Don't Forget What You've Accomplished or I Wrote a Book

by Chris Schroeder (Flickr.com)

All right, Muffin readers, I'm here to encourage us all a little today. A lot of my recent posts have been about indie publishing or the writing process, and I thought I'd take a break from that and get a bit simple. Here's why.

The other day, my book, Finding My Place, was sitting on the kitchen table. I recently wrote a prequel for it and got great feedback from my critique group, but there were some details of this story I couldn't remember. So I'm rereading to make sure my prequel is in alignment. Anyway, there's my book, on the kitchen table, and I had this overwhelming proud moment of, "You know what, I wrote a book. And I had it published. Plus, I go to schools and kids and parents buy it. It's not even half-bad."

Then the next thought: Why am I so hard on myself? Why am I almost apologetic that I wrote a book, got it traditionally published, and want people to buy it and read it? Why do I downplay it when people say to me: You wrote a book. Cool! 

Well...I haven't talked to a therapist about that yet, but my guess is that I'm submerged in the writing culture where a lot of people have written a book, and some have had more success than others, more success than me. So, since so many people I know have done this same thing, maybe it doesn't seem like such a big deal.

But to the rest of the world, not in the writing culture, writing a book and seeing it through to publication is a great accomplishment. And it should be to us too! We should not be apologetic that we want to share our creation with the world, that we want to find readers, that as children's writers, we want to get into schools and share our message and our books.

I told myself that day, "It's okay, Margo. You should feel proud. Of this book and all your books. This is tangible proof of a goal you set and accomplished."

But I'll be honest. I have to keep telling myself that. I'm a people pleaser by nature, and I'm trying to be a reformed people pleaser. It's hard. So I worry about everything I say and do way too much! Trust me, my friends are always saying things to me like, "Overthink much?"

When I have to ask schools if they pay for authors to talk or ask teachers to send home my book flyers or ask my newsletter list to write a review for me, it's excruciatingly difficult, and I have to force myself to push send. But I do it. I do it because I know it's what needs to be done for success and that other authors are doing it. I do it thanks to the book, You Are a Badass, which is so encouraging. I highly recommend it for anyone who has any of the difficulties I've talked about in this blog post today.

If you submitted a short story this week, that is amazing! If you finished your book manuscript, jump for joy! If you are holding a book you wrote in your hand, wow! Honestly, just wow! Yes, you'll have to get back to the hard work and turmoil of being a writer, but for a minute today, celebrate the amazing goal you accomplished. I know for sure that there are thousands (at least) of people with half-written manuscripts or who haven't even typed one word of a book idea. And you are no longer in this group.

Now, after you've toasted yourself, get back to work. And don't be afraid to ask someone to buy your book!

Margo L. Dill is a children's author, writing instructor, freelance editor, and WOW!'s managing editor, living in St. Louis, MO, with her daughter and dog. To find out more about Margo, check out https://www.margoldill.com. Margo's next class is Writing a Novel with a Writing Coach and starts on March 6!