when life gives you lemon... | WRITING TIPS, RANTS, JOURNAL BOOK

Why popular wattpad writers are UPDATING SO SLOWLY it's killing me!!!!!!!

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Disclaimer:

The words written below are purely my opinion and my observations of several wattpad writers that I've been following/friends with.

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I started writing romance fictions when it was 2012.

I know, I know. It was EONS ago. Justin Bieber hasn't gotten big yet. There was no way Trump could be a president back then. And the diversity wave wasn't making that much waves.

I wrote fan fictions, and I was one of the few writers who managed to get 1000 reviews (you can call that comments and votes combined) during that time. I was 'popular'.

Then I got dissatisfied with fan fictions and moved over to original fictions, and then came along wattpad. My first story didn't do so well. It was Maid for Hire and I think I was stuck at 10.000 reads for months, before suddenly, at chapter 20 something (wattpad chapters weren't so short back there and having 30 chapters is usually the 'end game' for most books at those days) the reads spiked up to 10, 20 times it was. I reached 1 million views and people started to anticipate my works.

Then I wrote The Bad Boy Lives in My Room (most of you would know that as The Quirky Tale of April Hale) and I think I can safely say that I got popular during that time. It only took me about 3 chapters before getting 100.000 reads and less than 10 to get 1 million reads. Yes, it was huge and fast and I can't believe this is all happening to me I'm still at school and my parents don't know there are millions of people loving my stories!

And it felt nice. In fact, it felt really nice. Way nicer than I thought it would be. I became accustomed by the numbers. The views. The votes. The overwhelming amount of comments and messages I get each day from strangers telling me that they love my stories. I look back at my diaries and I can sense a huge amount of pride over myself.

I became disillusioned.

And then you know that I had some personal problems (and it involved pills and a very expensive therapist). When I came back, I posted a new story/chapter and guess what?

I got way less numbers than I used to.

I think this is something that most writers don't really want to talk about. First thing, because it feels shallow. Writing is art, and like all art, we're all supposed to think that we do it to satisfy our heart's desire, the deep pool of transcendence that transform us whenever we write something that's deep to us.

(Spoiler alert: while it might be true to some, but art feels much better if you can share it and other people love it. So yeah, I call bullshit on those writers who say 'i like writing because it makes me feel alive and that's the only reason why I write lol peace.')

When you've reached a certain number, a certain level of attention, you get used to it. Humans are always looking for validation, whether they admit it or not, and acknowledgement is one of the ways we have it. You post a story. People love it. You see the ranking climbing up. Of course you're happy. Are you happy that you finished that one chapter that you've been brewing inside your mind for months? Fuck yes. But you'll be happier when other people love it, too. That's why when most children say they want to be a writer, they're not thinking about the process of writing. No, because the actual process of writing is a long, hard lonely road that's always slippery and cold. They're thinking about the fame and glory and how much love they're getting from their hypothetical readers. The movie deals. The trilogy that's out on the bookstores. The raving reviews on Amazon.

And it's also the same for us wattpad writers.

Wattpad is amazing. It provides a platform for us to share our thoughts and stories. Most of the writers who post here started young. And they write, and I'm sorry for saying this; cliched, slightly bad stories. But those who got lucky and consistent about it get attention and they love it. Including me.

And we love it so much that sometimes, when we don't get that much attention anymore, it can take a hit on our self esteem.

Does this sound familiar?

A popular wattpad writer abandoning her books?

A popular wattpad writer with ONE REALLY VIRAL COMPLETED BOOK and several others that has less than 10k views (then abandoned)?

A popular wattpad writer who seems to take forever to update their newer books? (Hey, it's me!)

A former watty award winner who doesn't seem to be making new books?

My take is, since we're all very young when we start out, our mind is very prone to change. A change of status (from unnoticed to being popular online) is already overwhelming. And popularity is addicting. It's affecting the part of your brain that's producing feel-good hormones.

Once the popularity feels gone, the brain is of course confused.

And that's when it starts to weight down on you. These thought often occur on my mind and on my twitter timeline (it even rhymes):

'Am I not good enough?'

'Do people not like me anymore?'

'Why do people only like my previous works?'

Etc, etc, the other dark shit.

And those kind of self-defeating thoughts are destroying our confidence to write more, to produce more. Writing itself is a very stressful activity, it's hard to do it when your brain's happy. Imagine doing it when your brain and your self-esteem are on fire.

The thing is, with a lot of popular wattpad writers, the books that made them popular are most likely cliched, slightly bad books targeted to teens.

And when they learn that their work might make people happy and obsessed, they of course try to explore more of the craft of writing. They discover more things. They learn new tricks. They stumble upon new genres. More artistic ones.

But the audience on wattpad stays the same. Wattpad does get bigger, but the audience's ages are largely the same, their interests the same, their favorite things to read the same.

And maybe that's why it doesn't work so well anymore. But that doesn't mean that our writing gets worse. It might be the contrary.

It's just, since art is so subjective, it's easier to measure by the numbers.

In my case, though, it takes me months to notice this. I started writing on wattpad again earlier this year, and when I didn't get as much engagement as I had, I was devastated. What did I do wrong? Is my writing declining? Do my readers not like me anymore?

But I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I've been having a lot of side projects (mostly comics and light novels) and after a while, the number doesn't have that much of an impact of me anymore? Of course it makes me happy, but if I'm not getting the kind of numbers that I expected, I won't be devastated and stop writing either.

So, yeah. From now on, if anyone asks me why I'm updating so slow, I'm just going to refer them to this page. Then they will probably get clarity, and I will get more money from the ad-sharing on wattpad. So it's a win-win situation?

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Do you guys have any questions or topics that you want me to cover? Comment here!