Wednesday 20 February 2013

Reader's Block: is there a cure?


A few days ago I posted this on Facebook: 
I don't get writer's block as such - but I do get reader's block. This is much worse! Every now and then, I don't want to read anything I have (and I have a mountainous TBR) but I'm just craving....I don't know what. I want a book to grab my hands and pull me in, but not leave me feeling battered during or after. Everything I pick up I put down again. 
And I wondered: is this a common writer's complaint? Judging by the number of comments left in quick succession, it is.


The horrors of Reader's Block
I thought I coined Reader's Block all by myself, but then google found this:
"Related to Writer's Block, this is when you cannot, for the life of you, pick up a book and read it. Sure, you may be able to read a paragraph or two, or maybe even a page, but you don't retain anything of what you just read or have the attention span and/or will to go on... To those who love to read, this is worse than heart disease and cancer combined."  Urban Dictionary

The high cost of education...
Thinking back, there was another time of my life when reading became impossible for a long stretch of time: law school. I spent so many hours reading cases and trying to extract the ratio decidendi - the reason for the decision - in the minimum number of words, that it was years before I could relax into a book enough that I didn't have an irrational desire to scan and highlight in yellow.

Now that I'm a writer this reading melancholy comes and goes at irregular intervals, and it hurts. With me, it is much like writing: if I'm not writing, I'm miserable. If I'm not reading, I'm miserable. I need both in my life. But is this a bit like bigamy?
Can reading and writing co-exist? Can you have two loves in your life at the very same time?
I can't say I always know why I get Reader's Block. But here are some of the suspects:

1. Everything is too good: sometimes, it is really hard to read a well written book with excellent characterisation and a perfectly paced plot. Is it...envy? despair?

2. Everything is too bad: have you had a day like this? When you pick up the latest popular something-or-other, and don't like it, pick holes in it, wonder how it ever got published. Is it...envy? despair?

3. Hunting for rainbows
yellow, or blue, or pink....
Sometimes I still crave that highlighter. I'm reading, but I'm not a reader. I'm busily analysing why a character works (or doesn't) or why something is scary (or isn't) or how the pace works (or doesn't). This may be an important part of being a writer, but it detracts from being a reader, and can be hard to switch off.

4. Too much of a good (dark) thing
Hiding from the monsters
I love many dystopian novels, blog about them on Demention, and am deep in writing the third of the Slated trilogy, so I'm writing them now. But reading too much of the same genre - particularly in this case, where the worlds are dark, and inhabited by monsters - is like having too much chocolate. It starts out good, but I am lactose intolerant, after all. 

5. The right book at the right time: occasionally I get this impatient searching feeling, that if only I could find the right book, all would be fine. Then I post endless FaceTwit appeals for recommendations to my long-suffering friends.

Me, on too much writing...
6. Exhaustion
Just now I think this the crux of it. I'm exhausted from writing, from being in another world in my head. There isn't any room to invite more in. If I'm writing at a reasonable pace, sometimes I seem to juggle both okay (though try to read stuff that is nothing like I'm writing, and that is usually with writing on weekdays and reading on weekends). 
But when I'm writing obsessively, like I am now....no. As much as I long to get lost in a book, I just can't.
Help!!!! Are you a fellow sufferer? Do you know the cure to Reader's Block? Do you know the exact right book* to sort me out? 
 *neither too good nor too bad and not too dark or too light and leaves the reader with the right uplifting sweetness-and-light sort of feeling but not sickly sweet: you know the one...
Or maybe, I should just give up...maybe it isn't possible to read and write at the same time, and do both well. Are they mutually exclusive? As Annie Dalton said on Facebook: is it like trying to breathe out and in at the same time?
I may not have answered all my questions, but at least I got to highlight a satisfying amount of text in yellow. 


17 comments :

  1. Hi Candy, thank for this post. I had Readers Block for months! Spending too much time on the computer has definitely affected my patience levels...I find audiobooks great for getting you back in that meditative zone of reading (I pay a subscription so I have to listen to at least one a month) I read 'normal' books too but it is lovely being read to, especially when you're exhausted from writing

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    1. Hi Jion! No this piece wasn't by me but by Teri. But I know what you mean. I love listening to books too ... With audio books though there's an added criterion of the voice. I have skipped over books I loved reading in hard copy because the voice didn't appeal to me ... And I've purchased audio books purely on the basis that I loved the voice sample.

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    2. Sorry I realised just after! Thank you Teri for the post! I agree Candy, some of the voices can really grate or totally draw you in (I'm currently listening to Bring Up The Bodies and the narrator is excellent)

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    3. You're welcome! and I've tried audiobooks when driving (nearly crashed the car), when cooking (burnt dinner). I may be dangerous

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  2. Hi Teri, that's so true! I sometimes get a sort of malaise where I can't decide what to read even though I have loads of books in the apartment. I love your obsession with highlighting text. I still have a bit of that need to highlight coursing through my veins. I limit myself to highlighting the dates and times of flights or trains or reference numbers on travel documents (not my passport though). Ceej :)

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    1. Malaise is a good word for it. And (confession) I have a large collection of multi-hued highlighters

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  3. I read and read and read - sometimes I read things that aren't very good but I rarely give up on anything - reading a lot is like panning for gold - sometimes the little nuggets are just waiting to be stirred to the top. It makes no difference if I'm writing ( I'm rarely not writing)BUT _ I don't get out much - to the cinema or the theatre , and I rarely watch tv - I think I crave story, I just can't not have it in my life...that's not to say beign a writer hasn't ruined me as a reader. It's a rare book where a writer can't see the mechanics behind it!

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    1. (another confession) I give up on books a lot. And it doesn't even necessarily mean I don't like them. If I start something and then can't continue for whatever reason, I have this strange horror of picking them up again. Strange but true: Kindle helps with this because then the book isn't judging me for having a bookmark stuck at the same page while the whole thing gets dusty

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  4. A great post, Teri! I find reading non-fiction helps sometimes. Just finished Claire Tomalin's Dickens biography...gave me a million story ideas (post-Savile, some of Dickens' traits seem a little creepy...) but it was getting into another world, without being jealous of the world's creator.

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  5. Sometimes when I'm reading I imagine Microsoft Word comments down the margins and it takes me out of the story. It's a bit like talking shop after work. I found graphic novels helped, as I have no knowledge of how they're written or edited.

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    1. NOOOO not comment bubbles down the side of the page! I hope I'm not going to start dreaming them there now, too.
      With Jane's non-fiction and your graphic novels, I wonder if it is because it is far enough removed from what you do that you can escape? I do that a bit by reading younger fiction than what I write sometimes.

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  6. I stopped reading completely when I was having babies. I just couldn't commit to finishing a book and I felt bad about it before even starting. My decision to write happened before I started reading again and I had to go through a painful phase of getting back into reading, training up to the state of mind where you can lose yourself in a book and having the stamina to continue even when the outside world is constantly hurling itself at you.

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    1. Yes! it is fear of commitment, too! I should have put that in the list. It is like I said above, I hate picking up books I've abandoned. If there is something I'm really wanting to read I'm afraid to start it in case I don't keep going.

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  7. I'm not a writer and have never had any kind of creative block (except for time/energy constraints) but have had readers block many times. It usually presents itself in me as an inability to read anything new because I get too anxious about the characters and crave the comfort of knowing they will be ok or ok-ish in the end. So I re-read my favourite books and authors. Armistead Maupin always helps me through the doldrums, I got one of his books out of the library today - Further Tales of the City. I have read Mark Mills' The Savage Garden six or seven times and might give it another go later this week though I will, as always, skip over the sad bit. Other times it just has to be one of Lee Child's action-packed stories about the man who never washes his clothes.

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  8. Thank you so much for this...I've never thought of reader's block, but now I realize I've had it for years. I've spent so much time reading nonfiction books on writing and editing and rewriting that I've lost the joy of reading just for pleasure. Then I realized my own writing was suffering from the lack of reading books of fiction. Yet I couldn't get interested enough to read anything. I've always loved the Regency genre and picked up a book by Mary Balogh and had to force myself to go to bed at 4:30am. Thank you, Mary Balogh!

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    1. you are very welcome! and sometimes it is just about finding that elusive 'right' book at the right time, isn't it?

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  9. And now for a p.s.....
    I've been thinking about this blog post quite a lot this week. I think, really, I know that for myself I can't read when I'm deep in a first draft like I am now, but I just keep longing for it. I think it is part of that whole writer's procrastination thing, looking for an escape: I best stop goofing off and get back to the writer's cave.

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