Permission to Celebrate!

As you know, today (roughly, with time changes) is Royal Wedding Day! Congratulations to Prince William and Duchess Catherine!

It's a great time to celebrate. It got me thinking how much easier it is to celebrate other people's happiness and accomplishments than our own, which can seem so much less important, for whatever reason.

For instance, with my own writing, I sometimes let my fears (links to Michelle's post about fears) of failure stop me from celebrating what are really pretty cool accomplishments!

Today, I realized it's April.

I mean, I knew it was April. I wrote it on a post office receipt when I was shipping the Princess for Hire series to Writer Tessa last week. But I forgot that it was a year from the time I started writing my first middle grade novel. Using that as a mile marker, I realized I've written two full novels within the past year: the MG boy adventure (which took me about 2 1/2 months to write and was SO much fun) and the YA fantasy I've just finished (which took me nearly 10 months and was like pulling teeth).

Granted, combined their word counts equal one epic fantasy novel, but word count isn't my main goal writing for a young audience. I've written two completely distinct, fully realized worlds with good guys and bad guys, nefarious plots to rule the world, and brave personal sacrifices. They're not published. In fact, I didn't have the gonads to make it past 26 timid queries with the first one and I haven't even started querying my most recent project. So maybe I should wait to celebrate until I have an agent...

Or a book deal...

Or a spot on the New York Times bestseller list...

Or merchandise in toy and jewelry stores all over the world inspired by my characters...

Le sigh.

Daydreaming is fun. But then again, maybe I should embrace what I've already accomplished. After all, I know it was hard to write these two books this past year. I know I had a lot of other things vying for my time, poop that needed cleaning up, and kids that wanted to learn to read. And in spite of the difficulty, I still did it.

So I think I will celebrate. Just a little. Because, even though I know there's tons of work still ahead of me, I've reached every writing goal I set for myself last year. And with my first writing conference going down in SLC next weekend, this coming year promises to be filled with growth and excitement.

pic from this site

Celebrate with me! Share your accomplishments below. Because we all deserve some confetti.