Good lord the pressure! Having been nominated for two blog awards over the last couple of months, I am now stressing about how to respond. Firstly, just before Christmas, came the Versatile Blogger award from the lovely Tracy on FecThis. I was thrilled that she thought me worthy of an award and deeply flattered because she is such a brilliant, articulate and moving writer herself. My sincere thanks go out to her.

Then in January an ex-colleague from the corporate world, now full time writer and coach, and my friend and inspiration, Michael J Holley, nominated me for a Liebster.  I’m blown away to receive another endorsement in such a short space of time and again from someone whose work I greatly admire.

So why the pressure and the stress I hear you ask? Well let me tell you it’s NOT like winning a BAFTA or an Oscar – there are “Rules” to follow:

The Versatile Blogger:

1. Display the award certificate on your website. Tick!
2. Announce your win with a post and include a link to whoever presented your award. Tick!
3. Present 15 awards to deserving bloggers. Fifteen? OKaaayy – I’ll certainly have a think and another read…
4. Create a post linking to them and drop them a comment to tip them off. Will do…
5. Post 7 interesting facts about yourself. Easy enough…

The Liebster Award:

1. Post the award image on your blog. There are several varieties. Google them and find the one you like the most. Tick!
2. List 11 random facts about yourself. Can I just add 4 to the 7 from earlier – is that cheating?
3. Answer the 11 questions asked by the person/people who nominated you. Can do.
4. Make up 11 questions for those to be nominated. No problem!
5. Nominate 11 people to receive the award. They should have fewer than 200 followers on their blog. Errrr – less than 200? And do these have to be different from the 15 earlier? Really?

I cannot, hand on heart, drum up 26 or 15 (or even 11!) names out of the blogosphere, with less than 200 followers each, that I either regularly follow or know well enough to pass on the awards with sincerity and genuine affection. So what should I do? I could just cheat and pluck names at random to keep the chain mail going, but this would feel disingenuous and dishonest. I have about 10 blogs that I follow regularly and 2 of those are from the people who nominated me. Others have either more than 200 followers already or are of the magazine style, produced by a number of writers. So my list of recipients that fit the rules is pretty slim. I have been researching new blogs recently but it is very time-consuming and I still find that the ones I really like are already huge and unlikely to be interested in an award from a very small and minor newcomer like me.

It doesn’t feel right to pluck random names for the sake of it  but as an amateur blogger with a full time day job and a family I’m struggling to fit in the research to look for 2 dozen new bloggers…and now I sound like I’m whining and whinging. Oh dear. See? I’m stressing about this rather than enjoying the recognition and compliments which I know were genuinely intended.

If I just nominate those few writers that I know and love, I suppose I could give them the choice of award. But  then I won’t be strictly complying with the rules and I’m naturally a law-abiding citizen. Will I be black-listed for breaking the rules?!

Perhaps I should honourably withdraw and decline to take part in the award season love-in altogether…Does this mean that I will never be “recognised” again? Am I taking it too seriously and being a spoilsport by refusing to take part? Should I just cheat and nominate others for the sake of “networking”? My moral dilemma may not be quite up there with Hamlet’s but I understand his procrastination. To participate or not to participate, that is the question…

Please let me know what you think. Who knows…if I like your response you may find yourself on my regular reading list and nominated for an award yourself!