Confession time: I am a phony. The number of books I have bought over the past seven months far outweighs the number I have actually read. As I sit here at my desk, I can see the pile of novels accumulating on my bookshelf, growing bigger every day. I look down at myself and think, “Bigger and bigger, just like me.”
I knew my experience with pregnancy in my thirties would be different from when I had my two oldest children. I am not in my early twenties anymore. The nausea, acid reflux, heartburn, and round ligament pain were all disappointing new symptoms I never had my first times around, but thankfully, after spending the past few months trying to survive my first two trimesters, most of those symptoms finally eased
In March, I returned to my writing and my blog. I had made it out of the second trimester and into the final stretch of growing this child. I was feeling great. And then the exhaustion hit me like a bus. I couldn’t read, write, concentrate, or think without my mind wandering or falling asleep. I wish someone had told me that pregnancy could feel like one giant reader’s block!
I started looking for ways to stay present with my work, even if my focus doesn’t feel like it belongs to me anymore. I didn’t want to disappear into another hiatus – not again, and certainly not so soon after returning from one. I’ve never been a DNFer, and my old college professor can attest that I’m not usually short on words, but I was in new territory and needed to stay afloat without putting unnecessary pressure on myself. My blog was something I started for joy and mental stimulation, and I wanted to maintain that without it turning into another weight to carry. I am happy to say that I believe I have found a balance that works.
Shorter books
The books I typically read are, on average – and entirely by coincidence – about 450–500 pages long. While this is normally very manageable for me, I have found that with my current exhaustion, it takes me a bit longer than my usual one to two days to finish a book of this length. So I have actively sought out shorter ones, and it has been surprisingly eye-opening for me. To read a shorter novel and realize it still contains as many elements, and sometimes even more, packed into half the length of what I would typically read – without sounding or feeling rushed – has been incredibly interesting and refreshing. Through this, I have learned that narrative density is not dependent on page count. Additionally, I’ve been pleased to find that I can still access a wide range of shorter works, from classics like C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters (1942) to more modern literature like Bobby Hall (a.k.a. Logic)’s Supermarket (2019).
DNF ❌ Attempt later ✅
I do not identify as someone with a DNF pile. In my entire life as a reader, I have only ever put down one book with no intention of finishing it. As someone who can sit with a book and see more than just the story it holds, I always find something to appreciate, even in the most difficult reads. Still, finishing books during pregnancy has been harder for me recently. As a proud “book finisher,” I have found that creating an “attempt later” pile rather than a DNF pile is much less stressful. It allows me to temporarily say no to a book without feeling any guilt. I have also started using this approach with my blog posts, and I’ve found that I am still able to return to both books and writing later – when I feel better, when my mind is clearer, and when the pressure is off – so I can simply enjoy taking in the words on the page, or pouring them out myself. This has helped me stay consistent, without the pressure of forcing a rigid posting schedule that doesn’t fit my current season of life.
Exploring unfamiliar genres
One of my original approaches to staying productive was to read old favorites, but I have found that the opposite has been particularly stimulating for my mind. While I can read anything that is written well (subtle shade to my one DNF book), I would say I do have a preference when it comes to personal taste. However, I have picked up some recommendations from my husband – lover of all things fantastical, dragons, and sci-fi – and discovered that although my energy is down, my curiosity certainly is not. I went into some of these books expecting to lose interest quickly, only to find myself invested in worlds I would have normally overlooked. And when sleepiness tries to win, my natural curiosity about what happens next in the story pushes back. I have enjoyed picking up books I wouldn’t normally choose for myself. It has reinforced the subjectivity of good literature, as well as the cold, hard fact that no one person can ever truly read everything there is to read.
Floating between projects
Just as reader’s block has been a struggle, so too has writer’s block. My “to be written” pile is as long as my “to be read” pile. It has not been uncommon for me to sit at my laptop looking at an empty document, full of inspiration, yet unable to get anything out. This put a real damper on my original posting schedule, which I have since realized was actually extremely ambitious to begin with. So, I sat down, got honest with myself, examined my current stage of life alongside my natural flow of creativity, and restructured my schedule into something more achievable and realistic. I allotted myself a more flexible amount of time to read and write, and discovered that having the freedom to move between posts has been particularly effective in minimizing stress. Rather than forcing myself to commit to writing and finishing one post before moving on, I have kept multiple projects open at the same time. By working on several things in small increments, I have sometimes found myself finishing multiple pieces at once. And while working on more than one post, the ideas in one often spark ideas that work well in another, or even lead to entirely new directions I had not originally considered. Building this small catalog of ready-to-post articles has been central to preparing for the arrival of my baby. It has allowed me to maintain a backlog of scheduled content, which I hope will help me stay consistent when I inevitably take a short recovery break after giving birth. This way, readers can continue to receive new content on schedule, and I can have peace of mind knowing I am free to focus on my new baby without feeling pulled back to my laptop.
If there is one piece of advice I would want to leave here, it would be to wake up every morning expecting to learn something and expecting to change. The only thing consistent about life is that it is not consistent at all. People are always evolving, growing, and becoming something slightly different than they were before, whether we notice it or not. I wake up every morning expecting to learn something new about my husband, and I spend every day watching my children grow and change in ways that remind me how quickly time moves. And in the middle of all of that, I do my best to not forget that I am changing too.
So if there is anything that being pregnant again ten years after carrying my first child has taught me, it is to treat everything as if I were doing it for the first time. That perspective has shown me there is still so much to learn about my life and myself that I did not know before. And when it comes to reader’s block and writer’s block, I am learning not to measure my connection by how quickly I can finish or produce something, but simply by whether I am still connected to it at all.
With growing bookshelves (and belly)!
Paige Turner
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