One of the problems of spending so much time writing and thinking about fiction is that one becomes more sensitive to other books.

On the one hand, meh, this happens. On the other hand, it sucks to be reading a book you really liked, say, ten years ago, but now all you can do it critique it and pick it apart because, though still a pretty good book, there are some flaws that certainly detract from the last quarter of the book, if not earlier. /me takes a breath.

On the one hand this means you're becoming better at your craft. On the other it means you may have just lost a story you really dug.

Once upon a time, when you were still an anthrogeek and such books were a break from memorizing all the bones and their features and attatchments and how to sex them and specie them and...

Anyway. You get the point.