A big “Thank you“ to phargle for nominating me, and more “Thank yous“ to all you kind well-wishers.
I am really very happy to receive this award. It is both a very nice “Welcome back” to myself and an even nicer “Farewell” to Serlo de Hauteville, now that he has exited the stage. And it is indeed for
Serlo that I am happier about this award than for
myself – I guess one could say that he has really grown on me. Not bad for a basically random choice of a character from the game-play to tell the story with, I reckon.
It is not fishing for compliments when I do sometimes voice my misgivings with my own writing, how I do often consider it tripe I am deeply unhappy with. But then some kind soul comes along and reminds me how
Furor Normannicus and its characters, first and foremost Serlo de Hauteville, seem to resonate emotionally with quite a few people, and I realize again how resonating emotionally with people is far from nothing, shortcomings of the writing aside. On this level, too – maybe more on this than on any other – it is therefore wonderful to receive this award as a reminder that some people are really touched by my characters. Thank you.
Well, now for a successor. Having been away from AARland for quite some time, this choice has not been an easy one – I am not as up to date with what’s going on as I used to be and many of the few AARs I am currently following have recently received awards or are of a style unsuitable for the “Character Writer” award. So I did some reading around, which was not easy amid the business of the weeks preceding Christmas.
To cut a long story short, with all those constraints, I have been unable to follow my original intention of passing the award out of the Crusader Kings subforum. It just
has to go to one of the best CK AARs that are on, an AAR that has many delightfully drawn characters, but with none as appealing to me personally as Princess Gro Svendsdatter. I am of course speaking of
I hope the nomination finds the community’s full approval, and that Saithis will now finally write the new chapter that’s already overdue.