For about a year and a half, I’ve been a part of a writing group. I joined it shortly before lockdown and, fortunately, we decided to continue online. Even more fortunately, as things split off and some people went back to in-person meetings or other groups, four of us have morphed into our own, new group that continues to evolve and change, as we as individuals and as writers, grow. It’s organic, and I love it.

A picture I took for our work social media of the two books I’m reading/listening to currently.

For a period of time, many of us weren’t submitting as much new material as normal for a variety of reasons. This hit at the same time that a plethora of vacations and trips interrupted several meetings in a row. As a group we found that we were reading a lot, even those of us who weren’t necessarily submitting. Someone suggested that maybe we each choose a book from our genre that we could all read together and discuss for craft and expand our horizons.

I enthusiastically agreed to this at first, and quickly regretted it.

I like to read and write about magic. Abnormal, fantastical things. If I do write about something that takes place in any semblance of a normal world, you can bet there’s a ghost or a spaceship right around the corner. Most of the girls in my group write or read thrillers at least some of the time. I don’t like being scared, and I don’t care to be thrilled that often. I was nervous going in to read every book that wasn’t mine.

And I was nervous when we discussed mine!

Have you ever had the experience of making a date to meet friends, or buying tickets to see a play, or planning to go see a movie, then the time came and you just don’t want to do it? You regretted making the commitment, but you soldiered through because there was really no reason not to, and you had made a promise to someone? This is how I was with every book that I’ve had to read. I didn’t want to buy these books. There’s shelf space to consider. Not to mention money.

But just like every time I’ve forced myself to go on a planned outing, once I was done, I was glad for the experience.

The first book I was able to borrow. This was great for a number of reasons. Not only did I not have to buy the book, but I got to see my friend, unplanned! I feel like a lot of us have gotten into the habit of ordering in, buying online, staying at home, etc. The casual drop off while we’re running errands has become rare. When she dropped the book off, she just stuck it in my mailbox, but I brought it out to her when she picked it up and we stood in the driveway chatting in the 90 degrees for a few minutes before I asked her if she wanted to come in. I was pleasantly surprised when she accepted.

I lent my choice to another friend in our group. She lives near where Dean works, so I gave the book to him and she stopped by on his lunch hour with her kids while running errands. She did the same when she gave the book back to me. Last week when Dean saw that her kids were doing a lemonade stand, he wanted to go. I had to put in a few hours of work that Saturday, so I was homebound, but he brought me back a muffin. They had a very successful lemonade stand and lesson in commerce and Dean appeared in a few Facebook pictures. (I’m calling it The Lemonade Bistro, because their setup was on point.)

With the most recent book choice, I was really resistant for some reason. I procrastinated the read until this week. Yes, I work last week was busy due to the short week, but I just. didn’t. want. to read it. Finally, I talked to one of the girls in my group who had planned ahead and managed to get it from the library. She wasn’t thrilled with it but was only 20% in. She told me to sign up for audiobooks.com and get a free read.

Everyone had read my choice. I wasn’t going to back out. I finally put it on my to do list.

I was facing a workday that was tedious, filled with a lot of copy/pasting, meta-data entering, etc. I told myself, “If you don’t do it now, you never will.” I listened to the entire book over the course of a day and a bit. It wasn’t something that I’d read again, but I enjoyed listening to it while working and I enjoyed occasional texts back and forth with my friend while we read. I’m looking forward to discussing it at our group and have a lot to say.

I want to do more stepping outside of my comfort zone when it comes to reading. I’m not sure when I stopped, but I never would have read the Harry Potter series had my mother not lent the first book to a boyfriend, who had a self-imposed moral obligation to read everything anyone lent him before he returned it, then showed up at my door the next day clutching it and asking when I was going to see my mother again so he could get the next one. I joined an online book group sometime during the pre-vaccination days to connect with more people and ended up having coffee outside with a new friend who lent me the first book and falling in love with that author. Even the book that I didn’t particularly fall in love with was fun to talk about with my friend who had also read the book.

I’ve never been in a ‘book club’ before but now I understand what all the fuss is about. Even though we started out with the goal of pushing ourselves to examine these books in a more clinical way, I’ve enjoyed the connections that sharing them has given me just as much, if not more, than the actual reading itself.

Last year was rough for everyone and I found that I wanted the comfort of things that I knew. T.V. shows that I had watched a billions times, books that I knew cover to cover, stand up shows where I already knew the jokes. I read that this is a symptom of stressful times. When you’re surrounded by uncertain circumstances, your mind seeks out that which you already know and enjoy. It’s kind of exciting to be ready to step out and check out new things. It feels a little like taking a vacation after a long, long time at home.

Reading out of your comfort zone