As our 2023 November Write Club comes to an end, I can’t help but feel impressed and inspired. As a newer team member here at Stage 32, I didn’t know what to expect from the November Write Club event. As a writer myself, I often crave structure at the same time that I grit my teeth and push back against others telling me how I should be structuring myself. It’s an age-old conundrum that I’m sure many of you can relate to. For that reason, I always struggled with other creative-focused goal-setting challenges.

So when the great Emily J sat down with me to explain the upcoming plans around November Write Club, I was admittedly skeptical. I worried that by setting a goal for myself and putting it out there publicly, I was doomed to fail. I knew that I was going into a very busy month both professionally and personally, so I didn’t see how I could add a creative goal on top of that. More so, as a leader within this fantastic community, I was afraid of setting a poor example or letting my community down by not making the proper time for such a special event. What I didn’t expect, was to be so moved week after week, seeing you all support, encourage, and celebrate one another. It reminded me of the pact that I made with my best friend when we first arrived in Los Angeles, anxious but excited about what our futures in the entertainment industry would provide. No matter what happened, we would always make time to celebrate the small victories.

Easy, Right? Wrong.

As far as pacts go, this one seems simple, right? Unfortunately, it’s not. So often, creatives are synonymous with perfectionists. We don’t just want to create, we want to create something great, something important and profound. Whether the work leans more commercial or artistic, we tend to hold ourselves to high standards and expectations.

In many ways, that’s what fuels our creative drive and keeps us moving forward despite the rejections and obstacles. When we’re our own worst critic, it doesn’t come as such a surprise for others to be critical of our work. We can accept that we need to do more, try harder, revise, and repeat. But that's also what tends to hold many of us back. We’re so desperate to not just do it, but to do it RIGHT. That fear of failure or anxiety over being compared to those around us, often keeps our best work living on our computers where it can’t help anyone, especially ourselves. It’s what stops us in our tracks from moving forward toward our goals.

When we don't see anything that we do as enough, how can we identify the small victories? Can we truly be honest with ourselves about what we’re doing right and when we should feel satisfied with our work? Or are we still waiting around for a bigger reward and a feeling of accomplishment?

So What Is A Small Victory?

Back when I was still an assistant desperate to prove myself, I was given the opportunity to provide script notes to a showrunner that my boss was partnered with. At the time, it was one of my favorite projects on our slate and it was perfectly aligned with my interests. This was a creator that I had so much respect for. I’d followed his work for years and the idea of giving him notes was terrifying to me. Who was I to tell this successful writer and producer what I thought worked or didn’t work in his script? It was both the best opportunity I’d had professionally and the worst. I had to force my brain to shut off and focus on reading the script and not overthinking the thoughts that I jotted down as I went. When it was time to email them to the showrunner, I must have re-read the email a hundred times before pressing send.

A couple of hours later, he emailed me back the kindest, most open response to notes that I’ve ever received, even to this day. He was so receptive to my thoughts and thanked me for taking the time. He complimented my ideas and admitted that there were a few things that he’d completely overlooked. I felt on cloud 9. I texted my husband, sister, mom, and best friends right away. That night when I got home to our tiny little apartment in the Valley, they had a cake waiting for me.

I hadn’t finished a script of my own in over a year. At that time I never had any time to write for myself. I hadn’t sold a show, won an award, or nailed a pitch. Those types of victories would come later. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t really a “success”. I had simply pushed myself out of my comfort zone to do something that scared me and received a kind email from someone who I admired. But when I look back, it’s one of the victories that I’m most proud of and I’ll never forget celebrating that with the people who supported me. That’s what it means to celebrate the small things. To recognize that sometimes the hardest thing to do is to press “send”. But if you do it, that’s a WIN.

Community, Community, Community

That’s where your community should come in. For me starting out, that community was made up of my friends, family, and most importantly my husband. They’re the people who I depended on to tell me the truth. The trick was that I had to be open to hearing and processing it. When any of them told me that I was doing great, I had to listen. I couldn’t let myself doubt or question them. I couldn’t let that little voice at the back of my head start whining about how their opinion was biased, I had to accept it as truth. When they told me that I needed to slow down and take care of myself, I had to do it. When they told me that it was time to celebrate a victory, we had to party.

Now, I’m lucky to have all of YOU as a community. Seeing you all come together over these last few weeks both here in the blog comments every Wednesday and throughout the Lounges, has been more moving than I can describe. It made me feel foolish for being so skeptical in the beginning. Not once did I see someone putting another member down for “failing” to hit a specific benchmark or goal. Instead, I witnessed so much encouragement and celebration. Many of you put yourselves out there and engaged for the very first time. You made friends, accomplished goals both big and small, and even learned from one another.

I watched many of you share suggestions and resources for classes, consultations, and past blog posts to help one another. You checked in and followed up to ask each other for updates. But what impacted me the most, was the community’s care and insistence that there was no rush. Despite the end of the month being a determined “deadline” so to speak, I saw many of you putting each other’s mental health and personal lives first, reminding us all that there is always time to extend our deadlines and support into December or even the new year. November Write Club may be coming to an end, but this is Stage 32. We are all here for one another on our mission to work towards our goals every day. So what is really ending?

What I Learned…

At the top of the month, I set the goal of completing a book outline. For the better part of the last year, I’ve had a concept for a fantasy book swirling around in my head with no time to give it the attention it deserved. When I sat down to set a goal, it seemed obvious to focus on that. To finally get some of what's been taking up so much mental space, onto paper.

I think one of the reasons I set that as my goal is because it scared me. For over 7 years, my life revolved around other people’s writing. As a development executive, I put all of my time and focus into making other writer’s material stronger. I stopped making time for myself. I honestly can’t even remember the last time that I let myself break down my own story from scratch. College? Maybe? So I feel both out of practice and terrifyingly jaded. I’ve worked with some of the best writers in the industry and watched project after project get rejected for a myriad of reasons. In some ways, I’m a worse perfectionist than I ever was before. But the only way to overcome that is to simply start writing.

I jumped in. I worked on world-building, character sheets, and the start of my outline. I didn’t make it as far as I had hoped. With only two days left of the month, I’m not going to have the completed outline that I thought I’d have. But I feel great. I’ve started. For the first time in a long time, I’m working on something of my own. I’m a bit rusty and easily fall into the trap of overthinking everything, but I’m getting words onto paper. So I’ll continue and keep working towards the goal. As you’ve all taught me, I still have time and can get it all done eventually. Not completing my goal is not a failure, but progress toward my goal is absolutely a victory. And it’s worth celebrating!

So tell me, where are you all at with your goals and how do you plan to continue the journey past this week? How are you celebrating your victories?

Let's hear your thoughts in the comments below!

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