My reading has recently slipped into a dark chasm from which, it seems, there is no escape.
I wrote several years ago about how I was struggling to get to grips with literature at the time; how a change in my circumstances (a house- and associated job-move) had put paid to my prolific reading.
Well, another house move has failed to fix the issue. I'm still struggling to engage with the thing that not only brought me joy but also is widely considered an essential part of the authors' kit: a wide, varied and dynamic input of other people's words.
I have turned to face the faker, the man in the mirror, to have some strong words. And, do you know, he turned right back and said 'nuts to it'?
I have decided that these things go in cycles and circles and all sorts of ups and downs as we go through life. I am going through a lull at the moment, the likes of which I've not seen since I was at university. And, I suspect, for similar reasons; I'm being forced to read Other Things and to read in my free time is a bit of a busman's holiday. Then (back in the early noughties, Rob-is-old fans) I was full of textbooks and studies (and beer). Now I am replete with the manuscripts I'm being sent to edit.
It helps that most of the stories I'm sent to work on are pretty damn great. Dispiriting, too, occasionally – how can I hope to compete with this? – but mostly inspiring and thought-provoking.
I'm not proud of myself. I love reading and champion books and I feel like a hypocrite for not devouring all literature I can get my grubby little protuberances on. But I will simply make myself mad, or miserable, if I hold myself too strictly to account.
Besides, this too shall pass. One day I'll find myself back in the swing of things; back in the flow of reading, and it'll be like I never went away.
In the meantime I'm going to have to rely on the weight of books I consumed over the course of a long life misspent. Plus the excellent novels sent to me for a bit of spit and polish.
Still asking for books for Christmas, mind.
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