Assorted thoughts on various Hugo things

So if you recall, back when I first joined WorldCon, I had all these grand plans about how I was going to talk about my Hugo reading, through both the nomination and voting process, and how those basically came to nothing. The voting deadline was yesterday, and my votes are in, so consider this a post-mortem of sorts.

( Musings behind the cut. )

In conclusion, read Ancillary Justice. ;)

Soon it will be time to start scoping out the landscape for 2014. I spent the last two months reading nothing that wasn't nominated for a Hugo or Campbell, and two months at the beginning of the year reading nothing that wasn't eligible for nomination, so I think I'll be able to better balance it all if I start earlier. Here's hoping, anyway.

July update; August goals

Days written: 24/31
Words written: 6,895
Words of fic written: 5,909
Stories worked on: Six and some ficlets
Stories posted: Three plus ficlets

( Graph )

For July's goals, I'm just tempted to post the word "FAIL" in bright sparkly letters over and over, but that wouldn't really be keeping myself accountable, so...

1. Write six days per week. NO EXCUSES. Better than last month, but still no. I have officially decided that working on substantial meta counts as a writing day. Not every journal entry or fandom meme response, but if I put as much work into it as I do into a piece of fiction? It should count. If I'm serious about wanting to get back into writing posts about things that are important to me, I shouldn't treat it as something I have to find time for in between writing fic.

2. Revise and update guest post for ladybusiness. Complete! Okay, I guess I didn't fail every goal.

3. Polish and crosspost genprompt_bingo fic and write at least one more. I posted the "Missing Persons" fic to AO3 (but still haven't crossposted it here), and wrote a kind-of draft for another prompt but am not crazy about it. And I'm just not that excited by the rest of that row after all. I'm starting to think that maybe I need a break from bingos entirely.

4. Finish dragonagewomen story (and post? I need a better handle on the schedule). This project seems to have been abandoned. I went back and checked the schedule, and posting was supposed to have been in mid-June. I'll probably still clean up this story and post it eventually, but right now other things have mindspace.

5. Work on Tumblr giveaway fic. Didn't even start.

So, this is kind of bad. But not as bad as I thought it would be. And actually, the last couple of weeks I have been feeling a little better about what I write. When I sit down and start rolling, the words that come out are pretty good, and they inspire more words to come, but there haven't been many of those days. If you take a look at the chart up there, you'll see that it's a very few high-count days, interspersed with lots of low numbers and even zeros (although some of those are editing days that don't produce new words). So it's an improvement, and I'm not feeling quite as down and frustrated as I was. Still a little sluggish, but better.

Goals for August, which might have the monkey wrench of being out of town for a week in a place with no or limited internet and/or writing time, but it also may not -- the trip might also be canceled, and I won't know for sure until next Wednesday. So consider these goals provisional.

1. Write six days a week, except maybe while traveling.

2. Work on Tumblr giveaway fic.

3. Finish and post at least two WIP (one MCU story that's almost finished, check on other IP stuff).

4. Write ladybusiness guest post (for a super sekrit project!).

5. Start on Dragon Age Reverse Big Bang story (due mid-September).