Dieselpunk needs to be on the Aurora Shortlist.

Just another last-ditch reminder about the Aurora Awards, and how in order for Blightcross to be nominated, it needs votes from the public. If you liked the novel, check out the link. I know it looks like a pain when you read the process, but it’s not really, and a vote would mean a hell of a lot in my case. You have to either be a member or register to be one in order for the voting link to appear.

So there are eight days left to vote for the Aurora awards and I feel like I haven’t done squat to get in on it. It’s kind of upsetting on one hand, but I guess a person can only do so much, and I’ve been very good at committing to too many things at once lately. This problem is so extensive that I seriously looked for a drafting course to take over the summer to keep myself occupied before going into the civil engineering program in the fall . . . which would have been ridiculous and redundant given that you lean drafting in that program anyway.

I mean, I don’t need to be occupied any further. Why must I keep finding excess ways of doing so?

Anyway, I’m the completely wrong personality type to generate hype for myself. Or for anyone else. That’s probably a really shitty thing to write on the internet if I ever want an agent or other publisher to even think of dealing with me in the future. But I think it would be easier to deal with it and possibly work around it if I didn’t try to play that game and just was honest. I have good work to sell, and will put in a lot of work to sell it, but unless someone tells me exactly what to do in order to sell it, I’m sure as hell not going to magically turn into an extraverted marketing genius.

I had this problem with bands too. There’s just so much non-musical crap to deal with that I ended up having more fun just playing what I wanted in my house than I probably would if I’d gotten with a real band. I always looked up to guys like Jeff Beck–ones known for being reclusive but still somehow manage to be relevant. You don’t need hype when everyone knows you’re better than Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton put together.

I like to deal with individuals. Crowd/groupthink scares and baffles me and I guess that is where I fail as an artist who would like to sell a lot of stuff. I especially hate groupthink when you see it happen in larger arenas, like politics. For example, it makes no sense whatsoever to me that Justin Trudeau would be a good choice for the federal Liberal Party, but it’s been decided before they even vote for it. And all without any basis in reason whatsoever. No debate, no discussion, just hysteria.

Not to get into politics or anything.

Once again, check out the Aurora Awards. It would be awesome to get a dieselpunk novel on the nominee list, wouldn’t it?