As I wrote a few weeks ago, I’m trying Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way creativity program. Week 4 has a special little treat: something Cameron calls reading deprivation. When I first skimmed this chapter a couple weeks back, I thought: “okay, I guess we’ll see.” Now that it’s here, I’m like: “What in the actual fuck??”
Of course, Cameron, master that she is of all things to do with creative resistance, anticipates that anyone following the program will freak out a little at this point. After all, a lot of creatives (or wanna-be creatives) are writers, and writers read. (Or at least, they should!). Being told not to read feels at best counter-intuitive and at worst like a punishment.
Cameron isn’t trying to punish her budding artists, but she is trying to challenge us. The challenge seems like a strange one at first. However, this little exercise has made me reflect on the uses of reading in my life and I have to concede, she may be on to something.
First, I’m forced to recognize that I’m doing a lot of reading every day as a way to fill my down time. This reading is usually happening on my phone or computer. I’m reading online news stories, text-heavy social media feeds, and newsletters like this one. When I’m bored or waiting, I find something—anything—to read. This “need” is definitely a reflection of my (and everyone else’s, it seems) declining ability to just sit and do nothing. It feels harder in some undefinable way to just be with your thoughts. Finding something to read means I don’t have to do it for very long. What a relief!
The trouble is that by rapidly opting out of being in my own head, I’m probably accelerating the loss of my tolerance for doing nothing. This doesn’t bode well for the future; will I need to be hooked up to some kind of stimuli every waking moment??
My reading deprivation in this area looks like: taking the news app off my phone; not reading news stories that pop up in my Google app; not looking at Twitter/X; and not reading the newsletters accumulating in a special folder in my inbox.
Second, I have to reflect on the fact that ever since I was a child, I’ve used reading as a way to numb myself when I’m feeling bad. This isn’t the ONLY reason I used to read or read now, but sometimes reading plays a role akin to alcohol or any other substance or practice we might use to zone out rather than feel our feelings.
When I was a kid, I would usually head straight to my room after school and read. It was a way of tuning out and forgetting all the petty (and not so petty) hurts and annoyances of school. I was also endlessly fighting with my mother until my late teens, and reading was a way to numb the pain from these almost-daily interactions.
I still turn to books as a distraction if I’m feeling down, or anxious, or shaken up by something. There are worse coping strategies, I’m sure, but most have the same goal: suppress the bad feelings and take our minds somewhere, anywhere, else.
Most of the time nowadays I don’t need to numb out with books or other things. Reading is genuinely for pleasure and relaxation. Still, I’m aware that even the urge to lie on the couch and read for an afternoon can serve as a way of avoiding doing or trying other things. After all, it requires zero effort to grab my Kobo and burrow under a blanket. Picking up some knitting, or going through photos that need to be put into an album, or hanging art on the walls of our new house: all of these things take more energy and it’s easier to put them off.
Cameron’s edict to stop reading for a week is about pushing you to open that time back up to other things, the things you might be procrastinating on or have just been a bit too lazy to engage in. To try to play along with this challenge, I’m not reading my book during the day and only picking it up to read a few pages right before bed (maybe 15 minutes instead of my usual hour or so). It’s not cold turkey but it’s definitely deprivation.
I have to admit that a remarkable thing happened on the weekend. I had a pretty quiet Sunday afternoon ahead of me. Normally I would have filled a few hours by reading my book. I wasn’t too sure what I was going to do after I finished the laundry and put the sheets back on the bed, what with it being reading deprivation week. My mind wandered as I made up the bed, staring out the window. As I often do, I spun what I was observing into a few sentences in my head as if they were the opening to a novel. The remarkable thing is that after I made the bed, I got my computer and actually typed those few sentences into a document. And then I kept typing, and before I knew it, I’d written 2200 words of something that could possibly, maybe, be a book.
Of course, I have no idea what will become of these words. It doesn’t matter. The point is that I had an “opening” that I might’ve ignored if I’d just grabbed my Kobo and flopped on the freshly-made bed. It seem as though reading deprivation shook the routine up just enough to allow me to do something I wouldn’t have otherwise done.
I’m glad the reading ban is temporary, but I’m also glad I gave it a try. The Artist’s Way may very well have more surprises in store for me, but I wonder if any of them will be as tough as this one!
I can’t share a “what I’m reading” in my reading deprivation week!
What I’m doing when I’m not reading: Writing, adding ideas in all my various Notes files, yoga, listening to music, listening to podcasts.