DABWAHA and trash talking!

Okay–I got the e-mail today, telling me that this book
made it as a finalist at DABWAHA and, well, I’m jazzed.

For those of you who have not heard of DABWAHA, the link to The Smart Bitches is right here. It’s a little like the Sweet 16 basketball tournament– first you fill out your brackets, then they solicit votes, and each round of voting pitches two different books against each other until finally, only one book remains.

Last year, it was Jane Seville’s Zero at the Bone (which is a rock AWESOME read, btw) and the m/m reading world rejoiced, because if you check out the contest, you can see that the eight different category are widely varied. There’s historical, series, short story, Y/A, contemporary, PNR, GLBT and Crossover. So her book triumphed in a field with ALL books, most of them het, and it felt like a victory just because the playing field was even, right? It wasn’t ‘erotica’ (just because it’s m/m) it was quite simply, a very good book.

So, I got the e-mail today, with the button on it (WOOT! One of these days I’m going to put all my buttons on my actual blog background, because I’m told that’s a good thing to do!) and the injunction to “Let the trash talking begin!”

Uh-oh.

I’m not great at trash talking. In fact, having met a lot of fellow writers in this last year, I’m not exactly sure we’re a trash talking crowd, really. Quite frankly, most of us are pretty supportive of our fellow writer–we really want to see the people around us succeed, because it seems like good feeling about writing just spreads to the rest of us. That, and when we read someone’s work that’s so good, we only WISH we’d written it, most of us are inherently honest enough to say, “Uhm, well, shit. I only wish I was that good. You elevate the art–I’m proud to be in the same profession.” And see? We’re also pretty modest. In fact, we’re so self-deprecating and (I mean this in the nicest way!) freakishly neurotic about producing good, quality work, that I don’t see us doing a lot of trash talking, do you?

I tried. I DID! I looked in the mirror and said, “I’m better than you! Well I AM! Because, well, because! I’m insecure. I’m FAR more insecure than you are! And nervous–I’m the most nervous writer in the world when I release a new work–I’ve got you all beat hands down! I damn near throw up, I swear! So I’m insecure, and neurotic, and… and I SUCK! I do! I TOTALLY SUCK! I suck worse than you any day of the week! So, uhm, yeah. Vote for me! Because I suck!” (Then I give a nervous, ingratiating smile, for effect!) “Uhm, go me!”

*sigh* Yeah. No trash-talking here. None at all. It doesn’t help that I’m up against Marie Sexton and Heidi Cullinan who are both so luminous and extraordinary in their writing that it makes me want to weep, besides being really lovely people, and James Buchannan whom you just can’t help but feel is too cool for school, not to mention Josh-frickin-Lanyon, who is like the Bruce Springsteen of m/m romance! And, uhm, well… see?

But I’m really proud to be in the company I’m in. I’m assuming I’ll be wiping the floor like a mop in the first round (although don’t let me discourage ANYONE from voting for me! Yes, I’ll post links, why do you ask?) but for me?

Making it into the bracket really is the honor. WOOT! GO ME!