I had a moment recently that probably wouldn’t look like much from the outside. There was no book deal and no publishing announcement, and nobody turned up with champagne, flowers or a seven-figure cheque, which frankly feels like an oversight. It was a small step in a much bigger journey, except it didn’t feel small to me. It felt enormous.
I have a well-established habit of achieving something, enjoying it for roughly nine seconds and then immediately asking what comes next. So this time I’m trying something radical: I’m going to sit with it.
The Finish Line Keeps Moving
One of the strangest parts of trying to become an author is that there’s always another milestone waiting behind the one you’re chasing. First I wanted to prove I could write a novel, and then I wanted to finish it. Once it was finished, I wanted to make it better, which brought the editing, the feedback and the next draft, along with a quiet question humming underneath all of it: is this actually good enough?
Ambition keeps me going, and I genuinely love having something to work towards. The trouble is that it’s easy to become so focused on the next step that every achievement turns into old news the moment it arrives. You can spend months wanting something, and when it finally happens your brain simply responds with, “Lovely. Anyway.” Mine is exceptionally good at this.
Why This One Landed
This win didn’t feel enormous because of what happened. It felt enormous because of what it meant. It reminded me that all those slightly ridiculous hours spent staring at a manuscript, rewriting chapters and questioning every sentence were actually leading somewhere.
Writing is a private ambition for a very long time. You pour enormous effort into something nobody else can see yet, and there are no applause breaks between chapters. Nobody sends a congratulatory email because you finally fixed a scene that’s been annoying you for three weeks. Most of the progress happens quietly, so when something comes along that suggests you really might be getting somewhere, it lands differently.
Naturally, I Tried to Ruin It
Almost immediately, I started adding small print. Yes, but it’s only one step. Yes, but nothing is guaranteed. Yes, but other writers are further ahead. Apparently I can’t experience joy without attaching terms and conditions.
The more I thought about it, though, the more ridiculous that felt. Of course there’s more work to do, but that doesn’t erase the work I’ve already done. There will always be someone further along, posting a beautifully lit stack of advance copies while I’m sitting at my laptop wondering why I’ve used the word “just” seventeen times on one page. Their progress doesn’t cancel out mine.
The Version of Me Who Started
Whenever I’m tempted to brush this off, I think about the woman who first decided to take writing seriously. She didn’t know whether she could finish a manuscript, or whether the characters in her head would ever become people someone else could care about. She certainly didn’t know if she had the confidence to stop treating authorship as a nice little fantasy and actually pursue it. She would have been thrilled by this.
It’s easy to go numb to your own progress when you’ve lived through every awkward draft, every setback and every week where nothing seemed to move. Then one day you look up and realise you’re standing somewhere you once desperately wanted to be.
Pride Isn’t Arrogance
Part of me believes I’m only allowed to be properly proud once there’s a physical book on a shelf with my name on it. That feels unfair, though, to every version of me doing the work required to get there. Being proud doesn’t mean I think I’ve finished growing, and celebrating doesn’t mean I believe I’ve made it. I can say “I’m proud of this” and “I want more” in the same breath, because confidence and ambition are perfectly capable of sharing a room.
I’m starting to think that recognising the wins might actually make the hard parts easier to survive. Every so often you need evidence that you’re improving, that someone sees potential, and that all those evenings spent choosing one more chapter over sleep weren’t completely unhinged.
The Small Wins Are the Story
I used to picture becoming an author as one enormous moment. You write a book, someone loves it, it gets published, and you stroll into a bookshop to “discover” your novel on the shelf while pretending you didn’t visit that specific branch because you knew it was there.
Now I suspect the story is made of hundreds of smaller moments: the first finished draft, the first person who believes in it, the first encouraging feedback and the first time the dream feels slightly less imaginary. Then, hopefully, one day, the bookshop. If I rush past all of those because they aren’t the finale, I’ll miss most of my own story.
So I’m Having This One
There will be another goal tomorrow, and almost certainly a wobble of self-doubt before the week is out, because I know myself too well to promise a personality transplant. But this win mattered, and I don’t want to reduce it to another ticked box.
So I’m letting myself be excited and proud, and I’m resisting the urge to add “but” to the end of every positive thought. The dream is still ahead of me, but for a moment I’m going to stop measuring how far there is left to go and acknowledge how far I’ve already come.
A small win felt enormous. Maybe that’s because, for me, it was.
