Should You Feel Guilty for Reading Too Much?

Photo by Lacie Slezak on Unsplash

I used to follow a certain lifestyle blogger/social media influencer/NYT Bestselling author/self-proclaimed “guru” on Instagram. Her messages never spoke to me. I joined her hundreds of thousands of other followers, waiting for something to hit me the right way at the right time.

One day something she said finally hit me at the right time, but not in the right way. I unfollowed her immediately, and I never looked back.

“I don’t believe in Mom guilt.”

She wrapped this statement up in a pretty, would-be inspirational post about how women who work toward their dreams should feel empowered, not guilty, when they spend time away from their children. I know some would say her statement was a simple turn of phrase, but the way she said she doesn’t believe in a certain reason for feeling guilty really rubbed me the wrong way.

Guilt is a real, complex emotion. Its existence is not up for debate. For some, guilt is paralyzing, and it’s the reason many people suffer from mental illness and depression.

I’m the mother of two small children and a fledgling writer. Both of these roles give me plenty of fodder for my inner guilt monster. While parenting introduced me to many new reasons for feeling guilty, I was surprised to find that my attempt to write my first novel made me feel guilty about something I’ve never, ever thought twice about:

Reading.

As I struggle to finish the first draft of my young adult novel, I’ve had to untangle my perspective on a lot of different habits and practices. I started to negotiate with myself regarding things as basic as sleep and exercise, arguably two of the most important ingredients to an overall healthy lifestyle.

Writing is weird like that. When the desire to create something strikes, suddenly all of the ways you spend your time are placed under the microscope. If it’s not fueling the creative flame, out it must go. While it didn’t take me long to put sleep and exercise on the list of non-negotiables, I’ve struggled a bit more regarding the time I spend reading.

When I hang out on social media, which is rare after reading both Deep Work and Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport (both of which I’d highly recommend if you want to cultivate a more thoughtful, intentional approach to your digital usage), I’m most likely on Instagram. The writing community on Instagram is as supportive as it is robust. I love it.

That said, there are still things that happen on Instagram that make me question my writing practices. One particular conversation that got in my head related to whether it’s okay to read while drafting, especially first drafting.

Many of my Instagram writer friends, whose opinions I value and work ethics I admire, share that they don’t read novels while drafting their own. Either they don’t have time because they devote every spare moment to writing or they don’t like the influence of other writers’ sentences in their heads while trying to develop their unique writing voice.

Always looking for the magic pill that will save me from myself, I started to wonder if this is what’s wrong with my process.

Am I reading too much?

THIS.

This is what writing does to a person.

It makes her question her sanity, her sleep schedule and her reading habits.

While I know reading — like anything when done without limitation — can be a form of procrastination, I’ve learned that, for me, it’s the best option. Because sometimes a sentence will inspire me or a chapter will help me fix a plot hole or an entire book will supply me with character motivation.

I woke up this week with a sandpaper throat and sinuses resembling the state of our universe .000000001 millionths of a second before the Big Bang. Instead of working on my book, I lit a candle, poured a cup of coffee and finished The Year We Fell From Space by A.S. King.

As I was reading the story, which is about a 12 year-old girl during the year of her parents’ divorce, I didn’t realize I was mentally formulating a paragraph in my own story that’s necessary to showcase my main character’s worldview. It wasn’t until I closed the book, marked it as Read on Goodreads and rated it five stars that I knew why my character thought the way she thought. I knew my character’s parents divorced when she was 12 years-old and I knew it affected her, but I didn’t know exactly how to express this until reading The Year We Fell From Space. And now I do.

Will every book I read while I work on my draft be this impactful?

Nope.

Will it take me ten times longer to write my book because I need to read entire books in order to figure out how to write a paragraph in my own?

Absolutely.

Will I still feel guilty for reading instead of writing, even after writing this post?

Yeah, probably.

Believing in something does not mean you give it power over you. In fact, acknowledging it is often a necessary first step before adjusting for it, questioning it and addressing it head on.

All I’m here to say is that I see you, I hear you, I feel you, and I will never tell you I don’t believe in your reader guilt or your sleeper guilt or your mother guilt or your yoga guilt or your running guilt or your xantham gum guilt or your Netflix guilt.

The existence of your guilt is non-negotiable, regardless of the source.

It’s an emotion, after all, and all of our emotions have something to teach us.

Let’s do something productive with this valuable information, rather than pretend it’s not there.