So, I’m not doing an eligibility list this year…sort of…

I know, I know, I’m weird about some things.

Let me explain.

So it was lovely and I really do appreciate that so many people nominated me for a Hugo last year and then so many people even voted for me. That really was something else and I’m proud that people felt that way. Yes, it is validating and often felt like lots of nice people giving me a nice warm hug without it being a weird sort of hug.

But it also made me feel very self-conscious. It wasn’t some terrible emotional burden or made me feel bad about myself. I wouldn’t want people to think that in being nice and supportive they were accidentally doing the opposite. However, it really, really makes it harder to write things *specifically here* if I become overly aware of what I’m writing.

As frequent readers will have noticed, this is a blog of first or early drafts of things that maybe get some typos corrected but otherwise don’t get revised very much ever again. It’s what in my head when I get up in the morning that I think is worth my time typing. When I start thinking about it too self-referentially, what I write looks like this:

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And that is sort of how I felt writing in that interval between getting nominated (which, seriously was awesome) and the Hugo ceremony (which was also awesome and special thanks to the lovely person who represented me there). It was a great ego-boost and very special but also felt like it was an extra obstacle to writing stuff here.

It’s rather like the injunction to just ‘be yourself’, except with the added complication that I’m often being people other than myself.

Put another way: the nomination etc WAS fun and nice but it made writing the blog less fun and less nice. Not in any terrible angsty torture like way but enough that I’ll skip the experience for 2019. That’s not a ‘NEVER AGAIN!’ just a ‘the view is lovely but I’m a bit puffed out from walking up this hill and tomorrow I’d like to stay in the pub and look at the next big hill from below in the beer garden, thanks’. It was also a bit like eating celery but that analogy requires more explanation and really doesn’t help get the point across.

Speaking of fun.

Looking back and collating posts from 2017 and making a huge Hugo packet thing was great fun. So I will do that again but I’ll do it after Hugo nominations are closed.

In the meantime, there are lots of awesome people to vote for in Fan Writer!