note to self

Being a good literary citizen, a good citizen of Literature Land -- usually involves doing public service stuff such as writing reviews, chairing discussions, editing other people's work, putting together anthologies. i've done all this. Not intensively, but enough to have made my contributions. At some point you just want to hunker down and write your own book dammit.
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i'm saying this, not because i'm tired of serving. But because i know that my own desire to be useful to other people -- not a bad desire, mind you, but one that like all desires needs to be managed properly -- can get in the way of me giving myself permission to do what i feel i want / need to do. So this is here as a reminder. From now on -- or at least, after i'm done with all the things i've said Yes to in the last year or so -- i'm going to turn down all requests to do that sort of thing, and just focus on getting that book written. Once that's done, i'll go back to being of service.
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