My Reading Life

I just finished updating my 2013 Reading List to reflect the books I've read in the past month or so, and I've noticed a trend.  I've been reading a lot less this year and even more so in the past couple of months.

I've been pondering why that is, because I certainly haven't lost interest in reading and my "to be read' pile is taller than ever, and I'm o.k. with the answer.  It's because I've been spending more time with other interests as well, and that's a good thing.

I've mentioned before that I can become a bit obsessive about reading.  If you look back at my reading lists over the past couple of years (links in the sidebar) you'll see that most months I read a book every 2-3 days, and there were even some months that I read an entire book every single day.  While most of my reading is mystery/thriller, with some women's fiction thrown in, rather than meaty literary tomes that's still a lot of time spent reading. But there's only so much time in a day, and even though I only sleep 5-6 hours a night, I can only do so much in that time.

Of the free time I have, I've been knitting and I've now added spinning to my fiber arts.  I'm not very good at spinning yet, so I try to spend at least a little time on it most days. And I have so many knitting projects going at one time I often do a little on 2 or 3 different projects each day.  I'm also attending more fiber events with friends instead of sitting around reading every weekend.

I've also been writing more, and that's the best thing really.  I've been working on the first draft of the same novel for over 2 years now I think.  It's taking me so long because I haven't been writing consistently over those 2 years, but I finally seem to be making some regular progress, and I have high hopes that the first draft at least will be finished sometime in 2014.  I'm not even thinking beyond that point yet.

I have noticed that I tend to read more books in the months when my professional life is the busiest.  I think that's because reading is an escape of sorts, and a brain cleanse when I need to change tracks in my thinking.  It's also very portable, so I always have a book in my purse, and I can access more through the Kindle app on my phone.  So when work is crazy I will often read while I eat lunch at my desk, or even take 20 minutes after a day of non-stop meetings to read a bit of my book before tackling all the preparations for the next day's round of meetings.

So reading and books will always be a big part of my life.  I don't even count on my reading list the Audible.com books  I listen to daily on my hour long commute each morning and evening, so I will always have the stories.  But maybe my life is becoming a little more balanced, even as my TBR pile totters a little more from its growing height, and maybe one day someone will read one of my books.