Men of Middle-earth Awards

There are only a couple of weeks left to get your vote in for the mome_awards. The ballots close at 11:59 p.m. EDT on October 31, so please check out the ballot and get those votes in.

In a little over a week the nomination period for the mome_awards will end. If you want to make sure the pairings you love have their own categories, please nominate as many exceptional fics as you can in each of the story lengths (drabble, ficlet, short and long fiction).

Nomination Tip: If you know of at least three ficlets (or drabbles, short fiction, etc.) in your favorite pairing that you consider to be worthy of recognition, consider nominating all three and not just the one you like the most. That way you can almost guarantee that pairing will have its own category in that particular fic size.

Specific details on eligibility and the nomination process can be found here.

August 31 will be here before you know it. Please submit your nominations today!

In only a few days we'll be launching the second annual Men of Middle of Earth Awards! In the next couple of days, the nomination post will be up along with a post for pointing readers to your fic or recommendation lists.

If you have any questions about the categories, the process, eligibility, etc., please leave a comment here or send me an e-mail.

There are only ten days left to vote in the mome_awards. With thirty-one different pairings represented (classic RPS and both new and classic FPS) you're bound to find your favorites on the ballot. Voting will be open until January 25 at 11:59 pm so please check out the exceptional stories.

So yes, it was quite insane to think I could turn the nominations around into final ballots in two days. Thanks to a final flurry of activity, there are a ton of stories to verify and authors to contact. I don't know how long it will take to reach all the authors, but I'm hoping to have final ballots up by Tuesday at the latest. I will extend the voting in January to make up for the delay.

I can't thank you enough for all of the nominations. I'm thrilled to see so many great stories put forward for recognition.

In a few minutes I'll be creating the nomination posts for the FPS and Classic Fiction divisions. I may live to regret this *g* but the FPS category will have two tracks: Tolkien Characters and LOTR Actors. The Character track is much as I originally envisioned the awards, any pairing with the characters from The Hobbit, LOTR, The Silmarillion; basically any of the professor's works could receive awards, including crossovers. But in an effort to be as inclusive as possible, I've expanded the FPS category to include other characters that the actors from the films have played; i.e., Richard Sharpe, Walker Jerome, Will Turner, etc. As long as one half of the pairing is a character that one of the actors portrayed in his career, it will be eligible for the awards. Crossovers are also eligible; crossovers that include a character from LOTR will be part of the Tolkien track.

There will be two posts for nominations, but if you nominate a Classic in the FPS post it will still count (and vice versa).

Multi-chapter story eligibility

After a few suggestions and a very informal poll, the requirement that a multi-chapter fic be started by January 1 of the previous year has been eliminated. Now to be eligible for the awards, multi-chapter stories may be started at any time but the last chapter must be posted between July 1 and June 30. I received a request for this change in the middle of the process last year. Not only was I proponent for the idea of a required time when stories had to be posted, it was also too late to change the requirements after I had already started publicizing and people had begun nominating. Since then a couple of other people have made the same suggestion, and although I'm still not 100% convinced, the rule does conflict with the Classic Fiction category where stories can be started at any time.

So from now on there will not be a beginning deadline for multi-chapter stories. But the final chapter must be posted within the required timeframe. I haven't yet decided if it's feasible to go back and incorporate this for the RPS awards from this past round (by extending the eligibility timeframe next year) but I have until June to make that decision so I'm putting it on the back burner for now. :-)

Thanks for the feedback and all the support. Enjoy the FPS and Classic rounds.