Saturday, October 24, 2009

Calling it Quits: Read-a-thon Failure

One can never determine with certainty whether something is to one’s liking without trying it first. This is why I decided to participate in Dewey’s 24 hour Read-a-thon even though I run with a personal apocryphal version without stating it officially and keeping with the update posts and such. I started at 9.00 am and seven hours later I called it quits and watched “9”.

My focus is non-existent. I see something shiny, hear something catchy and I forget what I am supposed to be doing and dedicating full attention to the shiny thing. Then there is the fact that I bore easily and when those two amazingly unhelpful qualities mix together you get a much unmotivated reader. From practice I know that two hours is as much I am physically able to provide for reading, but it never hurts trying.

However there is that matter of external forces at work that kept me from chugging in more pages for the seven hours I was struggling. Despite me generously giving computer access to my small sister on a weekend, she preferred to use me as a climbing facility and ask how far I am and how stupid this was etc. etc. etc. Apart from that my grandfather decided to use me as a custom searcher for spare parts in the local area and the cherry on top of the cake were the household chores. Around the 7th hour I got a major headache and no reading is possible. So here is the breakdown:

Dunraven Road: 248 pages – I managed to finished that the very least. It was dark and I kinda liked it. Certainly of the more realistic and modern gothic vampire fiction.

Flesh and Fire: 50 pages – I decided that this book is simply too amazing and totally undeserving to be devoured in one sitting, but enjoyed in small sips like wine.

Frankenstein: 50 pages – I was just getting into the story, when the headache struck. Damn it and it was just getting good. I love the language and phrasing. Pure music.

So I didn’t carry on with this properly, but if you would look at the sum of all pages you will see that I pushed my reading with a whole week’s worth, if we take into account that Halloween Week will be the Busy Week of Hell academically as well as creatively. This Saturday has been productive after all, but count me out for next time.

8 comments:

Casse AKA Catholic Kittie said...

I called myself a readaslacker early on. Life was getting in the way of my read-a-thon and my sister pointed out, "How is this day any different than any other days off you have?" I mean read, nap, eat, play with baby...uh that's every off day for me. So I called it quits as well so not to stress out about how many pages/books I can read.

Memory said...

At least you gave it a go. :) And hey, even though it's a 24-hour thing, there's nothing in the rules that says you have to stick it out through the whole day. You're still a participant. :)

Mark David said...

Don't think of it at "failure" man, you did what you could and in the end that's what a marathon is like anyway right? It's not so much as how far you've run both the fact that you went there and did it :)

tanabata said...

It's not a failure, we all read differently. And it's not a competition. You did great!
Lately I've been thinking that I should finally read Frankenstein one of these days. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it so far.

Unknown said...

Harry -
You know I wanted to participate but had a book signing that I was committed to attending. So next time for me perhaps. It would have been my first.

But just like you I get distracted easily- very easily. So I am not sure how well I would do for this type of challenge. I am also useless with no sleep.

I am so glad you are liking the Flesh and Fire book... I am also on the tour tomorrow. I was checking the links for accuracy on my post and found your "calling it quits". Good for you for being honest. Like Memory states you gave it a go.

btw - loved your choices for the challenge!

Take Care, I will be by tomorrow to check out your tour post.

Bookfool said...

I agree with those who said it's not a failure. You did great while you were able. I didn't participate, in part, because I knew it would be impossible unless I got a hotel room. And, since I have an attention problem, too, I always go from book to book, even on a normal night. I did a little reading unofficially but I would never have lasted all night.

As to Flesh and Fire . . . I've been thinking I screwed up not touring that one. Oh, well. I can always swap for it.

Harry Markov said...

@ Casse: Those sisters, I tell ya. It really is stressful to try and keep up with such a thing.

@ Memory: I did and I am glad that I did, because I managed to push my staled reading a bit forward.

@ Mark David: Yeah, that is true. It's just I have set a goal and a standard and wanted to see through it and because I didn't it's a failure through my point of view. I never intended to push through the whole 24 hours, but get to at least the 16th hour.

@ tanabata: It's good. A tale within the tale, which at first confused me a bit, but quickly caught on.

Harry Markov said...

@ Shellie: Oh, I will check out your post on the tour. I will most likely cover the book a week later, because of this weird schedule I have. I have this whole week to cover "Hellbound Hearts".

@ Bookfool: I thought on dropping for this month, but I googled to see what Flesh and Fire was about and when I read it was about spells and a magic system that is centred on wine... I couldn't say no. And the author knows what she is doing so far, which only makes me want to read more.

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