How To Survive a Reading Slump
The Monster Every Reader Fears: The Reading Slump
Guys, I’m heading into a reading slump. Victober is the worst possible time for this to happen! My plan required over 100 pages of Victorian reading per day!! PLUS extra reading on top of that for reviewing NetGalley ARCs and new releases that finally came in for me at the library, which admittedly is probably where I went wrong. I’ve been flirting with reading burnout for a couple months now. Well, now that much-feared slump monster is flirting back.
How to Nip a Reading Slump in the Bud
But no need to panic just yet! There might still be time for me to nip the slump monster in the butt, er, bud. In my decades of reading experience, I’ve teetered on the brink of enough slumps to have developed a 3-step plan for avoiding a total free-fall into its fathomless depths.
Step 1: STOP
That’s right, you heard me – STOP. The simplest way to halt the progress of a looming reading slump is to just… stop reading. Stop pressuring yourself (MYself) to read when you (I) don’t feel like it. Unless you have to read for work or school, reading should not feel like a chore. If it’s not fun anymore, stop doing it, at least for a day. Let yourself start to miss it.
I did this yesterday, but I have some library books that I should really get back to, sooo…
Step 2: Reevaluate what you’re reading
Give it a few minutes of thought: Could it be the book you’re reading that’s sending you down this dark path into reader oblivion? Are you disliking it? Or maybe it feels like you’re reading it at the wrong time? If so, a DNF (did not finish) or soft-DNF (not finishing it for now, but will return to it later) might be the right move.
I’ll be honest, I was trying to read two chapters a day of Hester by Margaret Oliphant (the official Victober group read), and I was finding it so intensely repetitive and boring that it started to kill my joy for Victorian literature on the whole. I tried to start reading it faster, thinking it was just moving too slow for me in 2-chapter bursts, but that made matters worse. I had to DNF it, but I might have done so a little late and inadvertently summoned the slump monster. In which case…
Step 3: Switch genres
The ol’ brain now needs a bit of a reset, so whatever it was that threatened to throw you into a slump, pick up something as polar-opposite to it as you can find. Were you reading something happy? Read something sad. Were you reading something sad? Read something happy. Were you reading something boring? Read something fast-paced. Long? Short. Old? New. You get the picture.
See, this is where I went wrong. I didn’t follow step #3! After I DNF’d Hester, I picked up a nonfiction. On the surface of it, that’s probably fine – I enjoy nonfiction, and it’s the opposite of fiction. The problem was, I was already putting off two other nonfictions that I was finding kind of slow, so adding a third was not a good idea and definitely not in the spirit of switching genres. Now I’m staring at 3 nonfictions and not wanting to pick any of them up, and one of them is due back at the library pronto!
So, what do you do if you screw up the 3 steps for nipping a reading slump in the bud, and the little twerp is starting to grow?
How to Get Out of a Reading Slump
Breaking out of an existing reading slump is different for everyone, but here are the tried and true methods that the vast majority of readers swear by.
Create the right ambience
Maybe light a candle and put on some quiet jazz. Maybe sit outside or in a coffee shop or just in a different chair in your house. Maybe find an asmr or ambience video that makes you feel relaxed. Have you tried taking part in reading sprints? YouTube is full of them. Engaging your senses and/or making reading more sociable are excellent ways to trigger the pleasure centres in your brain and help you rediscover your love of reading.
Reread a favourite
Do you have a comfort book? An old favourite that you can return to again and again and never get sick of it? For many readers, returning to an old faithful is the best way to break out of a slump. Plus, rereads tend to be quicker and require less mental effort than first-time reads, so you get that feeling of accomplishment while expending very little energy.
Read a guilty pleasure
Okay, maybe we don’t all feel “guilty” about our reading tastes, but most of us have a genre or an author that we’re a little less than proud to admit we enjoy. It can’t all be high-brow all the time, right? Read something you’ve been telling yourself would be a waste of your reading time. I guarantee it won’t be.
Read something short
Let’s face it, the serotonin rush we get from completing a book is a large part of what makes reading fun for most of us. Read something short, even if it’s a children’s book, and let yourself bask to an almost absurd degree in the pleasure-rush of accomplishment. Sometimes all you need to rediscover the joy of reading is to remind yourself how GOOD it feels to check a book off from your TBR.
Try a different format
Physical books, ebooks, audiobooks, novels, nonfiction, short stories, poetry, manga, graphic novels, comic books… literature comes in all shapes and sizes, so to speak. Pick a format that you’re not as familiar with and see how you like it. Sometimes a change is as good as a break.
If all else fails…
Don’t forget, if all else fails, IT’S OKAY. You’re still a reader even if you don’t feel like reading right now. Show yourself some grace, give yourself some time off, and come back to it when reading calls to you again. There really doesn’t need to be any pressure involved at all.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll take my own advice and go listen to Bunny by Mona Awad (a favourite) on audiobook (a different format). My library books can wait until tomorrow. Happy reading (or not reading, whatever will bring you joy today)!