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:
- Display the award certificate on your website. Tick!
- Announce your win with a post and include a link to whoever presented your award. Tick!
- Present 15 awards to deserving bloggers. Fifteen? OKaaayy – I’ll certainly have a think and another read…
- Create a post linking to them and drop them a comment to tip them off. Will do…
- Post 7 interesting facts about yourself. Easy enough…
The Liebster Award:
- Post the award image on your blog. There are several varieties. Google them and find the one
you like the most. Tick! - List 11 random facts about yourself. Can I just add 4 to the 7 from earlier – is that cheating?
- Answer the 11 questions asked by the person/people who nominated you. Can do.
- Make up 11 questions for those to be nominated. No problem!
- 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!
