It’s not important until you make it important

There’s a person I follow on all social media. Her name is Molly, the art witch. I love her. I want her to be my auntie. 

I’ve learned so many wonderful things from her about art, expression, finding joy in life, and witchcraft. One of the best things I’ve learned from Molly is this. Nothing is sacred until we say it is. 

Now, she was talking about grimoires and other magical tools. And this was great news for me as a beginner witch who was being far to methodical about my grimoire. It was incredibly freeing, realizing I could have a grimoire that didn’t look anything like the books I grew up seeing on Charmed. I’ve since crafted three full grimoires, and have two active ones for my continued learning.

But I didn’t come here today to talk about grimoires. I can if you want me to. Let me know in the comments.

Today, though, I want to talk about something else. Tuesday was the ninth anniversary of Paper Beats World. It was a terribly important day for me, filled with big positive emotions. Do you know what I did?

I went to work, because I had to work that day. 

I have launched ten books and three seasons of podcasts. I’ve had a handful of mini milestones in my writing career aside from those. And on most of those days, I have done just about the same thing.

I’ve taken some pictures, posted them on social media, and gone to work. 

What in the hell am I doing? 

I think for the longest time, I’ve been expecting other people to make a big deal out of these days, these milestones and achievements. But that’s a lot to put on anyone. My darling husband is as supportive as they come, and even he didn’t do much more than congratulate me. But really, what else was there for him to say? 

Especially as indie writers, our successes seem lackuster. Our books come out to little fan-fair. Instagram didn’t turn pink when AA came out. No one was waiting outside a book store to snag a copy of Quiet Apocalypse before they went to work. 

Please understand that this isn’t a pity party. Nor is it me talking down about myself or other indie authors. Most of the content I was most excited for this year didn’t have a massive party when it launched. Silver Nitrate came out, no one was dressing up as film monsters and waiting in line to get their copy. Old Gods Of Appalachia is about to start season four. We aren’t seeing a bunch of stoked fans dressed up as dead miners. Instead fans of these things, myself included, simply got the book. We listened to the podcast. We celebrate the stories that we love by consuming them, then posting pictures of the covers on social media and raving about how cool the story was. Quietly.

The point is that no one is going to celebrate your successes as much as you do. These days don’t have meaning, unless we make them have meaning. And yeah, it’s kind of hard to make them have meaning, even if it’s something you’ve waited years for. 

I had to go to work on Tuesday. I actually got sick and had to leave work, spend the rest of the day on the couch on Tuesday. But most launch days, the world just has no intention of stopping. There’s still pets that need cared for. Laundry, dishes, day jobs. These things do not and will not go away. 

But we are achieving things, damn it! We are launching books, we are signing contracts. We are getting our first good reviews and holding the copies of our books for the first time. We as indie writers are winning all the time. And damn it, I’m going to take more time to celebrate those wins. 

So sometime soon I’m taking myself to my favorite coffee shop. I’m getting a Fall coffee, and sitting down with my laptop to look over my own site. To revisit the memories, advice, lamentations and everything else I’ve poured nine years of work into. After all, I start this blog while I was still working on Broken Patterns. It is a very real documentation of my entire writing career. 

This is how I’m making this anniversary sacred, how I’m making it special. And I’m vowing now to never pass up another opportunity to celebrate a writing win again. 

So how about you? What do you do to celebrate your writing milestones? Let us know in the comments. And I’ll see you again next week. 

Don’t forget, Preptober is officially just a month away. I have a brand new updated for 2023 version of my Preptober Planner available now on my Ko-fi shop.