Google defines a milestone as “an action or event marking a significant change or stage in development.” (sourced March 20, 2025) Some writing milestones:

1. The first completed piece of writing.
2. Sharing a piece or pieces of writing.
3. The first feedback.
4. The first public sharing like an online publication.
5. The first lengthy piece of writing is complete. For example, a novel manuscript.
6. A first published book.
7. A first book award.

For me, I remember writing a story in grade school. I can’t remember the story itself, but I remember it involved a rose, blood, love, and murder. I remember illustrating the story as well and being so excited about the full project. Maybe that was when I first realized I aspired to be a writer. In high school, I wrote dark poetry all the time. It was surreal and full of fantasy images. I loved sharing it with my close friends.

Going from writing for yourself and maybe sharing it with friends and family to submitting a piece for writing for publication is a change in the writing journey. I still have my first rejection letter from the first time I submitted a story to a publisher. I received that rejection via the postal service. It was from Orca Book Publishers. It was July 31, 2008. My story was called Princess Grace and the Magic Bubbles. I still have that letter in my writing portfolio. There was something sad and exhilarating about it. Sad because I wasn’t successful, but exhilarating because I had put my writing out there and survived. Like most, maybe all, writers I have had a few other rejection letters since that one.

When I opened this blog in December of 2015, I started writing and sharing publicly regularly. This was a big transition for me and I have been pushing forward on my writing journey since. For example, I wrote my first full manuscript during NaNoWriMo in 2016. It was a memoir I wrote for myself; I have no intention of publishing it. Around this same time, I had a few short articles published.

I wrote The Ember Stone in 2021; the publishing house I used published it in 2022. I published a revised edition in 2023. I finished The Ember Stone for the book series in 2023. Vizard and Chimera and Curses won some book awards in 2024, which I felt was a big milestone.

I fell in love with editing during the novel part of my writing journey and I am now a certified editor.

I’m publishing my first nonfiction book in May 2025.

Those are a few of my writing milestones. Are you comfortable sharing one of yours?

I wrote this post for letter W of the 2025 A-to-Z blogging challenge.