Many writers are proud of something they accomplished, whether creating successful blogs, writing feature articles for magazines, self-publishing their novels, etc. As a writer, what are you proud of achieving?

... the time I nailed Tara Moss?


What?!? She's a best-selling author ...

RURVMBatest writing achievement now is my post about faeries and proof that they exist .
For the inner child in all of us. Kids often times gets ridiculed and labeled with hurtful words.
When they believe and saw other beings in this day and age of technology.
The explanation is still E=mc2 of Quantum Physics.
 BLOG POSTS: FAERIES
Still under construction  upload of raw unedited mobile photos 4/31/13 at 12:00pm

While I have a poem published, the one I am most proud of now is sociology final reflective paper I had to write lol.

I wrote an essay for class for a competition and I sort of won it ha ha...

http://www.creativeburrow.org/essays/freedom-essay/

My proudest writing achievement is getting my first book published. It was a hassle sending letters to publishers and waiting for months, only to get a rejection. Having my book published was my biggest dream and it made me feel good that someone out there liked my book.

I had a horror story I wrote published in a younger writers' anthology when I was eight. Looking back on it, it was truly awful (it involved trick or treaters accidentally visiting Dracula's castle and having to behead a giant chicken...), but I was so proud of myself. I had a poem published by the same publishers a few years later as well.

I know that this will probably sound pretty lame, but I think my proudest accomplishment to date would have to be that I got decent feedback from Mid-American Review. Although they didn't accept my poetry, I got a personal note from the editor. I'm going to submit another packet to them this semester and keep my fingers crossed that they'll publish me.

The proudest moment that I have had as a writer was when my very first book was published. I felt a huge sense of achievement because of just how much time and effort had gone into it, and to see it there on the shelves was a fantastic feeling. Since then, I have published a lot, and I love the sense of relief you get when you send the final manuscript in to the publisher.

Being a freelancer, it's important that I'm incredibly organised and able to sort things out on my own with regards to deadlines, so the fact that I am able to write books without procrastinating is fantastic in my opinion. I know many people who take decades to write one book, whereas I can write a full 100,000 word book in less than a month, including editing and proofreading. I'm very much an all-or-nothing kind of person so if I write, it's all consuming until it's done.

isis6 (06:21pm Sun, Apr 28, 2013)

Many writers are proud of something they accomplished, whether creating successful blogs, writing feature articles for magazines, self-publishing their novels, etc. As a writer, what are you proud of achieving?

Over the last few decades I have published in a couple of prestigious publications such as Highlights for Children whose standards are very high. But my crowning achievement, to date, is being published in USATODAY! Tough getting in that one and it was only the opinion forum but I was flying high.

GemmaRowlands (03:31pm Tue, Aug 13, 2013)

The proudest moment that I have had as a writer was when my very first book was published. I felt a huge sense of achievement because of just how much time and effort had gone into it, and to see it there on the shelves was a fantastic feeling. Since then, I have published a lot, and I love the sense of relief you get when you send the final manuscript in to the publisher.

Being a freelancer, it's important that I'm incredibly organised and able to sort things out on my own with regards to deadlines, so the fact that I am able to write books without procrastinating is fantastic in my opinion. I know many people who take decades to write one book, whereas I can write a full 100,000 word book in less than a month, including editing and proofreading. I'm very much an all-or-nothing kind of person so if I write, it's all consuming until it's done.

I want to be in your shoes, Gemma! For years I talked about the book I would write. Then I went through a period where I doubted I had a book in me. Since Feb or march, I have been writing my ass off and have written six, maybe seven full books. One took me two weeks so I get what you mean---when it goes well, it goes very well.
I have books out there but so far, no bites. I continue to write and to improve, I think. I am disciplined like I have never been before--it's great. I hope to see my book in print someday because to me, there is no cooler profession!

Lisa F. (02:07pm Wed, Aug  7, 2013)

I know that this will probably sound pretty lame, but I think my proudest accomplishment to date would have to be that I got decent feedback from Mid-American Review. Although they didn't accept my poetry, I got a personal note from the editor. I'm going to submit another packet to them this semester and keep my fingers crossed that they'll publish me.

Feedback is huge, I'm told! I've never got any encouragement but I would heed anything I was told by an editor. Good for you.

My blog is my proudest accomplishment only because I have kept it going for a few years now. At times I wanted to just let it go but I'm glad I kept it up.

Even though I've had a few articles published on a few different websites, my proudest achievement is my as-of-yet-unfinished novel. This may seem pathetic, but it's by far the longest single piece of writing I've ever done, the writing I've spent the most time and effort on, and it's the writing that I'm most proud of. I intend to finish it, but even if I don't, I got a lot further than I ever expected to or thought I was capable of, and that's a personal victory for me and that's what matters.

satoraxismundi (12:15pm Tue, Apr 30, 2013)

RURVMBatest writing achievement now is my post about faeries and proof that they exist .
For the inner child in all of us. Kids often times gets ridiculed and labeled with hurtful words.
When they believe and saw other beings in this day and age of technology.
The explanation is still E=mc2 of Quantum Physics.
 BLOG POSTS: FAERIES
Still under construction  upload of raw unedited mobile photos 4/31/13 at 12:00pm

I wish I could remember where I saw it, but recently I watched an extremely convincing documentary
on the existence of fairies. Also my best friend says she has seen them driving late at night through Laurel Canyon in LA.

Having my novel published is my proudest achievement.

It's been read by dozens and dozens of people 

My proudest achievement is publishing my novel:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/337106

lizbnyc (11:39pm Mon, Aug 19, 2013)

Having my novel published is my proudest achievement.

It's been read by dozens and dozens of people 

You won't get any mockery here. The first person to read through my rough draft that wasn't an immediate family member or someone I was sleeping with felt like such a huge honor to me.

cinderr (08:49pm Thu, Aug 15, 2013)

GemmaRowlands (03:31pm Tue, Aug 13, 2013)

The proudest moment that I have had as a writer was when my very first book was published. I felt a huge sense of achievement because of just how much time and effort had gone into it, and to see it there on the shelves was a fantastic feeling. Since then, I have published a lot, and I love the sense of relief you get when you send the final manuscript in to the publisher.

Being a freelancer, it's important that I'm incredibly organised and able to sort things out on my own with regards to deadlines, so the fact that I am able to write books without procrastinating is fantastic in my opinion. I know many people who take decades to write one book, whereas I can write a full 100,000 word book in less than a month, including editing and proofreading. I'm very much an all-or-nothing kind of person so if I write, it's all consuming until it's done.

I want to be in your shoes, Gemma! For years I talked about the book I would write. Then I went through a period where I doubted I had a book in me. Since Feb or march, I have been writing my ass off and have written six, maybe seven full books. One took me two weeks so I get what you mean---when it goes well, it goes very well.
I have books out there but so far, no bites. I continue to write and to improve, I think. I am disciplined like I have never been before--it's great. I hope to see my book in print someday because to me, there is no cooler profession!

A couple of years ago, I would never have thought that this was something that I'd ever be capable of. I have always loved writing, but I always struggled to write anything longer than short stories. To me, writing up to 100,000 words about the same story was foreign to me. I didn't think that I had that much information to tell people! But I found that planning everything out helped, and setting specific times to write was great, too. I did it as part of NaNoWriMo (I don't know if you know that) and having that community to help me and encourage me was very helpful. I haven't made much money from my book, but it's enough to encourage me to write another one, and I'm now around 8,000 words into it. I know it's not much, but it's a start, and that's all I really need at this point!

If you really want to write, just do it. Life is way to short to end it thinking "what if". Go for what you want to do, and simply enjoy it. You've written, you know you can do it, so don't rest until somebody realises what you're truly capable of!

And speaking of NaNoWriMo, I've found that even if you don't actually participate in it, the fundamentals of it can still be applied to your writing. That's exactly what I've done, and it's the only way I ever would've written nearly as much on my novel as I have. I have a book about it that I read that was a great help to me, but if you don't want to go that route, the basic principal is this: Just write with entirely forward progress. Always be pushing forward. Don't reread, don't obsess over minute details, don't spend too much time trying to nail that joke. Just let the words pour out. Do that until you've at least got a finished first draft, and then you can go back and clean up the mess. At that point, you've done more than most aspiring novel writers ever actually do, which is finish (rough draft or not). You may still have a lot of the harder work ahead, but the framework is there. To paraphrase something I heard a writer say once, a page of crap can be fixed, but a blank page will always be a blank page.

I don't know if that works for everyone, but it certainly works for me. I'm usually the type to polish and polish and polish each paragraph as I write it, and I end up not really getting anywhere beyond a perfect paragraph that took me 3 days to write.

If you ARE interested in the book, it's called "No Plot? No Problem!" by Chris Baty.