Painful book binges and other hazards of being a book nerd

I guess I lucked out in my self-control battle.  I forgot how when I use my arm on my days off for things such as moving books (or washing dishes or cleaning the bathroom), I pay for it in added pain.  Depending on how much I use it, sometimes I end up not being able to sleep at night.  This used to just be frustrating and exhausting, but that was before I started reading No More Sleepless Nights.

This book actually helped with an inner debate I was having about sleeplessness and reading.  It advises that on those nights where you're not sleeping, you need to get up, turn on the lights and do something (such as reading something you like). 

The book did not comment on whether your brain will then see sleeplessness as a reward, but, seriously, with the exhaustion, loss of coordination and coherence, and stress from trying to keep alert while driving, I don't think my brain could be messed up enough to equate sleeplessness with happy things.  I guess we'll see.

So I still kind of had my book binge, just in the wee hours of the morning the day after Thanksgiving.  I was kept company in my lack of sleep by all those folks out shopping at stores open insanely early in the physical world or online.  At least they got something done.

So did I: about 200 pages.  I stopped when I hit a patch of something that screams Too Convenient Plot Device Designed to End This Madness at Book 6, So I Can Get on with Writing More Dresden Files Books.  I realized that I didn't have a problem with that.  :)

I'm waiting to find out what will happen to the Codex Alera's most notorious traitor because I am desperately and shamelessly still looking for a way to save my own traitor in my story without it feeling cheap. 

I think reading the Night Angel Trilogy was bad for me because it set new standards of honest author brutalityagainst characters in keeping with the world one has created, and anything less than that amount of darkness feels like a fakey happy ending.  Uh-oh. 

Not that a completely happy ending is likely at this point for many reasons, but, you know, some things will end well.  Probably.


When you can't sleep, what do you do?