IWSG Day- How Do You Measure Success?

Happy New Year! Who’s excited for the first IWSG post of the year? If you don’t know already, IWSG stands for Insecure Writer’s Support Group. It’s a safe haven for writers, created by the illustrious ninja captain Alex Cavanaugh. Let’s face it, a writer’s life is not easy. Often it can be lonely and taxing. Which is why this group is the best thing since sliced bread. Because it allows us, every first Wednesday of a new month, to come together to share our woes and fears. It allows us to meet new friends and encourage each other. While we continue on this never ending writing journey towards publication.

To find out more about the group and/or maybe even sign-up, click on the badge above. And don’t forget to check out the awesome co-hosts for the January 6 posting of the IWSG: L.G. Keltner, Denise Covey, Sheri Larsen, J.Q. Rose, Chemist Ken, and Michelle Wallace!

Our Twitter hashtag is #IWSG

The new year is synonymous with new beginnings. Pretty much we’re starting off with a clean slate. So there shouldn’t be anything to worry about, right? Wrong. The year 2015 is behind us. But the same woes, doubts and fears, from last year and the previous years always remain.

So far, 2016 has been good to me. Had my 200th blog post milestone the this past Monday. Received the proof my poetry chapbook that same day too. Preparing a book launch/blog tour. But what’s starting to nibble at the corners of my mind is if I’ll be successful in 2016. What if my book sales remain stagnant even after the blog tour? What if my submissions haven’t been accepted by a journal, magazine, publisher or agent? What if? What if? What if?

It’s neverending right? Problem is, you’ll never know what’ll happen until you give it your all and review the end results later. Then I thought, after trying your best, how do you then decide if you were successful.

Whoa.

How does anyone even measure success? I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but is there one universal way to do so? It’s not like there’s a measuring cup we can actually use.

But there is definitely one way to measure success, which the muggles uses to judge our worth as writers. Money.

If our sales were good, good being more than three figures, then we’re successful. If not, then our efforts in writing and sharing our babies with the world is disregarded. Ugh.

There has to be better ways to measure success than that. Yet, I still struggle to unbind myself from it. If I’m not making money, then all the things I’ve heard about writing, that it’s a hobby, not practical, etc, makes it true. And it does not. I won’t let it.

So for 2016, let’s remind each other, money does not equal success. It’s being brave enough to write the stories inside us and sharing it with others. It’s rewriting our stories an X number of times. It’s reinvigorating our love and excitement for our stories. It’s committing ourselves to our stories, submitting them and querying agents and publishers. It’s…help me out here?

How do you measure success?