The balance between reading and writing…

Can be tricky.

I’ve read the writing advice: it’s important to read books in the genre you write in (and outside of it).

Of course you grow through actually writing and engaging in peer review, but you can also grow by diving into the work of other writers. The imagination of others can spark new ideas of my own. Something that felt lacking to me in a story might turn out to be just what I need to add to my book. It might even send me in a completely unexpected direction. Reading a little too much young adult fantasy one year made me a little tired of all the teenage angst so I sat down and wrote a heroine that looked more like me: a 40-something mom of boys who likes to read and write and slay demons (Dreamcatcher).  I still regularly enjoy YA books; I’m just saying I’m not the target audience and acknowledging that helped me write something different.

But lately I feel like I might be reading too much. That seems like a silly thing to say because I don’t actually believe there is a measure of too little or too much when it comes to enjoying your hobbies. You just take some amount of time to dedicate to it and enjoy it. But life is about balance. And I think that is what I am feeling—out of balance. I think right now there is more reading happening in my life than writing and that makes me unhappy.

As a bookstagrammer, I didn’t set out to post content every day. After a few months of posting every 3-4 days, it got to the point where since I read consistently I had book reviews stacking up, plus I was tagged in fun book challenges frequently. Suddenly, I could post content almost every day. That organic growth turned into creating a spreadsheet assigning dates to book challenges and book reviews so I could take some photos in advance and not stress about what to post on any given day. It’s also helpful to be organized in this way so I can keep track of publication or book tour dates for the authors/publishers that I gratefully received books from. But that list started making me feel like I can’t skip a day. Not because I owe it to my followers or because I’m worried about a drop of engagement, but just because I’m excited about it all! I want to read all those books and do those challenges!

But… I have been reading a lot lately to stay on top of my reading/bookstagramming goals and that is a little silly. It’s mostly accomplished by the fact that I don’t watch tv at night and I listen to audiobooks while I exercise. But my writing time is being impacted by this too since I use up so many hours of my day with other adulting and volunteering tasks. There is only so much “free” time to leverage.

During the next couple weeks, I am hoping to make more progress on my writing goals and get the edits for Land of Monsters completed. I’ve done some this month—yay!—but not as much as I would have liked.

Time to put the book down for a bit and get editing!