ok i've been working on my book notes repository enough that i'm ready to promise that i'll deploy it on august 11th! i've been working on critical reading guides for it: a general one and then ones tailored specifically to each book i want to cover.
but i also remember how, even just a few years ago, it was SO hard for me to focus on getting through books at all. for like a solid ten years i struggled to read any books outside of what was assigned to me for class. and you know. even then. like my attention span was so shot that i couldn't make it more than a page or two at a time.
over the past four years i've really been working on that by setting incremental goals (10 books a year, then 25, then 50, and now 100). i wanted to share some of the tools & tricks that have been the most effective for me. since i'm constantly asking y'all to read some book or other, it felt like the right thing to do, lol.
if you've been through this process & have anything that really worked for you, feel free to add it in a reblog!
A guide for people who want to read more, but aren't sure how to get there.
this seems really obvious but I'll also say that it is so, so important to read books that you actually want to read. not books that you feel like you should read, but books that are actively engaging and make you want to read more. I'm a huge proponent of reading books that are difficult and uncomfortable and challenging, but that is not going to help much if you're attempting to build your reading stamina from scratch.
if you want to get into reading with les misérables or dense nonfiction because that's what you're into, then that's awesome! more power to you! but also remember that it's fine to read books that have a "lower reading level" than what you feel like you should be reading at. reading middle-grade or young adult fiction can be a great re-entry point if you haven't finished a book in a long time, and there are a lot of good books to be found in those genres even if you're not the target audience. (also good to keep in mind if you're trying to build reading fluency in another language! books aimed at a younger audience are your friend.)
