Sunday Salon: Another year older, another book unfinished... | The 3 R's: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness

I wasn’t in the Salon last Sunday because I was celebrating Birthday Weekend at WonderCon Anaheim. Here’s one of my favorite photos from the event.

WonderCon 2013, photo by Paul Vasquez www.3rsblog.com

Eat your hearts out, fangirls! (Well, no, don’t really. Sadly, these are NOT the genuine article.)

The week after Birthday Week has not been one of the most productive of my reading life. I’d like to say that’s because of extended and prolonged celebrations, but sadly, it’s mostly been due to work. I think I have four books, not counting audios, in various stages of reading progress right now, and two reviews that need to be written before I forget what to say. I’m hoping to get them done this weekend, but so far, I haven’t gotten any further than “hoping to get them done.”

The “good news/bad news” about the untimely reviews is that neither of them is for pay, or on a deadline that isn’t self-imposed. In fact, I won’t have any reviews like that for the next couple of months. This week, I very reluctantly requested a hiatus from my Shelf Awareness reviewing until things slow down at the day job, where it’ll be one deadline after another through next month. Since freelancing is not how I earn my living–someday, maybe, but not now–I can accept redirecting that time to the work that actually pays the bills around here…but I don’t have to like it. That said, I’ll admit that taking those review responsibilities off my plate–for now–has reduced my stress level a bit, so it was probably the right call. Sigh.

I do still have some “scheduled” reading plans this month, but the sense of deadline pressure is much less. I have an online-book-club read for next month’s discussion–my first with this group–but with just over 300 pages to be finished by the beginning of May, I’m not feeling overwhelmed by that one.

And I’m excited about #readchabon, the read-along of Michael Chabon’s

Telegraph Avenue that I’m co-hosting with Kim. It’s pretty informal–there’s no sign-up or posting requirements–but if you’d like to read and talk about the novel with us, we’ll be reading roughly 125 pages a week and having check-in discussions here on this schedule:

April 15: Section I (through page 124)
April 22: Sections II and III (through page 250)
April 29: Section IV (through page 381)
May 7: Section V (through page 465)

We’ll also be talking about Telegraph Avenue on Twitter as the mood strikes–hence the hashtag, “#readchabon”–so you can jump into the conversation there, too.

Since this is a relatively relaxed approach to “deadline reading,” I’m hoping it’ll leave me some time to deal with all those reads-in-progress (before I end up with another Historian on my hands). I don’t know how it is for you, but for me, getting things done–including getting books finished–tends to be one of the most effective ways to lower my stress level. Also a good stress reducer: reminiscing with another favorite photo from WonderCon.