At your day job, you’ve probably spent long hours working to complete a project or implement a new process only to have your boss and colleagues completely fail to notice the effort you put in.
Or maybe you’ve made major body composition changes by following a strict diet and a focused exercise program, only to have your partner, friends, and family remain oblivious to the success you’ve achieved.
These experiences – where you put in major effort and receive almost no positive feedback in return – can be profoundly frustrating.
Unfortunately, these experiences can also serve as a fairly accurate metaphor for what it is like to write a novel.
When you finish drafting a difficult chapter of a book, there isn’t any applause.
When your third draft is demonstrably better than your second draft, balloons don’t drop from the ceiling.
When you finally figure out the solution to a challenging plot problem that’s been nagging at you for weeks and weeks, no one even knows it’s happened.
This long and grueling process of working for months on end with no positive feedback is one of the most challenging parts of writing a book. And while intrinsic self-motivation is utterly essential to achieving your novel writing goals, there are some tangible external actions you can take to make the process more enjoyable.
With these actions, you can make the practice of celebrating small victories a regular part of your writing process.
1. Build or Join a Community of Practice
As I have written about before, the myth of the solitary author is just that: a myth.
No author achieves success alone, and being part of a community of artists and writers can provide a writer with many benefits, including a place to celebrate the small wins along the way.
Facebook groups, group coaching programs, and accountability buddies give writers an opportunity to receive support and praise that would otherwise be completely absent from their creative process.
Your husband might not understand how difficult it is to create the perfect McGuffin, but your writing group will!
2. Track Your Progress
It can be difficult to know when or what to celebrate if you aren’t tracking your progress to begin with.
Long and short terms goals, deadlines, plans, and performance indicators give writers the ability to not just monitor progress, but also identify the small victories.
Did you get more words written last month than ever before? There is no way of knowing if you aren’t tracking your efforts!
Whether it’s word count, page count, hours at the keyboard, or an unbroken streak of writing days, tracking and monitoring tells you when things are going wrong, and when they are going right.
3. Consciously Celebrate Wins
Far too often I see authors reach major milestones only to fail to acknowledge just how far they have come.
I often encourage my coaching clients to take time to really celebrate moments like the completion of a first draft. Writing a full-length novel, even just a crappy first draft of a novel, is a huge accomplishment most people will NEVER achieve!
Buy yourself a gift, or go out for dinner with your loved ones. Do something to reward yourself for all the hard work.
Those major milestones can slip past barely noticed if you aren’t careful to acknowledge just how important they are.
4. Hire a Writing Coach
Writing coaches (like me) are great at providing writers with editorial advice and training on the craft, but we are also fantastic at creating a sense of comradery and teamwork in an art form that can otherwise be isolating.
When you hire me as your coach, you can bet I’ll be on you to get your writing done week in and week out.
But I’ll also be there to cheer you on, celebrate your successes, and fully acknowledge every obstacle you overcome along the long road to success. When you publish your book, and it becomes a worldwide phenomenon, no one is going to be prouder.
Momentum
Success breeds momentum, and momentum breed productivity.
If you want to make steady process towards your writing goals, be sure to implement the techniques identified in this article.
In writing a book, you become a champion one hundred times over.
That’s something worth celebrating.
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