Fresh in my inbox from Andrea Bartz’s Get it Write Substack is a guest post from author Heather Eng that I want to take a closer look at. What is this list she is talking about? It’s a running list of wins. She writes:

Writing—and publishing—a novel depends on your mental health. In addition to being in a good enough headspace to think creatively, you have to bet on yourself for years, putting yourself out there again and again, despite countless rejections, before you’re paid a cent.

And once your novel comes out, unless you’re one of the lucky few, many of your big author dreams won’t come true. There were 642,242 traditionally published books in the U.S. last year; only a tiny fraction of those authors became celebrity book club picks, got profiled in major outlets like the New York Times, and sold millions of books.

That’s why every writer needs to keep a running list of wins and refer to it often.

This is a really good idea! I thought I’d make my list here (and keep a personal copy).

• Got a great agent, Rick Lewis
• I have a great publishing company, Oliver Heber Books
• Son of the Siren was my first novel out of graduate school and it got published!
• Son of the Siren‘s audiobook has an amazing voice actor, J. Kindred!
• Son of the Siren nabbed a BookBub featured deal
• Son of the Siren‘s audiobook was briefly in the top 3 of its category on Amazon
• Son of the Siren was chosen by Ingram Spark to be represented at the American Library Association conference
• Son of the Siren was named a Finalist in the Young Adult category of the American Writing Awards in 2025
• Son of the Siren has a 4.17 on Goodreads and a 4.5 on Amazon!
• I nabbed a 3-book deal with Oliver Heber Books!
• The Name and the Key was my graduate thesis, which is finally being published (July 21)!
• The Name and the Key‘s editorial reviews are really, really good
• The promotional art for Son of the Siren and The Name and the Key by Juhaihai is beautiful
• I wrote my first book (The Step and the Walk) in under a year–7 months, to be exact!

And I can expect more good things to come as more of my writing gets published. While there have been setbacks and rejections, I can always look at this list to feel better about myself.

No matter what type of creative you are, I suggest you take Heather Eng’s advice and make a success list for yourself, too.