Reader's Block: is there a cure?

by Teri Terry

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.