Let’s get one thing out of the way: if you aren’t Stephen King (or in the fantasy space, Brandon Sanderson), you don’t write to have a lucrative career. To clarify further, neither did Stephen King or Brandon Sanderson. Financial success is nothing more than a happy accident, the convergence of a whole bunch of things going right, all at the same time. Writers write, not because they think it’ll make them a quick buck, but because they can’t keep from writing. Even now, I’m just taking a break from drafting a manuscript to write this very post.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t have our own benchmarks for success, for what it’s worth. And success for me doesn’t mean being Brandon Sanderson, as much as I love his books. That’s just a one-way trip to feeling like a failure in comparison. I can’t be Brandon Sanderson, any more than Brandon Sanderson can be me. I don’t have a Stormlight Archive in me, and I don’t think he’d have written Rapscallion.

So what are my benchmarks for success? An incomplete list:

1. A literary agent asking to read more of my manuscript. (Note that said agent eventually said they didn’t think they could sell it, but they’re an incredibly talented and knowledgeable agent, and the fact that they saw something in my writing they liked has stuck with me ever since. I know a lot of writers wouldn’t see this as a success, but to me, it’s a big deal. Agents can’t control where the market is, and Rapscallion wasn’t the sort of thing publishers were hungry for when I submitted it.)

2. My partner, Alex, reading my manuscript and enjoying it. Writing can be a solitary endeavor, and having an opportunity to discuss a story that’s been in my head and my head alone for years is a privilege.

3. Seeing the cover for Rapscallion. That was the first moment the book felt real. It had a cover, an image that people would see if they were looking to buy it, and the cover sells the tone of the book!

It’s so pretty!

4. Holding a copy of my printed book in my hands. That was surreal in the extreme. My book, which began as ideas in my head and a first draft scrawled across three composition notebooks, was now a professionally bound object that people could pay to read!

5. People I know buying my book. Again, not because of the financial aspect (I make roughly $4 per physical copy of Rapscallion and $2 per ebook, because I didn’t want to overcharge people). It’s because people I knew, who for years had heard me say I was a writer, now had proof that I wasn’t lying.

6. Seeing my book in an actual bookstore.

Isn’t that crazy? I’ve read and loved like ten of the other authors in this picture. I’m directly above Tad freakin’ Williams! (That’s his little-known middle name.)

7. My book getting reviews. Honestly, the existence of reviews does more to legitimize the book than anything else. It’s on Goodreads! People can say what they think about it! Wild stuff.

8. Rapscallion selling copies to people who don’t know me. This is a big one, and the marker that this isn’t just a vanity project. People bought my book not because they know me, but because they thought they might enjoy it!

9. My first book signing.

Pictured above: me and no one else that came to the signing, because they didn’t ask to have their faces plastered over the website of an author of one book they may or may not have read yet.

Regardless, the signing was super neat. People who hadn’t heard of the book bought copies, and some people who knew about it/me got their copies signed.

10. The thing I genuinely thought wouldn’t happen for some time yet: I met people who I had never met before, who read Rapscallion. They even liked it! I’m aware this is a thing that happens to every writer, but it hadn’t happened to me yet.

And looking over this list, I know none of these events are inherently special. They don’t make me rich. But what they do… do (this is why I revise, people!) is give me that little extra boost to keep writing.

Speaking of which, I have a scene to finish.