I had a bit of a wake-up call recently. I know I’m a perfectionist and hard on myself. But I didn’t realise quite how much I look at the things I need to work on and don’t take any time to celebrate the successes I have until recently.
What gave me the wake-up call? A friend of mine once bought me a small bottle of expensive champagne for giving up my time and helping her with something. I say a friend. It was that long ago (probably about ten years) that she stopped talking to me about five years ago over a misunderstanding over a text message. I know. But that’s another story. Anyway, another friend said to me a while ago. “I can’t believe you haven’t drunk that champagne yet.” My answer. “I haven’t had any champagne moments.”
I thought about my answer later and had a bit of an epiphany over what I’d said and thought about all the events and milestones I’d had that would and probably should have been classed as champagne moments. I’m going to list them below in roughly chronological order. I’m sure there’s probably more that I don’t even remember but these are the most obvious.
- Got a promotion to a management role in my teaching job.
- Left that job. Got the first job I went for, even though it was in a Secondary school.
- Got my first book accepted by a publisher.
- 1st book was published in December 2015.
- 2nd book was accepted by a publisher.
- 2nd book was published.
- 2nd book stayed in US top 100 for gay romance for months.
- Learned to self-publish and self-published 3rd book when the publisher shut down.
- Wrote and released 6 more books.
- Had a medical diagnosis which was a hell of a lot better than what had been running through my head for months.
- Had an audiobook company contact me, asking for the rights of a series. Signed Contract.
- Had an Italian translator contact me, asking for the rights of the same series. Signed contract.
So yeah, no champagne moments.
Why am I writing this? On August 29th I’m releasing my 10th book. And do you know what. I’m going to drink that damn champagne- lol.