Writer Wednesday: Reading, Reading, and More Reading

This month, my editing plate has been full. I won't complain because my clients are seriously talented authors and I love working with them. I get to spend my days reading books I would have otherwise bought and read anyway. It's great.
The funny thing is that after reading all day, I want to wind down at night and I choose to... Did you guess read? If you did, you're right. The difference is that when I'm reading for fun (even though I find editing fun too!) I don't have to have the mental focus I do when I edit. I can have the TV on in the background. My daughter can be reading aloud. (She loves to do that!) My husband can be talking on the phone. None of that bothers me. But when I edit, I often use headphones because I want to drown out the world and focus solely on those words in front of me.
I equate reading for fun to watching a movie you seen over and over again, that you can put on at any point in the movie and not be lost. Even if I never read the book before, I can still immerse myself in it without tuning out the rest of the world. But edits are so much different. They demand my full attention.
So while I spend my days reading, they're different kinds of reading. One is work, albeit fun! The other is relaxing.
*If you have a question you'd like me to answer from the other side of the editor's desk, feel free to leave it in the comments and I'll schedule it for a future post.