Let’s talk about this. Because this is by no means an easy feat to undertake. it’s hours of your day that you would sometimes wish you were doing other things with. Like playing Animal Crossing. Or knitting. And I don’t knit.
And, on top of that, I was listening to the Audiobook of the book my book club was reading this past month.
Yup. I’m a genius.
That’s all fine and good, but lets get down to the nitty gritty of the situation. How did I feel doing it, and how did I actually do it?
Let’s break it down week by week.
Week 1: This first week was easy. I had read all of these books recently and they were quick to get through. I started each book around 3 in the afternoon with a two hour break for dinner! Because food! I would usually finish these books around midnight. Which is my usual bedtime, so no sleep lost.
What I did loose was my leisurely hours spent on Animal Crossing, watching You Tube, playing around on Facebook. Those kinds of things.
Week 2: I tried to get started a bit earlier in the day so I would have some free time to, you know, sit around and watch Tic Tok videos about books later in the evening.
Those videos are great. I’ve had to start making lists of all the books I want to get. Go BookTok!
Where was I? Oh yes, reading. This week I found it a little harder to accomplish my goals. I was regularly up until 1:30 in the AM trying to finish these particular pages. While watching videos on You Tube.
I can multitask!
Week 3: Week three started off spectacularly. The power went out in our town due to a storm, and luckily, it was restored again the next morning. I had to read by lantern!
Luckily my discomfort didn’t last and I was able to stay on track. I managed to roll a little more smoothly this week, jumping ahead again and starting around three for each book. Except for the day I had to go villager hunting in Animal Crossing. That day I started after dinner and ended at 2 am! I might have been a little sleepy the next day.
Maybe.
Week 4: The beginning of this week found me wanting to buy all the books. Like, all of them. I had a hard time choosing between them I wanted to buy so many. Let’s just say, don’t be surprised if there is a book haul for you soon.
This week was really all about some of my favorite books in the Heralds of Valdemar series. The Last Herald-Mage trilogy and The Mage Wars trilogy. I love these books to the point where one of them is held together by packing tape because the cover was starting to come off. Nope, I haven’t read The Black Gryphon a lot. Not at all.
I started reading these books a lot earlier, around 1 in the afternoon. Which made for leasuirely time in the evening that I hadn’t really accounted for. So I spent it doing other things. Like reading the short story Binti by Nnedi Okorafor.
I don’t have a problem, I swear.
Week 5…ish: This week only has three days in it. I’m not gonna lie, I kinda want to read something else now. Not that reading all the Mercedes Lackey hasn’t been fun, because it has. It’s just that now I really want to tackle my TBR. And I found an online book club called Literarily Wasted that specializes in sci-fi/fantasy books so now I’m in two book clubs.
My first day reading this week started off great. I woke up later than anticipated and didn’t get started reading until after dinner. Go me.
My last day however. Geeze. That was a struggle bus.
Part of the problem was that I wasn’t really enthused about the book I picked for the last day. Its why I saved that book for the last day.
Final thoughts: Thank God it’s over!!!!
No, but seriously, it was fun, it was hard, but now it’s time to read something that I’ve never read before. Do I think I could do this again? Nope. I think once is enough. Also, there aren’t that many authors that I like with enough books of appropriate lengths to make it work again.
But was it fun? Yes. Absolutely. And it definitely got me out of my reading slump. Which is why I did all this in the first place.
Lauren Corcur 