How reading saved this woman’s life…

By Carrie McGovern

Reading saved my life.

I know this is a bit of a sweeping statement and probably a little overdramatic but bear with me. Reading really did change my life…

WHERE IT STARTED

I’ll take you back three years or so when I had a quite severe anxiety flare-up. Post lockdown, my kids were having problems readjusting back to school life, I was having a hard time with the lack of structure, and my brain was going into overdrive. My anxiety hit an all-time high, and my brain had shut down.

I had been a self-employed seamstress for six years, and my business was plodding along nicely. All of a sudden, I was shutting down; I couldn’t concentrate on my job, I was making mistakes, and I couldn’t think straight. So, I stopped taking on clients and moth-balled the business.

ANXIETY TAKES OVER

My brain was so focussed on the stress of what was going on that I was no longer living any kind of life. I didn’t leave the house in case the children needed me, and I was constantly waiting for the phone to ring. My brain was all consumed by anxiety. I knew I had to do something. My thoughts needed to divert from thinking about what might or might not happen, so I picked up a book.

Usually, I was that person who only read a book when I was on holiday, sitting by the pool with a cocktail or two. I often struggled to get into a book and wouldn’t even consider reading ‘the classics’. But I often enjoyed a romance. Starting reading was very much a leap of faith. I was still in the mindset that I should be doing something more constructive with my time.

BARRIERS TO READING

There was always a barrier to reading for me as if it wasn’t important enough to dedicate the time. There was always something more important, like laundry and housework. I often struggled with complicated sentences. I had to read every single word on the page slowly, so it could follow the storyline. Reading felt like a guilty pleasure.

I don’t remember why I chose the book I started with, maybe I’d seen it on social media. But I’m glad I chose it because it had me hooked straight away. The characters were relatable, and the story was quirky.

BRAIN RESET

Once I started reading, I was swept away into different worlds, somewhere that didn’t have my problems and my fears, and it was such a refreshing change. So I continued reading, and I was bought a Kindle for my birthday, which opened up a library full of reading potential.

After a while I started to feel more like myself, my brain started opening up and I actually started to feel things again, real emotions that my brain had locked away. I was able to form full sentences and actually engage with people better. After nine months, I had read 130 novels, and my whole outlook on life began to open up. The anxiety was not as fierce now my brain had been distracted.

READING AS ADULTS

As adults, we aren’t really encouraged to read. There is often a thought that reading is for intellectual prowess and not for pleasure. We are encouraged to read business and self-help books, but never just for pleasure. When we do read, we are conditioned to think that we must read a variety of different genres but keep to our own reading age. This is an absolute fallacy.

Starting reading can be daunting but there are no set rules. You don’t have to read the most popular books, or the ones that are 1000 pages, and you need a trolley to transport. You don’t need to read within your age range. If you are in your 70s and want to read young adult literature, that’s okay. If you want to read graphic novels rather than wordy books, that’s fine, too.

To really make reading beneficial you need to enjoy it, be able to get immersed in the story, and to live those characters’ lives and resonate with the emotions of the story. And means reading what you enjoy.

BENEFITS OF READING

Reading for pleasure has so many benefits. It opens up your brain and helps with communication and vocabulary. Reading, as well as other brain exercises, can help slow the onset of dementia. And I know all too well that it can reduce stress and anxiety.

The more I read, the more my brain opened up. I started to rethink past experiences, including my love of writing and getting myself out and doing more.

THE WRITING JOURNEY BEGINS

At this point, I didn’t feel I was anywhere near focussed enough to write an actual book. Instead, I decided to start planning. With a new notebook in hand and fancy pens ready, I set out to plan a romance novel in the same vein that I had been reading. As I put pen to paper, the characters were young women, getting involved with more experiences, worldly-wise men. But something seemed off. I didn’t resonate with these characters, so how could I write about them?

Instead of planning these characters, I just knuckled down and wrote. Inspiration came from situations and experiences that either myself or my friends had lived through. They played out, movie-style, in my head, and I put them on paper. Stories about women nearer my age living lives I could relate to.

Eventually, after joining all those situations together, I realised I had written the majority of my first novel. I mean that’s the simple version, I haven’t mentioned the major imposter syndrome, teaching myself how to self-publish a book and the meltdowns at not having an ending. Maybe that’s a tale for another time…

I absolutely love being an author, having those characters that are inside my head become real to those reading is a privilege. And although I don’t get chance to read as much as I used to, I still use reading to help with my anxiety.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD I GIVE SOMEONE WANTING TO BECOME AN AUTHOR?

I often get asked what advice I would give to others starting out, and the advice is always the same. Just write it! Sounds simple, but authors sit on ideas for years, procrastinating. They think their work needs to be perfectly formed from the word go – or chapter one – but it doesn’t. The best bit of advice I was given was: you can’t edit what’s not there.

Get those ideas on paper. Get them out of your head and onto the page. Then believe in yourself. Believe that the story you wrote and loved will be someone’s new favourite book. I believed in it, and I’m currently writing my fourth book.

The Hello Series of contemporary romance novels are available from Amazon in paperback, Kindle or free with Kindle Unlimited. For more information visit: www.carriemcgovern.com

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