116!! *falls over onto the floor*

[dawn_felagund]

For this year's MEFAs, my first act during voting season was to go through and put every story set in the First Age or earlier or involving characters from that era, as well as anything else that sounded intriguing, onto my Wish list. I ended up with 116 stories on my Wish list.

I thought there was a snowball's chance in Hades that I'd ever get to read them all. Working fulltime, going to school fulltime, and trying to keep the SWG afloat (plus family obligations, beta-reading, SCA, my own writing, my website, the Heretic Loremaster, my artwork, and the occasional hour of sleep) doesn't leave me with much free time these days. But I direly miss the days when my involvement in fandom included a good amount of reading stories about stuff I like. That's one of the reasons we're all here, isn't it?

Besides that, last year, I managed a dismal two reviews. I felt terrible for that. I have been well-nominated for the MEFAs for three years now, and it seems wrong to me to expect others to read and review my work while I sit and collect reviews and never glance at anyone else's stories. (Especially when, last year, each one of my nominated stories won third place or better, so people were generously reviewing me.) I know that it is not the MEFA expectation that nominees must review, and I do not judge people who I know accept nominations knowing full well that they have no intentions of reviewing, but for me it does not work to accept nominations without contributing as a reviewer.

So I really really wanted to get as many of those 116 stories reviewed as I could.

And, about ten minutes ago, I turned in my 116^th review.

*falls over onto the floor in a happy stupor*

If I missed any First Age stories, it was purely by accident. Otherwise, I read and reviewed them all, feel like I've been a good community member this year, had a great time, and--perhaps most importantly to me--found some phenomenal new stories and authors. And got to reread some of my favorites too.

Comments

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I met my minimum goal some time ago, which was considerably more modest. But at this late date, I still have many reviews left that I sincerely hoped to do. I hope I can squeeze some more in before the close. (As far as your achievement goes: frankly, I'm not sure if I am proud of you or worried about you!) I try to console myself on my own rather smaller number with the fact that I gave big points and reviewed a lot of long stories and tried venture beyond my usual preferred categories.

[dawn_felagund]

I don't think that any consolation is necessary. 116 was an accomplishment for me because it was something that I really had to push myself to do; for someone else, that number might be 20 or even 5. I think that anyone who reviews should be proud; even 1 review makes a writer's day! :)

Also, I think you have a good point about the length and depth of reviews. I think that every review is worthwhile, whether 40 words or 400, but I also think that there's something to be said for wanting to say something of quality about one story versus dashing off one-sentence reviews about five stories, even if the latter reviewer is going to have the more impressive achievement at the end.

One thing that I regretted, because I wanted to review all of the stories on my Wish list, was that there were some where I could have written much more but did not because I'd already given full points and needed to move on to the next story if I hoped to finish them all.