Not on the ask game you reblogged, but! Do you use a reading journal? Or a writing one? (I have a reading journal, that I keep track of how many words I write in too, but also, most of the journal is for fanfic, and then like. 8 pages for my published novels log, lol. I read, on average, 100 fics a month. I have too much free time tbh). Or, do you have any journals for specific things? Do you use storygraph and/or goodreads? Neither? -rodansey anon.💛💛💛
The short answer is that I don't have a reading journal, nor do I use storygraph/goodreads.
The tl;dr here: When I say that it's hard for me to read, I really mean it - TRC was the first series I'd picked up in [radio static] years. I used to read voraciously as a kid, and then stopped cold. Before TRC, I'd pick up books and if they didn't hook me in the first few chapters, I never went back. I think the only other series that did that for me was the Black Dagger Brotherhood, and even though I loved those, I never got caught up after a certain point.
The same goes for fic; I really have a hard time sitting still for anything that isn't a ficlet or drabble, so I have to get invested right from jump. And even when I do, there's no guarantee that I'll finish it. The even harder thing with fic, especially in series I also write for, if the characterization doesn't hit right, I nope out of it pretty much immediately and never look back. It's honestly really hard for me, because I think it would be fun to just read and read and read - things I like or even things I'm passive about, because reading is a part of soaking up art, it's enrichment and learning. And I just. Can't.
What I do have is not a journal, per se, but I call it that because calling it what it really is causes me to explain the context and I'm usually too tired. I do morning pages, which is a concept from a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It's a book about how to unblock creativity, whatever it is for the individual, and it's intense, challenging. One of the main staples of it is morning pages, 3 handwritten pages every morning and it could literally be anything. During the 12 weeks of the book's lessons, the morning pages are sometimes guided but guess what, I haven't finished that either. So now my morning pages are me basically booting up my brain, getting things out that are bothering me, and brainstorming ideas for fic and original writing. I got the book in 2018 and went back to it on and off since then, but I started up morning pages again basically the day we went on lockdown and have been doing it every day since.
My short list of books I've finished since 2018 include: TRC/TDT, RWRB, and Cemetery Boys. I have a pile of books that I'm looking at right now that have been gathering from a book box since June of last year, plus a couple of others that people have sent or recommended. More often than not, if I'm going to sit still and spend quality time with words, I'd almost always rather it be writing them instead of reading them. T_T
Sorry for the really long answer, Rodansey Anon, but I'm super glad you asked!
