A little note about awards.

[seanan_mcguire]

Being nominated at all is a huge honor, and one many people will never experience.  It is, quite literally, an honor to be nominated.  We know that.  We’re told every time it comes up.  “What an honor!” and “You must be so proud/people who love you and are not you, thus are not socially obligated to pretend to be humble must be so proud!”  And that’s true, it really is.  We’re proud, and we’re gobsmacked, and we’re humble and excited and honored, all at the same time.

But we’re also, statistically, very likely to lose.  And then we’re expected to pretend that we don’t mind, that the honor of the nomination was enough to make up for the sting of defeat.  Several years ago at a Worldcon, I was literally cornered by an older, much more established author with eleven Hugo wins to their name (in contrast to my two nominations), who wanted to lecture me on how not to be a sore loser.  I snapped that I had lost to them specifically the previous year, and had been perfectly gracious, and walked away.  They haven’t spoken to me or acknowledged my presence since, because how dare I not pretend that no one ever wants to win?  How dare I fail to accept their pearls of perfect wisdom?  But everyone does want to win, or everyone would withdraw from the ballot the second we found out someone else actually wanted it.  The nomination would still be on the record, right?

Which is not to say that it is not an honor.  It is absolutely an honor.  I am genuinely proud and humbled by the nominations I have received, whether I won or not.  But why do we have to pretend not to have feelings?  Why can’t we be sad when we lose?  And I don’t mean “why can’t we be mean to each other”: I can be sad for myself and happy for someone else at the same time.  Miraculously, people can contain multitudes.  And being expected to smile and laugh and be a happy pixie right after I’ve lost a major award is hard.

And we don’t want to want to win.  I always tell myself, louder than anyone else does, that I’m going to lose, and I can generally believe it, right up until they’re reading off the names, and for a quarter second I hear them announce me as the winner, and my heartbeat gets too fast and my corset gets too tight and I can’t breathe.  And then I lose anyway, but I’m having what feels like the start of a panic attack.  I want to win, but I don’t want to want it, if that makes sense.

We’re people.  We get to be sad.  We get to want.  And we get to hurt when we don’t win.  Yes, nomination is absolutely an honor, and please don’t think we think otherwise, but please let us be people, too.

Thank you.