By Friends,
I picked up a ridiculous five dollar read called Pop Goes the Murder since I don’t get around to many mystery books, especially those with silly titles and funny covers–
I grabbed this in an attempt to humor myself into distraction but it’s not working. I am so overwhelmed by the political climate in the United States that I am really having a hard time doing anything else besides read about it (which I haven’t really been ‘counting pages’ so it’s colossal time sink).
I am wondering if anyone else is struggling to get motivated. I was going to power through today and try to get up to the ~200 page mark for the week, but felt I might as well just fess up!
Will be trying to get it together in the coming days– lots to read, so much freedom in reading–
Open Arts Spring 2023 
Same here. I’m having trouble reading the NY Times editorial page, which I promised I’d do every day, but some days I can’t even bear to look at the front page, let alone read it. I did get close to finishing Black Hole Blues, 85 pages in, but then I had a pile of poetry videos to watch (does that count?) and a few articles to read for the on-going KWH discussion group, The Persona in Performance Poetry (a whirlwind 10 days led by the amazing Lauren Yates). Then I started on a book of short stories, I Brake for Moose by Geeta Kothari–really excellent, intriguing, and somewhat sad. I’m 88 pages into it, which I’m reading on my laptop, not my favorite way to interact with the page, but it makes my backpack a little lighter now that I’m traveling this week. And I’m also reading a book that was given to me last Thursday, a complete surprise: Embalming Mom: Essays in Life by Janet Burroway. A very interesting read, a multi-layered memoir of linked essays lyrically written, even though the title essay is sadly grim, and by an author I’d never heard of. I’m only 50 pages into it, though, so I’m short on my count, too. I’m hoping to pick up the pace this week–I’ve got a long train trip ahead on Sunday, and then a flight home on Monday, so there will certainly be many hours of reading opportunities coming up for me while I am in transit from here to there.
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Good luck, Nadia! Sounds like a very full plate. I am hearing reports of snow on the East Coast, so I wish you good non-eventful travel. I’ll look forward to hearing about your time with Lauren Yates– how exciting!
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Sigh…same here.
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Ditto. Seems like escapism is a common theme for this challenge. We want to be anywhere but here, in this sideshow of horrors.
I’m feeling unmotivated and discouraged too.
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