Me: I’m Having Such A Hard Time, Can Y’all Please Go Easy On Me?

How I Overcame Reader’s Block (And So Can You!)

As a kid, I adored reading.  Okay, more specifically, I enjoyed reading about dragons, but that’s not the issue here.  

It frequently coincided with my equally as intense love of climbing trees, and some of my fondest memories involve being perched in a small tree and reading some hopelessly goofy, dragon-related literature while my mom and toddler siblings used the playground equipment.  If no climbable trees were available, I’d settle for reading under one and drinking a thermos of chocolate milk while they ran around in the park. 

As I got older, my tastes got a little more eclectic as I encountered Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Anne Shirley, the residents of Narnia and Middle Earth, respectively, and much to my mother’s horror, Stephen King, but my passion remained more or less the same.    

Bottom line is, I loved reading.  It was my paramount joy, my primary source of entertainment, and I didn’t think that would ever change.

So imagine my shock when, around my sophomore year of college at the age of seventeen, it occurred to me that I hadn’t really read for pleasure since I discovered the Hunger Games a year or two prior.  Moreover, and equally as horrifically, when I tried to read I found I couldn’t focus;  regardless of the quality of the story and how much I wanted to read it, the investment was gone.

Whether this was due to my first stint with organized education (prior to college, I was homeschooled) or the fact that I’d grown accustomed to the bite-sized chunks of candy-flavored, insubstantial information served up by the internet, the sad and simple fact was that I had fallen out of love with reading, and it looked like it was going to stay that way forever.   

Well, flash forward two-point-five years to Present-Day Brooksie, and since school got out in early May, I’ve read Chuck Palahniuk’s Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread, Ruth Ware’s In a Dark, Dark Wood, Emma Straub’s The Vacationers, Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, and Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You.  Despite the disappointing lack of dragons, I loved all of them.    

I drink books like nectar again, if you’ll pardon the floral language, and everything from the quality of my writing to the quality of my life has improved as a result of it.  

So how did I fall back in love with reading?  Well, I’ve spent a lot of time pontificating on this, and as far as I can tell, it can be narrowed down to three factors:

1.  Reading every day.

It started with lunch.  Every day, when I’d sit down at my university cafe, I used to get out my laptop and watch YouTube or whatnot while I ate my sandwich – a cool idea in theory, but really sort of gross whenever I rubbed my greasy fingers on the mouse and keyboard. 

When I made a conscious decision to read more, I began taking out my book and reading during the lunch period instead.  It didn’t come naturally at first – I was easily distracted and kept zoning out – but I ultimately found it very pleasant, especially when I listened to some classical music in the background as well (nice for atmosphere, and for drowning out noise and distractions.)  

I kept doing it.  

When that summer rolled around, I rediscovered an amazing little outdoor cafe by the harbor.  It had no wifi, which for my purposes, was absolutely perfect.

I went there to read Good Omens and eat home baked lemon squares, pie, and banana bread, listening to international tourists speak in other languages, and watch the boats go by.  It was a beautiful environment, and that (coupled with the fact that Good Omens is just really fucking awesome) made it easier than ever for me to want to stay longer and become more engrossed in what I was reading.

Afterwards, I’d take out my notebook and work on my own stories and journal.  Overall, I’d say that summer was one of the most intellectually productive I’ve had.  

Once school started again, it got a little harder to read every day, but by then my love of reading had pretty much caught:  it had become an intellectual drug for me again, a source of comfort, pleasure, and inspiration.  Also, it was another viable excuse to procrastinate on my academic responsibilities, which was always welcome.  So I kept reading.  It was still a relatively slow process, as I had to work around my already busy schedule, but the more I read the more adept I became at drinking in the information in hungry, satisfying gulps (a bit more suggestive than I’d initially intended that metaphor to be, but I’m going to go with it.)

But this isn’t to say that there were no bumps in the road back to bibliophilia.  There was another factor that I had to grasp before I reached the point where I could unabashedly adore reading once again.

Which is: 

2.  Reading what excites me.

No, I’m not speaking sexually, you pervert.  I’m talking about books I actually want to read.  

When I first started trying to get back into literature, I started trying to read the classics exclusively, like Around the World in Eighty Days and Little Women.  Let me be clear, these books are amazing (excluding the jarring amounts of racism and endorsements of British colonialism in the former) but after semesters of reading similar works for my literature seminars, they just felt a little like…academia.  

In fact, the only reason I was insistent on reading classics exclusively, I now realize, was because I was a pretentious, pseudo intellectual little shit back in those days with a horrible case of impostor syndrome.  What I needed to re-learn was what dragon-loving, Ten-Year-Old Brooksie long since already knew: the best way to enjoy reading is to read what you actually enjoy.

It was a lesson I slowly but surely remastered, and it took me a while to realize that modern literature is teaming with smart, enriching reads, like Life of Pi, American Gods, Where’d You Go Bernadette, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, The Help, Everything I Never Told You, and countless others.  

Moreover, these were books I didn’t have to force myself to read;  they were books I found myself reading at four AM because I didn’t want to stop.  

I’ve also discovered classics that I can eat up in a matter of days, like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Which absolutely everyone should read, by the way:  Francie Nolan is a feminist icon, and way, way ahead of her time, not to mention it’s fucking hilarious and will make you cry like a little bitch), Jane Eyre, and basically anything written by Jane Austen.  I love these books for their sharp wit, applicable and timeless life observations, and striking lack of the pretentiousness that I’d come to associate with a lot of classic literature.

This summer, I my reading list includes Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, Douglas Adams’ The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, Louis Sachar’s Holes, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, and Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys.  I’m looking forward to reading each and every one of them. 

Ultimately, the point I’m trying to make here is that there’s no joy to be found in pretentiousness:  don’t read to prove yourself as an intellectual.  Read to enrich your soul, read what you legitimately enjoy, and read what inspires you.  

Which brings me to my next and final point…   

3.  Reading what inspires me.

This one might be true specifically for my fellow authors, but since I know a large portion of my followers are fellow authors, I think it’s applicable here.  

Ever since I was an infinitesimally small child, I’ve wanted to write stories.  When I was fourteen I wrote a hopelessly angsty YA novel about a half-dragon girl named Freedom and her misadventures with an ambiguously lesbian vampire and werewolf duo, a seductive and ambiguously bisexual elf (it was a time of self discovery for me), and a talking lion.  When I was eleven, I wrote a middle grade novel about a little boy who befriends a dragon.  When I was four, I wrote *ahem!* drew wordless stories about a winged wolf-creature named Starlight and his (in retrospect, overtly gory) battles with monsters.

It was bizarre, cringey, and I’m not gonna lie, pretty fucking awesome.  

Around the time I started college at around sixteen, I’d just decided I wanted to start writing again.  I had lots of ideas, and I remember in detail getting yelled at by my manager for scribbling in my notebook behind the counter instead of dutifully smiling at customers the way I was supposed to.  

But my writing was…well, to put it bluntly, it was really, really bad.  It only began to improve when I resolved to write every day.  It noticeably and drastically began to improve when I began to read works that I found creatively inspiring. 

While I was revising my manuscript, I read a lot of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, both masters of the kind of urban fantasy I was attempting to write,  and spent a lot of time figuring out what I loved most about their writing and how to best apply it.  This was also around the time I began reading Douglas Adams, which was, let me tell you, a magical experience.  It involved a lot of delighted gasping on my end and thinking you’re allowed to do that?

It really showed me what the barriers were for creative writing, or in this case, total lack thereof.

I think I owe these writers a lot for helping me to create several novel-length manuscripts I’m incredibly proud of, and one that I’m currently preparing to get published.

So in closing, for anyone suffering from reader’s block, feel free to try my approach:  read every day, read what you love and not to stoke your ego, and for my writer peeps, read what inspires you.

Either way, my books and I are enjoying a passionate long-term relationship, and every day I find myself loving them more.

Promise

People keep asking others, “why are you so upset, you weren’t there, and Ariana walked away fine.” One of the survivors of the attack contributed to this article that highlights why we all are grieving the 22 young people who lost their lives: — “…fans worldwide are congregating on forums, hosting vigils, editing together tribute videos on YouTube and direct-messaging each other on Twitter to get through their grief – because, with a fandom as intense and loving as this one, an attack on some of Ariana’s fans is an attack on all of them. These are young people all over the world who are hurting because they ‘lost 22 members of our family the other night, too soon’…The Ariana Grande fan base, you have to understand, is a family…‘The support I’ve gotten from other Arianators is amazing and it’s helping me to get through this. Also, it’s helping me to get through depression and other mental health issues.’” Rest in peace the 22 little angels. Survivors of the attack, people who watched from their television screens, and the entire Ariana fan base, it’s okay for you to be grieving too. Your feelings are valid and if you are feeling alone please reach out for support.

I got some things to say.

All-female Elite Warrior Teams Wonder Woman // Thor: Ragnarok // Black Panther

When you’re obsessed with a ship for a book you’ve never even read or show you’ve never seen.

it’s NOT just white people being dangerously racist about the corona virus, all non-asian people of color should be held responsible for their actions against asians

non-asian poc can and should reblog this

space burger 🍔💫🌙

Ok so let’s take a minute and talk about how the three repeated pillars of Jeresa’s relationship are:

“We’re in this together.” Meaning they have each other’s back. They protect each other. They don’t have to go through any of this alone and they share that responsibility no matter what. They are partners.

“I’m not leaving.” They’re here to stay. Which for someone like Teresa who has a history of abandonment and trust issues is super important to know you have someone that’s not going to leave you. That cares enough to stick it out with them. And I bet you my entire ass, she’s also the first person that ever came back for James. This is really probably the first time either of them have someone to count on to not leave them behind no matter what. Someone that’s gonna stick it out through the struggles and the danger because they care enough to.

“You don’t have to hide from me.” Um fuck me up with this one. For James, who basically hates himself for the things he’s done and Teresa, who isolates her feelings because she can’t trust people this is big. They can be who they are. They don’t have to pretend or hide parts of themselves because their relationship is open and that’s why they can have these conversations about their fears and their insecurities and work through all their problems. They understand each other and there’s no judgement just acceptance and the shared need to move forward.

Like um excuse me, have you ever seen such a healthy, mature duo in your life? Yeah they have problems and they fight, but they work through it because it matters. I am such trash for them. This is the kind of partnership I deserve. Ugh they’re so powerful.