Reading slumps

  

 

Reading slumps

Dear Anne, you inspired this blog. And me, all the time. Like, ALL the damn time!

For all the reading goal making going on many are still in a slump from last year and feel unmotivated to read. They pick up books just to put them down. I have had many similar slumps where all I can handle is scrolling through Instagram and even that seems to be too much of a challenge for my addled slumpy brain.

 

One suggestion I can make is to stop reading. Don’t even try. If a story is not calling out to you, chances are other stories will fall just as flat. Why is that? Why do we get into slumps were a book can’t help us move through the story especially if it’s a book you would normally love?

Books are like people, they breathe a bookish symphony into your mind and create a world that steals us away. When we are slumpish the only thing that seems to steal us away is to put on Netflix or do the endless mindless scrolling on our phones. 

Why? Because mindless Netflix and mindless scrolling is what we need; to have others do the work for us. Why pick up a book and read page after page after page only to say, well shit, this will take too long, let me put on my favorite series and re-watch it for the tenth time. Books take work, that’s why we read. We are usually up to the challenge but sometimes, we are not and that is the time you put the book down and go do something chill.

One of my friends said she re-reads old favorite books and I think that’s a fine idea. Every year of my young and adult life up until three years ago I would read The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder to get me out of a slump. I knew what was going to happen, so the book was like calling an old friend. Comfortable. Reliable. Safe. Absolutely zip work.

I am out of my reading slump and voraciously reading. I feel like my mind is up to the challenge. But if a slump settles in any time soon I will be picking up an old favorite, in fact, I have it on my desk for that moment in time. A reminder that I have an old friend that I don’t have to think too hard to be around. The book is 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. And old friend indeed. Plus, ,I bought the movie on Prime so I can watch it on my phone when I am in the lumpy slumps. No one like Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins, dear old friends, to pull me out of that frustrating place.

Reading slumps are not a flaw of your character or your intellect, they are just moments in time where chemistry with your reading is a bit low.  That’s all. It’s okay, I swear. 

And one more thing.

(of course)

Don’t ever compare yourself to anyone who reads (or seems to) all the time, there are bookish people who can pound a slump like a mad goose chasing you out of the park. They are up for challenges, perhaps more than we are. It’s okay, in fact, go read their blogs, it’s not mindless, it’s like calling up an old friend to see what they are up to. Sometimes that rubs off on us.

 

Cheryl