You just need a better memorization technique.
How about getting riled up constantly with head-banging music. You substitute in chess notation for the lyrics. Make sure to go through the motions of being truly outraged with angst. Make that chess storage made out tough metal though. You dont want to be like screaming "E4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and then bang a nice wooden chess set on the table or jump and down on the pieces that you are capturing.
Assorted comments:
If one finds it desirable to get help from books to get to expert, I do not think that it means that one probably does not have talent. Talent is not a yes-or-no thing, and some people certainly seem to have more talent than me while still using books on their way to being an expert.
I don't think it necessarily means that a player is lazy if he or she wants to try to progress without reading books. Especially for someone around 1300, it may simply be a matter of not knowing how much difference books can make on the road to higher ratings.
If one writes about the desirability of book study, it does not mean that the person does not know what he or she is talking about. One can understandably neglect unusual cases like Nakamura when responding to a ~1300 player.
I would think that a lot would depend on the specifics of the particular player with regard to whether or not it would be practical to become a titled player with only post mortems on an engine + lots of chesstempo tactics.
The life of a professional chess player is not easy, and I do not see anything wrong with using book-writing as a source of income.
I just hit 2000 rapid.
Never read a chess book.
Never used an opening explorer.
The only opening I "learned" was the dragon at like 1200, the rest came with trial, error, and Game Reports.
When I'm watching chess online and a commentator says the square g6 I have to check the X & Y axis to locate the square. That's how inexperienced I am with chess notation.
I credit my improvement to 26k blitz games, 12k bullet, and YouTube.
"... I have not really read any books from start to finish. I read some books on Nimzowitsch, on his style, many, many years ago, and of course also Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games. But beyond some basic stuff I just generally have not read books. I grew up with the computer. And when you have all that knowledge at your finger-tips, then the usefulness of a lot of books just ceases to have practical value. ... I think that at least in the past you had to work with a very strong coach. Now, however, with the rise of computers especially, I think it is more about ideas than anything. ..." - GM Hikaru Nakamura (2011)
But ...
"... everyone is different, so what works for one person may likely fail with another ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2002) https://web.archive.org/web/20140627084053/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman19.pdf
and ...
"... I thought it might be interesting to publish a general improvement program ... In order to maximize the benefits of [theory and practice], these two should be approached in a balanced manner. ... Play as many slow games (60 5 or preferably slower) as possible, ... The other side of improvement is theory. Theory consists of inputting information from external sources to improve your chess knowledge or capabilities. This can be reading books, taking lessons, watching videos, doing problems on software, etc. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2002) https://web.archive.org/web/20140627084053/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman19.pdf