How To Finish Reading a Book by LA Bourgeois

How To Finish Reading a Book by LA BourgeoisLet’s welcome back LA Bourgeois as she shares with us “How To Finish Reading a Book.” Enjoy!

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Want to read more books but just can’t make yourself do it? Maybe an aspirational list of books from recommended lists from 2022, 2023, 2024?

Perhaps a stack of half-read books, writing craft or some other journaling ones where the first (or second) exercise stumped you and…I SURRENDER! *waves white flag*

Yes? Yes! You are not alone.

Personally, my stack of writing craft, creativity research, and author business books might kill a small animal if it fell on them.

But, I do make progress through my TBR. 

That perilous stack remains high only because I keep adding new books to it. And I feel free to do that because I maintain a reading habit that enables me to finish books on a regular basis.

In this system, reading the whole book is the most important thing.

By reading the whole book, you get a sense of the entirety of the writer’s intent. You discover the points that speak to you, learn tools that can transform your work, find inspirational quotes to hang on your wall or post on your desk. And just by reading the work, the ideas will begin to be integrated into your own writing.

Let’s get started!

Set a Regular Page or Time Goal

Ten pages a day, five days a week tends to be a good goal to start from.

Is ten pages a day too many? Go down to five. Or two. Or one. Or maybe you can do more? How about a chapter a day?

I like ten because I can read ten pages pretty quickly. This amount of pages allows me to dig in just deep enough while not bogging down.

Sometimes I hit the end of a chapter before the ten pages are up.

Great. That’s it for me for the day.

But also, if I have a book with chapters that are longer than ten but less than fifteen pages, I‘ll read the whole chapter if I have the time.

Remember, the number of pages is more of a guideline than a goal. 

Don’t feel like you have to push yourself to read more than the number you set for yourself. You’ve done the work if you’ve read to your goal pages.

Now, maybe setting a page goal doesn’t work for you.

Perhaps you only have a certain amount of time that you can devote to reading, or you’re reading the book in audio form.

In that case, just decide how long you can spend reading each day-ish and do that.

Note the “day-ish” and “five days per week.” This is not an every single day thing.

You want to set a goal for yourself that’s easy to maintain–something that’s so easy that it’s almost easier to do it than to skip it.

Read Straight Through

Most of these books have journaling prompts, exercises, and other ways to engage with the author.

No. Stopping.

Read the book straight through. Don’t allow the exercises and prompts to seduce you. Keep on reading

Which brings me to my final point:

Read With Tools

As you read, write in the margins, underline or highlight quotes, use tape flags or digital bookmarks to mark pages you want to return to, and Keep Reading.

By the time you finish the book, you may have a tome with writing on every page and a forest of tape flags. Or you may have a couple of underlined sentences and a single bookmark.

When you finish the book, you can go back and do the exercises.

You can find that quote on that page that you want to include as an epigraph at the beginning of that chapter.

That prompt on page 142 may actually uncover the key to your novel’s premise.

But you may also find that a book didn’t fulfill its promise. 

That you learned just enough to improve one little part of your writing and, while you’re glad you read it, none of the exercises appealed and you’re ready to let the book go now. It doesn’t even need to stay in your library.

Using this method, I tend to finish a book each month.

The point of this exercise is to read books that we feel like we need to read. For me, that’s often ones on the craft and business of being a writer.

If this sounds like fun and you’d like some accountability and community around this process, you can join us at The Thriving Creative as we read craft books through the year. The January book is You Don’t Need a Budget by Dana Miranda (which is speaks about money in a way that invites creativity).

See you in the reading room!

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ABOUT LA BOURGEOIS

LA BourgeoisLA (as in tra-la-la) Bourgeois is a Kaizen-Muse Certified Creativity Coach and author who helps clients embrace the joy of their creative work and thrive while doing it.

Get more of her creativity ideas and techniques by subscribing to her newsletter at https://subscribepage.io/unlockyourcreativity.

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