I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 43rd: Reading!

Boy howdy and howdy to all boys and girls that still know what a real childhood is all about and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where the past is no longer the prologue and reality is indeed stranger than fiction.

Reading.

It's something that we all do, either for necessity for enjoyment. For my family, it's often out of necessity (although my wife does subscribe to a mag that features flowers and birds that she actually reads). For me, up until last year it was for enjoyment and pleasure.

Now it's been mostly out of necessity.

This ugly trait/habit can be exactly traced to when I bought a smartphone in 2018. That particular smartphone was bought because I wanted a phone that I could listen to music and sports. Well, in addition to listen to music and sports, I discovered the wonderful world of podcasts.

BAM! My reading of books plummeted from 30 in the 1Q 2018 to 14 in 2Q 2018 to 4 in 3Q 2018 to zero in 4Q 2018. I became so enamored of podcasts (mostly for the various content matter and the fact that they ranged from 20 minutes to 1 hour in length) that I basically gave up reading books*.

On one hand, stopping the book reading resolved a few work related issues that came with dragging either a large book or my Nook (yes, you can shot me now) into work. It also stopped cutting into my writing time.

But on the other hand, I did miss having something concrete to absorb which would allow me to slip into a different world, if only for a little while.

So I'm slowly trying to reintroduce at least a monthly book into my life. I say "monthly", as right now the only free time that I have to utilize for reading is when I'm doing my weekly virus scan on my computer and when I'm doing personal hygiene (you can use your thesaurus for that one). And I'm making such good progress with that, that I'm seriously thinking about cutting into some other free time that I have to start reading then.

So what about you, has your reading been curtailed by other things, whether shiny and new or simply a unforeseen change in circumstances? If so, how have you gotten back to where you want it to be?

*The last book I read in 2018 was a non-fiction book called "Storm Lake", this was in 3Q (July thru September), while the last original book that I've read in 2019 was "Mustard Seeds and Mountains: Battling the Beast Within", a very fine memoir from the late Joy Redmond. 

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved