context: The good guys (Snyder and co.) just captured one of the villains.

“A crooked grin slanted across Snyder’s face. He was having too much fun. But he deserved to celebrate a victory. They all did. It was easy to forget they actually succeeded sometimes.” – Checkmate

While I’m no longer working on Checkmate, I still like this quote. Why? Because it reminds me to celebrate small victories.

As humans, we get so focused on the destination (getting published, graduating college, etc.), we forget the journey. The individual steps that make the path to the end.

We forget the careful outlines, never-ending drafts, A+ assignments. We forget them all when we look at the destination.

But the tiny things build up to create big things.

We need to remember to celebrate the small wins. When we get another email subscriber after a month of silence. When we finish an article we’ve been struggling with. When we write a paragraph during our first week of college. When we reach 5k in our new work-in-progress.

When we recognize and celebrate our small wins, we fight discouragement. We see that we really are making progress towards that goal.

We remember that we actually succeed sometimes.

Speaking of achievements, my friend Havilah just released her debut poetry collection yesterday!

There were a lot of small wins that led up to this moment. 😉

I read most, if not all, of the poems in an ARC (advanced reader copy). She takes a word (like “sleep”) and writes a poem defining that word.

I thought it was an intriguing concept. I really enjoyed reading them.

Some of them have a darker tone, but the light shines through!

Buy a copy here!

Oliver’s Travels!