“One doesn’t need magic if one knows enough stories.”
“I was delighted to sit in the corner with my food and a book and speak to no one.”
Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
This past weekend, I participated (loosely) in Dewey’s 24-hour Readathon. The official time was 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Sunday (EST). But I (and various others in the Discord and in the Facebook group) rarely actually stick to the time of the event. My goal, for example, was to simply read a collective 24 hours. I think the Dewey’s team is on to us – instead of hourly challenges, they just listed a handful of challenges to complete “at any time during the readathon.”
I completed no challenges.
I didn’t read a full 24 hours.
I barely remembered to post the picture of the stack I was choosing from (see above) on the group’s social media pages.
I carried on with plans to attend my favorite yearly Halloween party and Spiderdead, brazenly cutting into the hours I would usually set aside on readathon weekends to read.
I finished three books, but only one of them is actually in this stack (Fang Fiction – pretty cute!).
What I got out of the readathon was still pretty magical.
I got to tuck into stories about found families and books and several other favorite themes. I ate good, simple food, so I rested better (weird how that happens) and thus felt more refreshed when the weekend was over (despite it being a “busy” one). I embraced my full homebody self without the usual twinge of guilt about what a person who lives alone should want to do on the weekend.
These twinges are getting smaller and less frequent as I age. One reason for this is that I’m accepting who I am more and becoming less apologetic about it with each passing month. Another reason is that I get so much joy and restoration out of my alone time that there is little to no room left for feeling bad about it.
At any rate, I had a great weekend, and I look forward to many more like it as the season changes.
Reading more makes me want to write more. I’m reflecting on my reading this year.
M. Suzanne Terry 