Day 2: Rituals

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I have been doing a lot of reading since reclaiming my time. In 2024, I read 64 books (or 17,210 pages, if you like the stats). Last year, I finished 48 books (or 12,464 pages). This year, I am on track to read somewhere between those two numbers. I will probably end up with about 58-60 books.

In 2024, I feel like I was leaning into the books I was familiar with on some level. There was some branching out, though, in the LGBTQ+ genre (Lev AC Rosen, TJ Klune, and Abdul Nazemian) and with new(er) authors like Seanan McGuire. Still, it was a mostly “safe” year, reacclimating to the process of reading more on a daily basis.

In 2025, I read fewer books, but I feel like my choices were more adventurous. I finished the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire, dug deeper into Klune’s books, and started reading contemporary memoir (such as Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton). I also spent more time reading the works of Homer, as well as some craft books on writing.

Now, in 2026, it’s an eclectic blend of RF Kuang, Oscar Wilde, Alex Michaelides, Euripides, and Terri Blackstock. Fun stuff.

Currently, I am reading James by Percival Everett and Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. I have a running thirst for words, and I am spending most of my time on my Kindle or with a print book in my hand, devouring the literature.

I’ve also been daybooking every day. This is day 271 of writing daily without missing an entry. I decided last summer to just begin making a concerted effort to write every day, and I’ve made that happen. On some days, my entries are 8 or 10 pages in length; on rarer occasions, they are but a single page. What’s most important to me is that I have established a new ritual with words that has shifted my priorities from wasted time scrolling online to focused time reading and writing.

Here’s what those rituals are doing for me today. I’m finally seeing my efforts leading to deeper reads, more thoughtful writes than what I was doing even a year ago. It makes sense, though, doesn’t it? If an artist wants to get better at working with acrylics, then they have to immerse themselves in acrylic painting every day. Same with musicians, athletes, chefs…. If we’re going to get better at our crafts, we need to create rituals and stick with them. I also believe it’s the only way we can steer clear of mimicking others in our field, or getting stuck with doing just one thing over and over.

Rituals lead to experimentation, and it is only through such risk taking that we can begin to understand who we are as readers, writers, artists, performers, thinkers, humans.