Learning to Celebrate

Whether you’re an author who’s traditionally published, indie published, not yet published, or not even thinking about publishing for a very long time, there’s one thing we authors all have in common: a never-ending to-do list.

It doesn’t seem to matter how many things we cross off it, there’s always more. More to write, more to edit, more to market, more… more… more.

Posted to social media today? You’ll need another post tomorrow.

Met your deadline? Take a breath, because here come the edits.

Released a book yesterday? Your readers are already asking when the next one will be available. The one you’re still writing. And editing. And marketing. While also plotting out the one after that.

Pulled in your courage and aced that pitch at conference? Congratulations! That’s awesome! Now make those changes suggested. And polish that manuscript one last time. And send it as requested. And get to work on that next book while you wait. And that website/platform. And, oh wait, when was the last time you ate? You should probably eat some lunch. Even though it’s now closer to dinner. And, uh oh. Dinner. What’s for dinner???  

The truth is, there is always going to be more. More things to do. More things you could be doing. More things you probably should be doing. A writer’s to do list is a never ending thing.

Which is why we need to learn to celebrate. Even when the list isn’t done.

Am I good at this? Ha! No. Absolutely not. I struggle with this constantly. The idea of celebrating before everything is done just seems wrong. You should have heard how many times I’ve had to remind myself of this recently. (Actually, no, you shouldn’t. Because that would be really embarrassing!)

The list is long. But the reasons to celebrate are too.

Celebrate writing ‘The End’. Your book isn’t published yet. It might even be the biggest mess of dangling and forgotten plotlines that you’ve ever written, but you made it to the end. You wrote a book. YOU WROTE A BOOK! Do you know how many people have never done that? Wish they had? That’s huge!

Celebrate the rejections. Every single one of them is a badge of courage. Proof that you were brave enough to put your work out into the world and have someone judge it. Maybe it wasn’t right for their company, maybe the timing was all off, maybe you have a lot more work to do, but you had a go. You put yourself and your heart out there. And that courage is definitely worth celebrating.

Celebrate your book’s launch. This may seem pretty obvious—I mean, it’s a book launch, people! What every author works toward! But, again, it’s easy to let it just become another thing on your to-do list. Especially when you’re neck-deep in edits or writing your next book.

Celebrate that round of edits you completed.

Celebrate finishing that scene that’s been bugging you for weeks and you finally figured out.

Celebrate that sentence you wrote that’s (not even a little bit biased here) a work of GENIUS.

I want to encourage you today to put the list down and look back on your journey. Celebrate how far you’ve come, even if you’re not yet where you’d like to be. Celebrate the friends you’ve made along the way. The people you’ve met. The skills you’ve learnt.

Maybe it’s only for a minute. Maybe for a day or a week or longer. But learn to celebrate.

Because, seriously? You, my writer friend, are doing amazing.

This post was first published on LearnHowToWriteANovel.com