At last, I’ve got some blogging time on my hands, so I thought I’d take a “3 R’s” approach to a post about why there hasn’t been much posting on The 3 R’s lately.
Reading
Despite appearances to the contrary, I’m reading pretty steadily–it’s just not necessarily showing up in reviews here (or in comments on your blogs!). My “moonlighting” gig with Shelf Awareness means that they get the reviews for the books they provide to me; I’m allowed to cross-post them here, but not until after they’ve been published there–or SA decides not to publish them, for one reason or another (unrelated to review quality, our editor assures us), and releases reviewers to post them on our personal sites. In any case, there’s a few weeks’ lead time before those reviews can show up here, and I don’t feel I can say much about those books beforehand; I don’t even take them out of my LibraryThing TBR collection until the reviews go up. (Therefore, my “2011 Review” count on LT is currently understated by three.)
The SA reading is a side job that’s claimed more of my reading time than I thought it would, and I’m still learning to manage the time commitment. It really is nice to be paid for reading, and I’m appreciating the exposure to books I don’t think I’d have found on my own, but it’s been a real challenge to make space to read books I have found on my own.
‘Riting
There’s some overlap with the Reading stuff here, obviously (writing for places that aren’t this blog), but the time crunch takes a slightly different form. I’ve been in the habit of doing much of my writing during lunches and slow times at the office (no worse than wandering around chit-chatting, if you ask me, and better than spending my evenings glued to the computer, if you ask me and my husband)–and there just haven’t been as many of those slow times lately, as we’re in the midst of a few major projects and changes. I’ve got plenty of notes and clippings regarding things I want to write about, but not much opportunity–or, sometimes, to be honest, mental energy–to develop them. (Therefore, you end up with posts like this one.)
Going for more than a few days at a stretch without writing makes me feel both restless and aimless, and I don’t care much for either one of those feelings.
Randomness
Discovering that I am capable of “reading” and enjoying audiobooks could help with the whole reading-time-crunch thing, but lately I’ve been listening to podcasts in the car instead of books; most of those are pop–culture related, but a couple of them are bookish! (And there’s one sports podcast I listen to, but only when my son is on it.) Podcasts are an even newer-to-me thing than audiobooks, but once I get up to date on those I think I’ll hit the books again. However, since I’m now the official school chauffeur for my stepson (his new school is between home and my workplace, while his dad’s job is in the opposite direction), there are times when the presence of (almost) 12-year-old ears makes listening to either podcasts or books a questionable proposition.
The 24-Hour Readathon this weekend would help too, but I’m not participating this time; tomorrow is my wedding anniversary, and my mother-in-law is visiting for the weekend. Something bookish is supposed to happen on Saturday, though–Tall Paul and I decided that our anniversary gift to each other would be a lovely new cabinet to store books in, and it’s supposed to be delivered on the 22nd. (Yes, I’ll show and tell after it arrives!)
I’m taking a week off from work starting next Wednesday, and I intend to spend some of that time reading and writing as well. Not all of it, though; my husband and my sister have birthdays to be celebrated, I have a couple of blogger events to attend, and we’re participating in the Thousand Oaks “Walk to End Alzheimer’s” next Saturday, October 29. Speaking of the Walk, I’d like to thank my readers Kay, Kim, and Stacy (edited to add: and Mike) for their generous donations to our Walk team!
Sometimes I can use a lot of words and not say much, but it feels good to do that–and to be here. Now, tell me something that’s been going on with you!
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