Celebrate the Writing Journey

I often meet writers with big dreams: writing and selling a bestseller for example. They want to win contests or writing awards or speak at large events. I applaud these dreams and encourage them yet today I want to celebrate and write about a different aspect of the writing life—the journey.

The writing journey is filled with many different twists and turns in the road. The process of getting the ideas and stories in your head down on paper takes hours of work and creativity. It's not easy but involves sweat and hard work. Beth Vogt recently included this quotation from Colin Powell: “ A dream doesn't become reality through magic, it takes sweat, determination and hard work.”

I encourage you to understand the process and enjoy the journey.

• Did you check your book on Amazon and find a new review? Celebrate.

• Did you get an email from someone telling you about how your book helped them? Did you ask them to write a review on Amazon and send them a little link to that page? Celebrate.

• Did you meet a new editor who can publish your material in their magazine? Celebrate.

• Did you complete a magazine query letter that you sent out to a number of publications at the same time? Celebrate.

• Did you have a literary agent interested in your work? Celebrate.

• Did you read a new book which gave you insight into your own writing? Celebrate.

• Did you write a review of a book you read on Amazon and Goodreads? Celebrate.

• Did you meet your word count goal for writing your current work in progress? Celebrate.

• Did you get out of your chair and walk around the block or exercise to help your health and physical health? Celebrate.

• Did you reach out to an old friend when you read their article (or newsletter) and it touched your life? Celebrate.

I was listening to Darren Hardy in one of his Darren Daily recordings discuss the successful people that he's interviewed. His fascination (and learning) is not their particular achievement or way they were made famous. His keen interest is in the lessons and process they went through to achieve that success. His focus is what I'm driving at in this particular article: the writing journey.

The road is not easy. At times you fail (get rejected). Other times you publish a beautiful book that you promote and market—yet few people buy it. Yes these situations happen. When it happens to you, what do you do? Keep moving forward or quit. I hope you keep moving forward because from my experience the people who succeed in publishing understand that rejection and failure is part of the journey.

The publishing journey is full of twists and turns. Not everything goes smoothly. Almost daily I face some technical glitch. Do I let that glitch completely throw my day or do I press on to something else that I can accomplish, then work on that later?  The longer I'm in this business, I try and take the second action. It's a process to learn to do what you can do and be grateful for those action—and to let the rest go.

Is celebration a part of your writing journey? I hope so. Tell me in the comments below. 

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