The Year of Books!
During my prolific first year-and-change as a full-time writer (when I creatively hemorrhaged five novels) I read a fair number of books. Thirty-five to be exact.
Yes, August 2021-November 20221 was all about books. Beautiful, tangible, hold-em-in-your-hands-and-sniff-the-stale-library-goodness-from-their-pages, books!
Now you might be curious what my book reading (and writing) habits have looked like since November 2022.
All I can say is they’ve been dismal by comparison.
My “books read” spreadsheet only has six titles. And while writing five novels a year is not a pace that any carbon-based lifeform should aspire (or be expected) to keep, I haven’t so much as toyed with writing a new novel since wrapping my last one during NaNoWriMo 2022.
What could possibly have kept me from indulging in these fruitful and enriching pastimes?
A seductive little sorcerer called Substack, that’s what?
No Regrets!
Creating and nurturing
has been my prime directive since its inception and has left me little time for any reading (or writing) outside of the Substackiverse.I do not regret this.
I’ve built something here that I’m really proud of and have become a fan of many outstanding people and their equally outstanding publications in the process. I like it here, and I have no plans to halt the expansion of my humble little fiction empire across this tall, dark, and handsome platform.
But in an effort to broaden my bookshelf and diversify my creative energy a bit, I’ve decided I need to read more ACTUAL BOOKS again. And lucky for me I have a whole mess of them lying around.
Behold! My TBR Tower.
I’m very pleased about the genre diversity in this little library. Sure, I’ve got a few romantic YA treasures in there, but I also have speculative, fantasy, mystery, nonfiction, and satire in the mix.
Shout outs to TBR featured Substack celebs
, , and , who in addition to routinely nailing it with their newsletters, also managed to nail the whole published book thing … you know … on the side. 😉Will Reading More Books = Writing More Books?
I have hypothesized there could be a direct correlation between my reading thirty-five books and writing five in the same year.
If my janky calculations are correct, during the “year of books” I wrote one novel for every seven I read, so by the transitive book property2, I should be able to crank out at least one new long-form story this year.
And I was totally lying when I said I hadn’t toyed with the idea of writing a new novel since November.
I’ve toyed.
What’s On Your TBR?
Have you fallen behind on your actual book reading?
What titles are in your TBR tower?
Let me know in the comments what you’re looking forward to devouring this summer. And if you’re not sure where to start, I have a delightful suggestion that will cost you nothing and will entertain the crap out of you.
Thank you for supporting
and yours truly by association.Truly yours,
P.S. Fresh fiction on deck for next Thursday. See you then!
I’ve been stuck on an academic year calendar since college. Marrying a teacher didn’t help. Our “year” starts in August. 😊
Basic division, I know. But “transitive book property” sounded more scientific.
Thanks for the mention, and for buying and showing my book, Meg! The great thing is mine is all short stories, so you can read one in 10 minutes over dessert, feel satisfied and read another the next day. My reading list is growing longer as well, and I'm determined to make my way through several fantasy and science fiction classics. I'm about 30 percent of the way through Frank Herbert's Dune, and after that I'll probably move on to a fantasy work like Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, or another fantasy. If it weren't for that pesky thing called work, I would read and write all day.
I look forward to hearing more about your novel successes and writing journey here on Substack, and I'm so glad you're sticking around in our merry band of fiction writers. 😁
See Dot Smile is on the top of my to read pile! I’m also working my way through a collection of Emerson’s essays and a weird book called Heike’s Void that I don’t even know how to describe.
I spent so long in school (I graduated law school) that I’m permanently on an academic calendar, especially since I’m the primary caretaker of our 4 kids (well our oldest turned 18 and just graduated high school but I’m not willing to face that she’s an adult yet) So, for me the year starts in late August/early September and ends in June. The summer is just glorious interstitial space.