You know that feeling when you put the finishing touches on a room you’ve torn down to the rafters and rebuilt? What about how you feel when you go down in your basement the day after you pulled everything out, tossing ninety percent of the stuff stored down there in the garbage? Yes, that is a sense of accomplishment.
Accomplishing a task sometimes gives you instant rewards – it makes you feel good about yourself, or just makes you happy to have the job done. Sometimes accomplishments take some time to get recognized, perhaps a merit award for a school project at the end of the year or a pay raise after a year of hard work your boss has realized deserves a little extra compensation. Whatever the accomplishment, reaching a goal or finishing a job is good for the soul. As people, we take pride in our accomplishments. In many ways, we value our lives based on them.
For those of you who have written a novel, maybe two or even three, you would have felt that sense of accomplishment. As you typed or wrote “The End” and closed your laptop or put down your pen, you smiled – we all know you did. We all do. You’ve poured your heart into days, weeks, months of work. You’ve edited your story to within an inch of someone’s life and finally, it’s done! Maybe you did a dance down the hall while your masterpiece spit off the printer. Finishing your story is a quite an accomplishment.
Getting your story published is an entirely different task. The two jobs are inter-connected, but they really are two separate facets of becoming an author. Each has its own trials and tribulations. Just as writing the story took hours, plenty of thought and some good organization, finding a publisher takes hours, research and a lot of perseverance. But it’s important to remember even if you don’t succeed with one story, you may succeed with another. If you gained a sense of accomplishment from writing your story, don’t let the task of publishing take it away from you. Be proud. You wrote a novel – not something everyone does!
Happy Monday!
I am not a writer but I know that feeling of accomplishment, I feel every time I finish folding 10 loads of laundry, until I remember there will be at least 5 more the next day.
But congrats on your accomplishments.
Good point to remember about the journey of writing…yet I fret over ever being done. Even with one book published and a second on the way. I always find things I could have done better. However, I’m so enjoying promoting the work that the world can see.
Smiles,
Linda Joyce
I completely understand Linda. My first novel was published last year and my 2nd should be done in a few weeks, ready for my first round of edits. I have 2 books written that remain shelved because they need work. I wrote this because I realized while wrting my current book how close I was to finishing. It actually brought a smile to my face. Now I know even if my first 2 books never get published, I should still be proud that I wrote them. It’s no small feat despite their status on a book shelf!