Dyslexia: Setting A Goal & Achieving It

This year, I set myself a goal. If it wasn’t apparent enough through reviews and editorials, the title here today should tell you that it was to do with reading/books. To some, it was a goal that pales in comparison to their favorite Bookstagramer or BookTuber, and I get that. I look at those insane people with their 200-400 book targets and think there just isn’t enough time on the planet for that kind of sitting down. Instead, my goal wasn’t even something I set out at the start of the year, and I think only now I am putting the exact number into stone.

The concept of the goal developed sometime earlier in the year, of course, but I kept the number relatively moderate and the exact number quiet for two reasons. Firstly, I didn’t want to rely on others applying pressure to achieve it. Secondly, I didn’t want to make it impossible, the goal had to be attainable and not something that was going to impact other aspects of life. You may have realized a few things if you’ve stuck around here and particularly for my articles, I write a lot and I am dyslexic. The former means I’m eating into time I could read, and the latter has this thing when I am forced to read large amounts that turns it into a trial of endurance and mental health. I don’t know how many times I’ve metaphorically kicked myself for simple misreadings or mistakes.

Though this wasn’t the first time I’ve gone full-swing into something like this. There was a time back in 2013-2014(-ish) when I’d gotten into a run of listening to audiobooks. They are great if you are able to multitask on something, like playing a game that isn’t story-heavy. That time, in particular, was filled with Stephen King’s historical time-travel fiction novel about the Kennedy Assassination, 11/22/63. From there, I spent a couple of weeks listening to: The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, The Shining, Carrie, and Under the Dome. In basic terms, King is an easily accessible author and it is easy to be familiar with his work, making him a comforting position to start.

The trouble there was simple, I didn’t have many other options after that. As time went on, interest and time to read tapered off chances of keeping up the momentum. Back then, I wasn’t even thinking of a goal to hit. I was just playing catch up to several references I already knew half-heartedly. As I’ve said before somewhere in the mountain of over 1000 articles, I was being spoon-fed the nonsense about Harold Potter, the ginge, and the weird one. If not that, then it was medieval Hunger Games with breasticles and short men or Nineteen Eighty-Four in a fantasy land with short men that have hairy feet and follow a gay bloke about the place. None of which I had an interest in, and I continue not to despite pressure.

Why am I talking about this? When you are a kid, you aren’t shown your limitless choices and the possibilities of books. You are curtailed into the obvious child-friendly stories for fear schools will be called too political, or parents will say something is inappropriate. I don’t know what world you live in, but the kids of today have Twitter, YouTube, and everything else to feed them uncontrolled tripe that is created to frighten the bejesus out of them. Giving teens decent parenting and books that are considered “adult” when you want them to act like adults despite you treating them like kids, might snap them out of that angry rebellious phase. They aren’t stupid, they know what you are hiding, you probably did at that age too.

Once you’ve opened that door of possibilities and showed the potential of everything out there, it is open season. It can dispel the idea that every book from here to Christendom is fantasy-ladened nonsense only progressively filling with smut as your age ticks up like my word counts. Of course, I already knew some of that. However, Andy Weir’s Books can only do so much, and quite frankly, Heinlein has a problem with dated views on sexuality, partially being a product of his time. My point is that to be excited to do something (such as reading) you need to be inspired by it first for you to carry that throughout your life. I had Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas over fantasy books I didn’t like, which explains a lot.

I’ll go into it in a more comprehensive editorial later on about what I read this year, my thoughts on them, and so on. The question still remains, what was the target to hit this year? Once again, take into account that I was setting something realistic that was pushing me and it shouldn’t be expected to be particularly high. No one goes from reading a couple of books a year, two or maybe three cover-to-cover, and breaks into opening up a library from that point. In a period of 12-months, I wanted to equal my previous best record but also wanted to disqualify something in particular, Manga/graphic novels. My rule for myself was simple: they had to be proper books, and I had to equal Death Note‘s twelve volumes in as many months.

Once again, I feel like I need to reiterate: I wanted to set an objective that was reasonable and one that wouldn’t have overburdened me once E3 kicked off, as that busy period of the year was an influential concern. It was actually around April/May that I thought about how many books I could get through before the year was out. I’d cleared a few off my Reading tab and I had quite a few that were sitting in my To-Be-Read tab, I was confident. Then I had the trench I was expecting around June/July, so I was having to play catch up. I was finishing off tidbits of things I’d started, but wasn’t jumping for joy over in the first place. Anything that was not too arduous or long-winded was welcome, the only rules were nothing graphic-based and a total of twelve.

This is where it helped to find BookTubers and Bookstagramers I like, ones that are neverendingly positive with a goal to promote reading, period. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you are reading something. It can be as smutty as your mum’s bookmarks, as gay as a rainbow over two men laying in a bed, or whatever, as long as you are reading anything and enjoying doing so. That was the breath of fresh air I needed when it felt around September/October that I’d not hit the desired objective in time. Again, there will be a whole other article about what I read, but some of them were/are lengthy and sometimes not the most interesting. I’m looking at you Dune and Barack Obama’s A Promised Land.

At one point when drafting this up – there is a missing 6,000+ word cut of this article (#GiveUsTheKeiranEdit) – I asked my editor for direction on how to take this. His suggestions: Give tips on how to stick to the goal. The trouble I found in that was simply how much I view my “tip(s)” as simple and logical, the most straightforward way to get to those goals. Of course, you can flex them and mold them into whatever shape you want for more extensive and more modest goals, that was the point of keeping things uncomplicated. As I’ve already said, I didn’t want to put it on others to pressure me into hitting that goal, I knew how to do that on my own.

The organization-obsessed people you’ll find that have a planner for their week, (scheduling times to take a dump) will tell you that having others pressuring you will benefit you. However, I find it detrimental. For some, I get it, that works and improves your work rate. For others, the idea of disappointing friends or family, no matter how insignificant that goal is to you, can be a problem. Mental health and general health are something that changes your mood, and thus can alter your irritability with books. This is why I suggest reading more than one book at a time.

My advice isn’t really that complex when you break it down. Have a few books for different moods, keep yourself in check, and possibly most important, don’t set a goal that means nothing to you. It might seem stupid to some, the twelve being something I feel even slightly proud in any way about, but it isn’t the end goal. Yes, it is an achievement that should be expected of some, not entirely lauded as I am sure specific toxic voices would suggest. Ultimately, this was the start of (hopefully) the life-long marathon that is keeping pace: I don’t care if I “win,” as it were, I want to know that I did it, and if I want to, I can do more.

To go to the full logical extent on this metaphor: 2021 has been the sprint, prior years were running as a kid, but now the goal is to keep a steady pace and enjoy what I am doing. That has not always been easy, finding books to enjoy has been a chore with tastes best described as mind-bogglingly weird, but it is finding the right balance. It is finding out where you feel comfortable reading, how often you can do it, and finding the right books. I don’t think it surprises anyone to know the first book I finished this year was Doctor Who related. I know, I am a predictable blob of human.

I have a To-Read list as long as a Leonard Cohen song and that’s partly due to the length of some Heinlein books. I currently have a Reading list as long as a Neil Peart drum solo, mostly filled with biographies and anthologies. The point of this is, you need to know what you enjoy first. While that sounds unintuitive, taking from other bits of entertainment and stories you already appreciate makes that easy. Take from music, TV, games, and take from gossip stories you enjoy. Again, it could be gay smut. As long as you are reading, no one has the right to complain. You don’t want to know how many Doctor Who and Star Trek books I have: I could refill universe 1 after The Flux.

That said, I use those as comfort books, something to ground my tastes in generally what I enjoy. This is where I start being convoluted by saying you should explore as much as possible, but you shouldn’t bog yourself down with something you don’t like. I stepped outside my comfort zone for the first time in a long time this year, reading Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ The Inheritance Games, and I loved it. I wasn’t going the full shades of grey into BDSM fiction, but I went close enough to the sun for me that I got a tan. That said, I also had to put down a book or two because I think Seth Rogan is insufferable. The foreword to Blake J Harris’ Console Wars is like pulling teeth, so I won’t return for a while.

I think one of the many reasons why I have been able to explore a little bit more is the difference in psychology when reading in a specific place, specific genres, and in different forms. Depending on your history of reading, you might have shrugged off E-readers a long time ago, but there is a difference in psychology when using them vs holding paper and ink. Most notably the Kindle, which attempts to predict how long a chapter is or provide you with a percentage of how long something might be before you hit some kind of endpoint. Of course, the percentage doesn’t take into account the appendix or copyright notification pages.

Simon Brew for Alphr gave a short write-up about this psychology a few years back, and it is interesting to see similarities in viewpoint. Though I think there is more to that psychology dependant on the book itself. Something like A Promised Land does provide natural breaks within chapters, which in lengthy 20-page runs give you breathing space. On the other hand, you have James Paterson and Bill Clinton’s The President is Missing, which does a very thriller thing of giving quite a few short chapters. The psychology Brew talks about is your competitive side, I’m talking more about your lazy side.

Paterson & Clinton’s books particularly provide you with very short chapters, little more than a minute in reading sometimes. The psychology behind seeing you only have a few minutes of reading has pushed me through more extra reading than I’d planned at that moment. Of course, the inverse also happens to be a true psychological hindrance: Seeing “59 minutes left in chapter” for lengthier biographies does become tiresome. There is no “Oh, go on then, I’ll have another” about another hour-long chapter before bed, at least for me. So of course, there are drawbacks to that approach.

Is that really it? Kind of. Explore, enjoy whatever it is your enjoying, use those psychological tricks if they help you feel better about completing an extra chapter or two, and try to make sure you are eating, drinking, and keeping yourself well mentally enough to read. The last one can make you dislike a book you might otherwise love, so take time away if and when you need it. Maybe it is the writer’s style that is grinding up against you uncomfortably. It could be some period-appropriate language, or it could be your own mood.

The final thing I’ll say, to bring all of this to a close is this. Set a goal if you want but be realistic with your time and energy. Don’t set out for your first goal to be too ambitious because it will land you flat on your face and will destroy any confidence held going in, which makes setting another (more realistic) goal harder. Furthermore, if you are setting goals, make sure to set one larger all-encompassing one to endlessly work towards but make your yearly/monthly/weekly/daily goal one that inspires you and builds to the larger goal. Otherwise, what is the point in chasing two goals if you can’t catch one of them?