Monday, March 16, 2015

Out of the Slump: My Epic NA Book Binge

Things I have NOT done in the last two months:
  • Watched TV
  • Any housework beyond avoiding health code violations.*
Things I HAVE done:
  • Read over 100 New Adult books.
  • Kept children and pets alive. (The plants...meh.)
  • Thought about 20-something guys' abs. A lot.
My one click finger is going to need physio and I am seriously sleep deprived, but I don't care.

Now, I'm a Middle Grade girl from way back. I've always written MG, and the bulk of what I've read for the past few years is MG and YA. They're what I love and what I know and that will never change, but I was in a major reading slump. I didn't take enough chances: I knew what I liked and I stuck to it. 

Slumpity slump.

When I was in high school I read anything and everything. I'd start the day at Sweet Valley High and go to bed with Anna Karenina. I binged on stories and stayed up too late and didn't care about genre or audience or language. 

I haven't read like that for a long time, but two months ago I fell in love with NA and I didn't look back. (Duh. Like I was taking my eyes off that Kindle.) I read everything I could get my hands on. Some of them were absolutely amazing. Some of them really, um, weren't. I didn't care. I gave them all a chance because this whole NA thing was new, and different, and exactly what I needed. 

Hey, it's hard for writers to read. Books are our entertainment, but they're also our job. We're not just reading for fun: we're looking at the language and the character development and mapping out the pacing in our heads. 

But I haven't been doing (much) of that lately. I've just been devouring stories to the point of giddiness and I honestly haven't been this happy in my reading life for years.

So if you're in a slump I highly recommend trying something new and completely different. If it includes hot hockey players with killer abs then SO MUCH THE BETTER IMHO, but whatever lights your fire, obviously.

And if you want any NA recommendations then just ask! I'll be updating my goodreads soon...but that takes up valuable hockey player abs reading time, and you know how it goes, right?


*Yeah, actually this is just normal.