What is a “Reading Slump?”

Note: This is a space where all readers, of all speeds, all forms, are appreciated and loved. This post is just about my own feelings about my recent reading.

4 books. When I was making my “What I Read” post for a few weeks ago, that’s all I had read. 4 books. For most people, reading four books in a week would be a huge achievement. If you’d asked me a year ago, I would’ve been thrilled to finish four books in a week. In this moment… I felt so let down.

What was wrong with me?

To share a little more, I decided to devote my life and my income to Jayce Reads Romance last fall. Which means, that reading, podcasting, blogging, bookish things are now literally my job. I get to devote hours of my “work” day to reading, and still read for fun after my workday is done. It’s been a dream.

Before this life change, there was no consequence to not finishing a book. It could absolutely wait until the next day. (Not that I didn’t have the odd reading until 3am night too.) Now, when I take a few extra days to finish a book, that mean less content to make and share. It’s fewer books to connect with ya’ll about. It means that my TBR¹ feels a little bit longer.

Back in the fall, I still hadn’t found the best way for me to track my reading. I wasn’t consistent with any app OR my tracking system, which was being used for more than just the books I read, it was a mess. Midway through “Dark December”² I realized my system was flawed and I needed to figure something else out for 2024.

What works best for me, honestly, is a good spreadsheet. Not sexy at all, but we don’t judge here! The best way for me to see patterns and absorb data is by color coding. I have a few different things in place (font choice, color of the row, color coding, etc) that I can go into in a future post. The gist of it is, my new system is working for me.

However, now that I was tracking, I also started judging. I read 23 books in the month of January. Amazing! Wow! Good job, Jayce!!! And when I read 21 in February I was okay with that, because it’s a shorter month. But March and April were tough months mentally for me, and it seemed like the only coping mechanism I turned was reading. I could tell myself “I’m not escaping big feelings! I’m just WORKING!” I read 29 books in March and 30 in April. For some people, this might not indicate any unhealthy behavior, but it was coupled with bouts of insomnia for me, where I didn’t even try to go back to sleep. I would just open up a book and read for 4-5hours until my alarm went off. I also found myself pulling away from people in my life so I could “escape” into my CR.³

May was healing. I got through some big things: my move, my first book conference, and a few other things. I prioritized better sleep habits. I was killing it! And then I had my 4 books read week.⁴ I’d been averaging 5 or 6 a week since I’d been tracking. What a failure! What was I even doing!! Do I even read romance??? (Ya’ll I spiraled so fast.)

If I can be honest, it kind of sucked. And if I can get really honest, I am aware of how silly a spiral like this is.

So what did I do next?

1. I kept reading. I had been feeling a lot of pressure to finish more of the API⁵ books on my physical TBR. I wasn’t loving some of my choices and I didn’t really want to read them right now, I’m more sensitive to my moods now. So, I found a vampire book. Ya’ll, there’s very little in my life that a vampire romance won’t cure. I got excited to get further into the book, and this was an audiobook!!! It reminded me that I do this because I love it, not because I’m the fastest reader.
2. I let that week go. It’s not easy for me to stop a spiral. But with effort, and other coping mechanisms, I brought my mind back to why I love Jayce Reads Romance. Looking forward to Steamy Lit Con, all the authors I’m excited to meet, the book people I get to connect to. It helped me get my positivity back.
3. I reminded myself that my reading goal each month was 24 books. Somehow with the bigger numbers I’d been getting, I’d forgotten that way back in the winter, I made a realistic goal for me of 24 books per month. That does average to a 5-6 book average, but that’s just an average. The goal isn’t MORE than 24 a month. It’s to HIT 24 each month. No need to up my number each month.
4. I read a novella. My ego won with this one. It got one more book on my read list. I won’t lie. It felt good. Sometimes, you just need to feed the beast.

In the weeks since, I’ve been back to 5 other 6 books. It feels like I’m back in the groove. I’ve also been kinder about letting books take a little longer. A soft DNF⁶ if you will, when a book gave me too many feels or hit a really awkward moment.

Am I perfect? No. I’m still using a monthly reading tracker image that has space for 28 books. Part of it is that I’m lazy and it’s what I used last month, but maybe, just maybe, I should adjust to a 24 book image. Perhaps next month. What I do know, is that the next time I have a 4 or 3 book week, I will look at it with a better, healthier perspective.

So ya’ll! Stop judging your reading speeds. Your books read lists. Or anything else related to reading. (That means you, TBR pile!) You’re doing great.

¹ TBR - to be read: a list of books one hopes to read…soon ² If ya’ll didn’t know, I took on dark romance in December to see what all the fuss was about. I read 21 dark romance books that month, so that I could engage in educated conversation with dark romance readers. ³ CR - current read ⁴ I count books that I’ve finished in my WIR (what I read) each week. I may have books started in a previous week, but they get added to the week they are finished. ⁵ API - Asian Pacific Island ⁶ DNF - did not finish