I often wonder if the Hugo is like a thick, creamy facial for the writer. Meant to be pleasing and give someone a backhanded compliment about how good they look, but end up with a bit of it in the eyes and boy does that cold creme burn like a motherf*cker!

What, you thought…? Oh, you dirty bastard.

I was sure I had a clever and witty post for today, but once again did I read Larry Correia’s Sad Puppy Campaign II: Rainbow Puppy Lighthouse the Huggening and was completely derailed. I mean, come on Larry, you know how hard it is for me to remember to update this site without you making me laugh my ass off while I’m supposed to be writing.

But… he does have a really good point. Tongue in cheek? Yeah, a bit. Middle finger to the Literati? Most definitely. Subtle? Hardly.

Shameless self-promotion aside (and since publishers insist we are contractors and not employees, which means my farking taxes are higher than they should be for how little I make doing this “writing” thing, self-promotion is not necessarily a bad thing at all), Larry makes a really good point about what has happened to the Hugos. Now, would I want to win one? Oh yeah. But not because it’ll increase my sales (it seems, at a glance, to do the exact opposite actually… the average reader in the store is not going to pick up a book with “Hugo Award Winner” on the cover. No, they’ll be looking for a writer or publisher they like) but because I’d love to see their faces when I make my acceptance speech. Their dawning horror, their hurried attempts at removing me from the stage (helpful hint: bring more than three guys. I wrestled for a very long time), their “technical difficulties” of their live-stream when my tirade begins.

Okay, they’d probably cut my mic off at about the 8 second point, but that’s why I have been gifted with a powerful set of lungs and the stage ability to project.

Anyways, I have a few Hugo-eligible short stories this year, but I really don’t care about them enough to try to get them nominated. Sounds horrible, I know, but short stories take me less effort and energy to write than a novel does. I’d rather vote for someone more deserving in any case. If, you know, I was voting. Yeah, Shiny Book Review is eligible for Best Fanzine, but since I love the guys over at Elitist Book Review, I’d rather see them win it again.

So on to other interesting stuff… I am so ready for Mysticon (Feb 21-23; Roanoke, VA) to get here. I haven’t seen a lot of my “con friends” since last July, and that needs to be rectified. I’ve seen some of the panels I’ll probably be on, and they’re… different. Looks like I’ll be very busy on Sunday, but free most of Saturday (yay!). Then it’s a short break until Ravencon over in Richmond, Virginia. Yes, Con Season is almost upon the Cordova House!

I made a comment earlier about the ease I have with short stories. Well,  I should have excluded the one I’m struggling with right now, which is now 3 weeks overdue. It’s being a stone-cold bitch and I’m ready to simply cleanse it with fire and start over. I’m at the point that I don’t even like the damned name. I hate it when I begin to dislike a story. If I dislike it, that means that my readers will probably dislike it. I’ve only ever sold one story I disliked, and I don’t talk about it very often (The Cold, for those of you who are morbidly curious, I did not like writing… it triggered one of my “feels”, as Kassidee would say).

So… flamethrower. I have some snow outside, to damage should be minimal.

Minimally.

Oh, screw you spell check. That is too a word!

Back to your regularly scheduled Hugo self-promotion, pie in the eye, gooey, dripping, farcical accusations of gerrymandering in a whorish political SF and Fantasy forum.

Buzzwords yo… I haz them