A Celebratory Post

I made huge progress on my novel last year and didn't talk much about it.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

“I don’t often celebrate wins.”

An understatement, really. The opening line of a post I wrote in June of last year (and then didn’t share), right after completing the rough draft of my latest novel, is painfully accurate. I thought about talking about this win, I really did. But then I didn’t. I don’t have a deep reason why not off the cuff. I just… didn’t.

So I’m going to share now what I wrote back then, word for word (I may have edited for clarity and typos). And then I’ll close with a few thoughts about editing said draft, because that was a much bigger win for me.

“I don’t often celebrate wins.

So here I am practicing patting myself on the back for a job well done.

Vibe Soup, a story idea that popped into my head in July of 2020, has been a long time in coming to fruition. I’m glad I date my notes so I can see when I had ideas or breakthroughs. It’s interesting to look back over all my idea notes and see what was going on in my life at the time. Mostly it’s big picture things I remember, but other times I remember that I went on a hike in the misty woods that day, and so it makes a lot of sense that my notes/ideas are more atmospheric in nature.

Vibe Soup has coalesced into something more story shaped, and while it looks different than the original idea I had in mind, it still tastes like I wanted it to. Which feels damn good.

It clocked in at almost exactly 50,000 words (I know I said 60k but I’m not worried about it, more words will come with edits).

I feel I ought to have a more impressive sounding takeaway from this experience than I do, but for me, this is impressive: completion. I have ADHD and since becoming an adult, I’ve realized that I have so rarely finished things. When I was younger, and if it was “required” of me, I absofuckinlutely finished and got an A, thank you very much. But when I started therapy, I realized that this was me masking and a need to please people that required perfection, despite claiming otherwise.

The saying, “direction, not perfection” makes me visibly cringe. I struggle with direction if I can’t have the illusion of perfection. And so I reached a point in my life that if it wasn’t required of me, why would I even bother because I could not make it perfect. No one was there to assign an arbitrary A to it.

So when I finish something for ME that isn’t going to be graded, it really ought to mean a lot to me. But I rarely take the time to congratulate myself.

My writing group has been absolutely amazing for that. They really know how to hype a friend for an accomplishment. This feels both good and overwhelming to realize that I’m still struggling with needing others to validate my accomplishment, rather than me, on my ownsome, saying, “hey Karli, you did a great job, I’m proud of you.”

We don’t do that nearly often enough, in my opinion. And our opinion of ourselves is so incredibly important. So maybe take the time today to tell yourself that you’re proud, or to tell yourself that you’re working on it, and that you won’t give up.”

I let that rough draft rest over the summer, with no small amount of apprehension about returning for draft two in September. At that point, I hadn’t edited a single novel I’ve written since I edited Twilight of Gods, my first full novel, back in 2018. I had a significant meltdown afterwards due to perfectionism as well as some personal life things. After that, I developed serious anxiety around editing which significantly contributed to me almost quitting writing entirely.

So to say I approached editing this story with anxiety is quite the understatement. But thanks largely to my writing group and my partner, I picked it back up and made the slog through it. And what I found was surprising. I am more resilient that I gave myself credit for. I journaled my way through, pouring out fears and anxieties and frustrations and I talked through my blocks with my people. (I also cried and raged a lot.)

Saying it in such a concise way definitely makes it appear as though the process were easy. It was not. But the notes I wrote during that time were for me alone. Perhaps I’ll share more about it another time, perhaps not.

On December 19, 2024, I completed an editing pass (one day early and having also added approximately 30,000 words) on a novel for the first time in six and a half years. The amount of relief and pride I felt and still feel is enormous.

Sometimes being patient with yourself is the best thing. And no small measure of finding your people, of sharing with them, of pushing yourself to your limits (while still being kind to yourself when you muck it up). And then ultimately…

Celebrate yourselves, friends. We’ve all come a long way. And we can keep going.