So I am reading along and this book is working wonderfully for me. Yes, it is complicated reading about boats and the sea but I am hanging in there with the info-although it does occasionally seem like an info dump.
But then some men begin work on a pipe under my house. And it is water inside my house that becomes an issue. They are drilling through the slab to retrieve missing equipment. There is unexplained water in my bedroom. They are pouring concrete inside the house. The house is beginning to look like a dump. Horrible stuff.
And suddenly I lose enough focus that I am unable to follow the plot. Did I miss the part that told me who this guy was? Am I supposed to believe in ghosts or did I miss that too?
Now I have little interest in finishing the book because I lost its train of thought.
Does this happen to you? Does life influence your ability to concentrate? Does it make a plotline seem jagged and fractured? Have you ever put aside a good book because you've missed too much to understand what's going on? Or do you go back to the place you began to veer off course.
10 comments:
When I was on Lortabs after my knee surgeries, I couldn't read. I would read a paragraph and then go back and read it again. Nothing stayed with me. I had to resort to listening to audio books until I was off the pain meds.
I prefer peace and quiet when I'm reading. I don't like a lot of noise or music or TV or loud conversations in the next room. I want to be able to focus and lose myself in the book for a few hours. Disruptions like you're experiencing would make reading impossible for me.
Hope everything gets resolved soon and you and Phil can get back to Normal!
I have, particularly during stressful times at school when I'm pulled in a hundred different directions.
I can't read in quiet. Need the stereo on. I find things like Pink Floyd easy to read to or soundtrack albums like Drive. Sometimes when I'm pulled away from a book, esp a long one with a lot of characters, for any length of time I can have a hard time getting back into it.
I can listen to soft music without singing. Any words completely distract me.
Yes.
First, my condolences on the construction going on and the waves of mess and continued disruption.
Absolutely, yes, this has happened to me. Unless I'm deeply hooked into a novel, the kind of distraction you're experiencing can pull me out and I may not get back. If I don't have to be there, I leave and go to the library (yes, with my own book! I just tell them what I'm doing, they are always very nice about it) where it's quiet and there are chairs and tables. But if I have to be home - as you likely do - to keep an eye on things and make decisions, I just can't read. Maybe a magazine, maybe a short story, but not a novel. No way.
Unlike Steve, I can't read with the stereo or TV on, unless it's wordless classical turned low.
I generally find it hard to concentrate on reading with the television on. Music will fade into the background, so if there is something I am trying to listen to, forget it. As background music it is fine.
Yes, it happens. When we are getting ready for a trip, for instance, it can interfere with concentration, though usually the other is true. If I really get involved in a book, the other worries fade into the background. Of course they then reappear when I am trying to get to sleep.
Phil can read right through it. But I am more distractable I think.
Sorry to hear about the mess, Patti. And I know just what you mean about life getting in the way of reading. That's happened to me, too.
I started laughing...until Empathy slapped me upside the head and I realized I'm like you in being easily distracted, especially by YUGE annoyances (sometimes even tiny ones). With me it's diagnosed ADD, so I've come to terms with it. Hope things have improved for you guys since you posted this, Patti.
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