or White Night yet but they had PG on special)

Orissa:

--- Quote from: Stuart1512 on September 12, 2007, 04:54:03 PM ---Thanks for the advice oh and TBP? one thing that could be causing it is that i haven't really been feeling myself lately. I've been reading more comics than literature lately. I might buy Watchmen over the weekend, and i also ordered some more books yesterday to help my RB.

Red Seas Under Red Skies-Scott Lynch
Proven Guilty-Jim Butcher(I don't have Dead Beat or White Night yet but they had PG on special)

--- End quote ---

I just started Proven Guilty, but for me, it didn't quite grab me the way Dead Beat did.  Not sure it'll help you get past it.  Of course, we are all struck differently.  ;)
But you said you don't feel quite yourself.  I know that feeling.  I find that if there's anything you typically do for yourself that you really love, but haven't done a lot of (for me it was driving and singing), DO IT!  I didn't realize how much I missed just driving around, but with gas prices, it's an expensive release/hobby, whatever you wanna call it.  Just try and find something that is a part of you that you've been ignoring.  Once you sort through it a little, you'll feel more like yourself and the other stuff will come back as well.  Good luck!!   :)

Darla:
Whoops.  Sorry.  TBR = To Be Read.  Refers to the giant stack o' books in my bedroom that remain as yet unread.

And WOS (What Orissa Said) about reconnecting with whatever it is that you love and have been ignoring, especially if you haven't been feeling yourself.  The comics may help, too--just something light to feed your reading need without triggering the readers block.

Or, if something temporary is going on that's making you feel not yourself, stick with the comics and don't sweat it.  That happened to me when I was pregnant with my 2nd child--I absolutely could not read anything new.  So I re-read all my Rex Stout and Agatha Christie books. 

One last thing--I've spoiled a few books that I normally would have loved by plodding ahead and forcing myself to finish them when I really didn't feel like it.  Just food for thought. 

Good luck.  :)

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