#i'm not super happy with it but i think that's because i've reread it 70 times

[jankwritten]

hey. hey.

what if i posted the first chapter of hockey au today

[oflights]

allie i've been trying to gather the courage to reread close behind honestly ever since i first read it in march last year but i've been too. emotionally distraught to actually do so but! i've literally thought about it probably twice each week. and now i'm finally actually almost over my ex so i should just bite the bullet but im SCARED bc the last time i cried for 5 hours

like i literally remember 2 am on a weekday in literally -2 C weather and i sat on my balcony, wrapped in a blanket, chain smoking and reading at the same time, tears streaming down my face. all this to say i long for that catharsis but i'm. scared

omg. anon!! first of all it's probably weird how happy this kind of message makes me lol, like yay, i left you emotionally ravaged!!! mission accomplished!!

second of all: just remember the happy ending! read the last chapter first, and keep it in your mind as you read the rest!! think about everything that could come after it, too, like:

harry and draco's first awkward af date in hogsmeade. ron, daphne, their kids, and scorpius all follow them in various disguises courtesy of george and they are very obvious but harry and draco are too into each other to notice.

draco never wears black again. for every date with harry, he wears a different set of brightly-colored, over-the-top robes.

he steals harry's colorful fair isle sweaters all the time, too.

oh and he gets a weasley sweater like, day one of his renewed relationship with harry. molly had actually been knitting him a bunch over the years but held them back because she didn't want to make things weird or upset harry, so there's a backlog to get through. some have a little dragon stitched on them and ron is super jealous.

their first holiday at the burrow? emotional, life-changing, beautiful, cathartic. harry weeps at least five times. ginny punches him for old time's sake.

speaking of, headmaster harry who holds regular office hours for all hogwarts students in case they ever need to talk to him about something. even if they just want to talk about socks.

(headmaster harry who gets all embarrassed whenever anyone calls him "the youngest hogwarts headmaster in a century")

terrifying new DADA professor hermione granger, who is distressingly unpopular amongst the students because they're all too intimidated by her and it takes her a while to learn how to deal with kids.

until she skips out on a hogsmeade weekend to scandalously elope with a much younger former department of mysteries intern and then she's just incredibly cool to them.

and listen. scorpius locks himself in his room when he finds out about harry and draco's past. he asks draco if he'd ever loved astoria and makes draco cry. draco teaches him that the heart is a universe and he doesn't have any regrets and a wonderful future doesn't invalidate a past he was truly happy in.

and then!! there's stepdad harry. my favorite thing. scorpius asks harry how he knew he was gay. harry gives scorpius the invisibility cloak and asks him to help perfect his disillusionment charm in return. scorpius asks harry to rig the house cup for slytherin as his birthday gift. harry refuses, even though draco thinks it's only fair.

harry and draco date, get engaged, get married in their 40s. they go back and forth between hogwarts and the hogsmeade cottage (which includes ron and daphne's fam like 70% of the time too; harry loves summers spent as part of the extended weasley-greengrass-malfoy-potter family). draco eventually retires from curse-breaking and becomes a nepo hire charms professor after scorpius graduates.

they really do live happily ever after, after all that. promise. 😌

[bereft-of-frogs]

friday! 🌿

books:

(in progress) Salvation Day - Kali Wallace: I have started and not finished this book like 4 times. Which is probably a bad sign because I also didn't love the other book by this author I read. I've heard this is better though. But I couldn't pick anything else, officially DNF'd Kill Show, I skimmed a couple pages of the other book I took out of the library and I think I'm too much in A Mood to read it, so I am attempting this again.

(in progress) The Rising Storm - Cavan Scott: Not much to say, chugging along with catching up on the High Republic, extremely slowly. I'm just happy Bell and Indeera are back! Love them.

(finished) The Hobbit: Not my favorite, but I feel like it's good to revisit occasionally. Still hilarious when Tolkien kind of slips into that super epic fantasy voice, and then goes right back into 'kids adventure' tone

(in progress) The Silmarillion: Ngl, part of this reread is fueled by that person on the 'have you read this fantasy book' who for some reason didn't believe that 300 people (based on the results at the time of their comment) read The Silmarillion and accused us all of lying for clout. (which like...clout? what clout? why would I lie about this?) So I'm reading it again.

tv:

Constellations (AppleTV+): I LOVE this. LOVE it. I mean I'm always a sucker for space ghosts so that was a given, but this is really fun. The lost cosmonaut stuff, communicating through tapes, the fairy tale like elements. I love it Also my toxic trait is basically any multiverse thing I judge based on whether or not I think it could be a branch of The OA's multiverse tree and this passes that test, you can easily imagine Brit Marling and Jason Issacs chasing each other around the universes just off-screen. I only have one episode left, really interested to see where things are going (still wondering who the 'ghost' who appeared when the Soyuz disengaged from the ISS was, I have a Theory, but I'm not sure yet). Also bonus point for having some absolutely genuinely creepy scenes. I am so desensitized, it's always really fun when something manages to unsettle me.

You (Netflix): Trash fave, this is my current 'while I'm cooking/eating dinner' show, it's so cheesy but I love it. I never watched the latest season but revisiting season 1 is fun.

Under the Bridge (Hulu): Yeah so episode 1 I was like 'oh old friends? that would be hot. they'll never do it' and then episode 3 was like 'yeah they're *old friends* *wink* *they make out*' and I was like OH OK.

film:

They Cloned Tyrone (2023): I love movies where at the climax everything seems to go wrong and then it rewinds and shows you how it's really all going according to plan. Also, this was brilliant for the plan basically revolving around the villains seeing what they wanted to see, and the protagonists playing into that. And it recreated the vibe of those 70s exploitation films so well.

Palm Springs (2020): This kept appearing on 'what time loop media is your favorite' polls so I thought I'd rewatch it. Still SUCH a fun time loop movie. I did vote for it in both polls, despite the second also having 'that one episode of supernatural' as a possibility.

The Grudge (2019): ABYSMAL. Like truly terrible. I'm not saying the original US remakes were good, but they do have a special place in my heart because they were some of the first movies to really scare me. And also I thought maybe this wouldn't be so bad, I liked the Netflix Ju-On: Origins series that came out in 2020 fine despite it not getting very good reviews. But no. In this case, the reviews were correct, this was awful. In the running for the worst movie of the year and it's barely May.

The Stranger (2020): Maika Monroe has such a weird typecasting haha but I don't hate it. I learned that this was apparently supposed to be a Quibi series and was stitched back together after the fall of Quibi. It probably would have been more effective as short form content. I probably would have ate it up. But as a film it just felt like 'ok wtf is going on'.

to do:

work day: I'm hoping to get through my tasks fast so I can write on the clock. ('doesn't that mean you should be doing them and not making this post?' SILENCE.)

oh man so much writing because I set myself a deadline so now. there's that. well ok it is self-imposed and if things do go catastrophically wrong, I can JUST post the first chapter. That's for sure ready. ideally though: finish the last 2.5 chapters this weekend -> resolve comments (most of which are just 'come up with secondary character name', 'check spelling on wiki', but there is one I know I have to be clever for which...we'll see how clever I can be) -> full read-through. I'll eventually (sooner rather than later) have to rewrite the action sequences of chapter 9, but I think that should be enough to make me feel like I can start weekly posting.

I might go to my favorite thrift store tomorrow to look for some 'person who cares about their job' dresses/blouses/idk for annual corporate socializing event week

Star Wars day! lol remember how exactly a year ago I was like 'idk man, it's star wars day but I'm really not feeling it' and then had to eat my words like literally less than two weeks later? that was funny. cheers to that. Meeting my dad and brother at the movie theater and then we're going out for pizza just like it's 1999 (ok my brother was not actually there in 1999 because he was 4, but we welcome him to the nostalgia trip)

the monthly Big Clean (aka I fell behind on recycling so I have to take a lot down to the recycling bins, and the vacuum and mop are coming out)

pretend to care about my job for 3 days. Ok, no, I do care about my job in that I actually do like it and I want to do a good job, I just don't really care about like...*the company*. but I will get a lot of free food and probably wine if I pretend to care about the company for 3 days. so. fair exchange.

[hydr0logicoutlook]

How many books did you read this year? not sure, I didn't keep track until like october unfortunately. But 70+

Did you reread anything? What? I reread Lirael/Sabriel/Abhorsen by Garth Nix which I've read like 4 or 5 times. my favorite YA fantasy of all time

What were your top five books of the year? Top 17 in no particular order:

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepnzna-Samarasinha The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner Briefly, a Delicious Life by Nell Stevens The Electricity of Every Living Thing by Katherine May The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Matthews Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner Old Enough by Haley Jakobson Chlorine by Jade Song The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz Love by Toni Morrison

Did you discover any new authors that you love this year? Yes I read two books by Ruth Ozeki and loved both. I also got more into David Graeber, I read Debt and Bullshit Jobs at the end of last year and really enjoyed The Dawn of Everything this year.

What genre did you read the most of? Hard to say since again I didn't keep track of everything and I haven't used goodreads in a couple years lol bc its owned by amazon but I would say leftist/leftist leaning nonfiction, contemporary fiction written by women and queer people, and fantasy/magical realism.

Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to? So much lol. But the oldest books on my tbr are No Touching by Ketty Rouf, Nature is a Human Right by Ellen Miles, Overtime by Will Stronge and Kyle Lewis, Ecrits by Jacques Lacan, and New Animal by Ella Baxter

Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones? Did not have any but I read way more than I have since I was in high school so I'm so happy about that!

Did you get into any new genres? I hadn't read a lot of magical realism (non heavy fantasy) that I'd really enjoyed before.

What was your favorite new release of the year? The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton, Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, or All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Matthews

What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read? Geek Love by Katherine Dunn I think was the oldest book I read this year that I really liked. Or People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn is also a strong contender. Or Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors by Susan Sontag. Or Love by Toni Morrison.

Any books that disappointed you? While I really enjoyed Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and I would recommend it, I do think it has been somewhat overhyped and failed to live up to my expectations in some respects. I also did not enjoy Venco by Cherie Dimaline as much as I wanted to, given the premise is like a perfect intersection of things I enjoy in books. Try Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson instead, or the Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix for similar vibes but way more enjoyable.

What were your least favorite books of the year? I usually DNF books I don't like so hard to say for sure. Milk Fed by Melissa Broder was really not my vibe. I wasn't really surprised because I couldn't stand her previous book about the mermaid(?) but I did like her So Sad Today stuff. I also liked Norwegian Wood exactly as much as I was expecting to, which was, not very much. I've also decided I don't really enjoy reading short story collections.

What books do you want to finish before the year is over? I am currently reading My Tiny Life by Julian Dibbel and Fossil Capital by Andreas Malm, both of which are very dense and I have kind of been sloughing through. Both are super interesting though so hopefully I finish them by the end of the month instead of just reading fiction which I read way faster.

Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them? I just looked at the lists for all the awards listed here and literally the only book I read was Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldor which was nominated for best novel at this years Hugo awards LOL. I added some other ones to my tbr though. I thought it was fun but nothing incredible! I'll read the sequels (my standard of quality for fantasy is a lot lower than other genres lol)

What is the most over-hyped book you read this year? Def Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin even though it WAS really good!

Did any books surprise you with how good they were? Yes I was not expecting to enjoy Pageboy by Elliot Page as much as I did! Really well done celebrity memoir. Also I was worried that Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz would just be about stuff I already knew but it was actually super interesting and went down a bunch of rabbit holes I didn't know a ton about and had great analysis.

How many books did you buy? Way too many. But mostly very cheap on Thriftbooks!

Did you use your library? Oh boy, you wouldn't even believe.

What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations? I was very excited for README.txt by Chelsea Manning and it did not disappoint (yes it came out in 2022 but I took a second to get to it okay). I also had The Free People's Village by Sim Kern on hold way before it came out and I really enjoyed it!

Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama? no lmao. i watched a couple youtube videos about tiktok book drama and it was the stupidest shit ive ever seen

What’s the longest book you read? Probably Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez. I did listen to it on audio which is the only way I am really able to get through books that long. The longest book I read with my eyes was probably The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki.

What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book? This is a silly question bc I read some pretty short books. Several books under two hundred pages only took me a few hours.

Did you DNF anything? Why? so much stuff i can't even explain

What reading goals do you have for next year? Keep reading at the pace I am now! and hopefully keep track of the books this time, but not feel pressured to share about books im reading if I don't want to

[books-on-the-brain]

So I used to read a whole bunch, but then I took a small break so that I could have an actual social life. Now I'm trying to get back into it but I've tried to... I just can't get into it. Do you have any suggestions of what I could do to get back into wanting to read more?

bI relate to this SO. MUCH. It’s always hard to find a good reading/life balance, since reading can often be a very isolating activity. It’s also really difficult around this time of year for younger readers, too, since a lot of us are getting back into the swing of it with school and such and find that we have much less time to be reading what we want. So without further ado…

How I cure “reader’s block”/being in a book rut!!!

1) First of all, there’s literally no shame in reading something because it’s short and you know you can get through it, or reading something you might consider a “beach read.��� If it’s less daunting for you to pick up a 70-page romance novella than Tolstoy that is perfectly!!! okay!!! What matters is that you’re still reading and it’s making you happy, not that you have gained all the answers to the universe by reading a dry and endless classic.

2) Another good option is to reread something you know you really love/want to revisit. I find it’s typically easier to read something for the second or third time and if it’s been a while, then you’ll still be surprised by little things here and there and get the warm nostalgia fuzzies. For me, one of my old favorites to revisit is Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I always read it at the beginning of the summer when I’m switching from all academic reading to personal reading (f i n a l l y) because I’m familiar enough with the story that it goes pretty quickly, but I still really love it.

3) In a similar vein, I find it really fun when I don’t want to sit down and read seriously to go back to some of my old favorites from childhood! For example, I loved the Deltora books by Emily Rodda when I was a kid and had some fun the other day going back through some of them and reminiscing. It has the potential to remind you of your love for stories and also in my case, it reminded my why I fell in love with fantasy at a young age and why I’m still so passionate about it! Reading children’s/middle grade/YA books is always acceptable and so much fun at any age.

4) This Barnes and Noble Reader article also suggests reading about books if you can’t actually read a book. As they explain it, find book blogs (like those on tumblr!) that speak to your interests and get you excited about picking up books. Other people’s enthusiasm goes a long way in encouraging you to also pick up a book to read!

5) If you can, find other avid readers and friends who you feel comfortable sitting in silence with! One of my favorite memories ever is sitting on my friend’s back porch and trading the books of the KARE First Love manga series back and forth. We played peaceful music in the background and so we were spending time as friends AND getting reading done. This lead us to discuss our favorite scenes and how we felt about certain translations (literally just because we like how to guy asked the main girl out in the online scantalation better than the printed book rip). But we ended up really getting into this series that in all honesty is kind of silly (despite the soft spot I have in my heart for it) and we joke about it all the time. Reading and socializing in one!

6) And speaking of manga…it’s always a great bridge for getting back into reading when it’s been a while, as are graphic novels! If you haven’t ever tried manga or graphic novels and don’t think it’s your rap at least give them a chance! I thought I hated them until I read Fullmetal Alchemist and fell in l o v e! You’re getting a story and doing some reading, but the pictures really help to ease you in so that you’re not necessarily devoting the same attention that you would be with a novel that’s just pages of text. As such, each volume is pretty quick depending on how long you linger on the drawings. If you already do love manga/graphic novels, then try picking up a new series you’ve been interesting in or rereading a series you already know you like!

Here are some graphic novel recommendations!

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson (a story that does a fun take on the idea of the “bad guy” - it actually gave me way more feels than expected, and I loved the art style)

The new Ms. Marvel series written by G. Willow Wilson and illustrated by Adrian Alphona (so do not confuse this with the old Ms. Marvel, this one is better in my opinion because our hero is your average teenage Muslim girl living in Jersey City and it’s refreshing, amazing, adds diversity to the typically white/male dominated world of superheroes, and I am unabashedly in love with one of the main characters, Bruno)

Umbrella Academy written by Gerard Way and illustrated by Gabriel Ba (this does another more twisted/dark take on the idea of the superhero story, if that’s something more up your alley. It’s the first book of a series I’ve really been loving lately, plus I trust Gerard Way’s taste in comics unequivocally and he wrote it so that’s a yes in my book!)

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (the intertwining stories of an American-Chinese boy trying to figure out his place in the world and the Monkey King of Chinese fable)

I did not include a special section for manga recommendations because most of what I read is probably not the sort of stuff to dive into after having reader’s block. Overall, the realm of shoujo might be a good place to look (things like Skip Beat!, Blue Spring Ride, Fruits Basket, and Kimi ni Todoke. Ouran High School Host Club and Dengeki Daisy were ones I really enjoyed too.)I also recently read Orange which is a fairly short series and easy to read - I loved it but major depression/suicide/mental illness tws there.In terms of shonen, Hunter x Hunter would be a good one because not only is it amazing, but it’s broken up into shorter yet very distinct story arcs which I feel would be easier if you’re trying to get back into reading. If someone has some more recs tho, please add!

7) Another variation of manga/graphic novels is online webtoons, which are basically digitized comics. I have recently discovered them and think they’re the best. things. ever. If you’re like me and you have a horrible habit of lying in bed scrolling absently through your phone before going to bed and after waking up, this might be good for you. I have slowly been replacing my mindless Facebook scrolling with scrolling through webtoons, which has been so amazing for my mental health! My favorite app is literally just called Webtoon or maybe Line Webtoon (the icon in the app store is a green speech bubble that says “Webtoon”).

For most webtoons, chapters are generally pretty short so it doesn’t take a lot of focus but once again, you’re still reading, and you’re still getting a good story, all while laying fetal position like you might while scrolling through Facebook or texting people before bed. Not to mention you’re supporting amazingly talented artists/individuals who are oftentimes not published and doing this for fun or with the hopes of eventually being published, so you can say you followed them from the start! Also since they update only a few times a week, it gives you something to look forward to on random days.

Here are my favorite story-oriented webtoons currently:

Assassin Roommate by Monica Gallagher. Super cute and quirky romance with a great female lead, also really great in terms of body diversity, and LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON I LOOK FORWARD TO TUESDAYS, THE DREADFUL DAY AFTER MONDAY

My Dear Cold-Blooded King by limelight. Just started this but it seems pretty cool??? The author has paired up with a musician so all the chapters have music which is lit af if I do say so myself

Silk and Briar by paragoing-paragon. I think this is on hiatus but it’s shaping up to be a brilliantly-constructed fantasy story with some crazy twists and turns

instantmiso’s stuff is also really popular (Where Tangents Meet and Siren’s Lament). It’s not as much up my alley as it is pretty fluffy romance and I’m not crazy about the writing, but she is an incredibly talented artist and has great music with her chapters. Her stuff is super good for an easy read without a ton of brain power/commitment, but I say that with immense respect for her talent and abilities! 

Cheese in the Trap by soonkki. This was also made into a K-Drama so I read the series and threw a little watch-party with some of my friends from my Korean class! Super good series and another great way to enjoy reading AND be social!

Here are the webtoons that are more “Sunday newspaper funnies”               style, where each chapter is a mini story:

Bluechair by Shen (this is WILDLY popular and I totally see why!!! These are hilarious and have cheered me up on many a rough night!!!)

Sapphie: The One-Eyed Cat by joho (feel-good, cute comic about cats that’s also pretty funny. I shamelessly read like a hundred chapters in one sitting.)

If none of this is appealing to you, there is always the audio option! If the actual act of your eyes scanning the page is difficult because you can’t focus on anything, there are a lot of options in this realm!

8) Local libraries usually have an audiobook section that is deeply neglected, but holds some secret treasures! Whenever I go on roadtrips, I always pick up two or three before I head out. They’re also perfect for when you do mindless tasks like sorting/folding laundry, walking a dog if you have one, waiting in long lines, or on your commute to and from school or work or any other similar activities. 

What’s cool is you can search for audiobooks based both on books you actually want to read, and whoever is narrating it. I know Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz had a super popular audiobook because Lin Manuel Miranda narrated it. If you want to pay, Audible is one of the most popular paid platforms for audiobooks. I haven’t personally used it, but it seems to be quite successful. One way or another, audiobooks are a good way to get back into reading without having to budget extra time to sit down with a book.

9) Podcasts can also help if you haven’t already explored those and are open to! Not all podcasts are TED talks, or political debates, or generally academic, or whatever they are stereotyped as. There are a ton that feel just like audiobooks, or at the very least like a play without any visuals. There’s a script and there’s a story and I know it’s helped me ease back into a mindset that preps me for reading because much like audiobooks you can listen to them all the time (I do so while cooking dinner and walking to classes) and it helps your mind switch from reality to the world of a story with relative ease if that makes sense. I’m pretty new to podcasts myself so don’t have a ton to recommend, but here’s what I’ve been enjoying….

Podcasts to look into:

Anything written by Mac Rogers. That includes The Message, Afterlife, and Steal the Stars. Personally, I like Steal the Stars and The Message more that Afterlife. They’re all sci-fi stories that are generally told from one perspective but you get to know amazing characters and I was not expecting the twists and turns. And Steal the Stars is still coming out so jump on the bandwagon now lol

The Adventure Zone from Justin, Travis and Griffin McElroy at My Brother, My Brother and Me (another podcast which I have not listened to). The Adventure Zone is actually them playing Dungeons and Dragons, but they’re funny as all get out (the last place I lived had a communal kitchen for dozens of people and I was always laughing like and idiot while listening to this and making dinner and I’m pretty sure everyone thought I was nuts). Eventually the Dungeon Master gets super into the story telling and they script some of it with cool music. It’s really amazing and has a nice balance between story/characters but also the element of “real people” as they’re a bunch of brothers and they’re dad all just having fun. It’s a good bridge to getting back into reading.

Welcome to Nightvale is always a classic. It’s a bit trippy for me but tons of people enjoy it. The same team also produced a podcast called Alice Isn’t Dead. I honestly know nothing about it but one of my friends always raves about it, so it has his vote!

10) And okay so here’s my last suggestion. It might feel like a bit of a cop-out because I guess it kind of is, but it often works for me. So here it is. Sometimes it just helps to sit down and remember why you like to read in the first place. The fact that you’re actively trying to get back into it isn’t meaningless. It’s a very willful decision. So what is driving you? Maybe it’s because…

reading is an escape or a way for you to cope with difficult things in your life. This can be anything from mental illness, to school/work stress, to relationship dissatisfaction, difficult family or economic situations. Maybe you just are bored of our planet earth. Sometimes you might just need to be transported into another world for whatever reason and that is totally okay.

or reading inspires you to live your best life. Maybe there’s some character in a book you love that you look up to and aspire to be. Remember that passion you had when you were first getting to know that character, and that sense of being understood or finding a role model. Maybe you want to go on an adventure as wild as that character went on and that’s your idea of living your best life. Whatever the reason is, this sort of inspiration is a powerful emotion that books make us feel and sometimes that’s also a good reason to reread a book that’s inspired you.

and I don’t know, maybe you’re a writer yourself and you draw inspiration from reading in that sense. The more you read, the more you learn about what sort of writing you like and don’t like, and you grow stronger in your craft. Good readers help make good writers (but also don’t take that to mean that if you happen to be a writer and you’ve been in a book rut for a long time that you own skills are waning. we all get in book ruts and that’s okay. maybe it’s time to seek out a new source of inspiration in a different genre or new writer)

or perhaps you simply love stories. Maybe you breathe stories like other people breathe air and you can’t imagine that side of you not existing. If you’re one of these people, that makes reader’s block twice as hard. But that doesn’t mean that if you’re not turning pages that you’re not absorbing stories. Take it slowly and ease back into it with things I already mentioned like podcasts and webtoons.

One way or another, you’ll find your way back. Maybe this post will spark something. Maybe it won’t, and it will take another few months for you to really feel gungho about reading again. That’s all okay. Take your time. Enjoy being with friends and other activities. Do what’s healthiest and what works best for you. And eventually you’ll get back to reading a ton. However it happens, I wish you the best of luck!