Um. This week, with the launch of the SLF’s membership drive and hosting Deep Dish and developing the new instructional project, I have put in 25 hours on the SLF. I guess this is why Kirsten Jackson started making me track my hours last month, even though I don’t get paid. Eep.
That’s 25 hours of potential novel-writing, 25,000 words, half a novel drafted. I can’t think of it like that, though, or I might go a little nuts. It is too parsimonious an approach for me, measuring out my writing time in jealous increments. I love doing this work, helping to raise up other writers, sharing their fabulousness with the world, and I have to believe that it feeds my writing too, that it helps keep me connected and inspired. But still.
All credit to my Deep Dish co-host, Chris Bauer, who has taken on the bulk of the admin duties for Deep Dish itself, and has just volunteered to co-chair our Chicago chapter in the next year. Woot, Chris! He is a prince among men.
That said, generally, I suspect community service is mostly the unpaid labor of women (hail to all the PTO volunteers who supplement our children’s education, building a brighter future for everyone. Pem Hessing, I see you.).
Service to the community work is still work, and it takes time.
We should count it and support it.
(Pictured: last night’s Deep Dish reading (our tenth!), Chris Bauer, Anaea Lay, Jeremy John, Sue Burke, Scott Huggins, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Silvia Moreno-Garcia).
