A recent article in Literary Hub explored the phenomenon of super-readers, those extra-devoted bookworms who read anywhere from one hundred to several hundred books a year. How do they manage this staggering output? Are they speed-readers? Are they all retired empty-nesters? Where do they find the time?
The author of the piece asked these questions to over a dozen super-readers, defined as those who read a minimum of one hundred books per year (audiobooks not included), making sure to exclude those who read for a living. She whittled down their habits to five recurring patterns, one of which is
They read in the margins of life.
Aside from being quite poetic, I found this method especially interesting because it can also be applied to writing. Most of the people interviewed for the article have full-time jobs and families. They’re able to finish so many books a year partly because they carry books with them and read in fragments of time—in doctors’ offices, on lunch breaks, on the bus, before bed.
Many writers also have full-time jobs and families. They may only be able to finish their books by carrying notebooks with them—jotting down ideas on their lunch breaks, working out plot holes while waiting in lines, drafting a page or two in that quiet slice of morning before work and in the bleary and often bone-tired moments before bed.
Those fragments of time accumulate quickly. Eventually, they’re bound to add up to a whole book—whether that book is being read, or whether it is being written. Like the article points out, “Five minutes count. Ten minutes count. One chapter counts.”
Everything counts.
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