2018 Wattpad Fictional Story Contest

>>> Final Thoughts <<<

It's finally over. I have finally posted the winners and I can finally take a break. Everyone reading this, I hope you know, not so you can pity me, but rather to please not make commitment you can't withhold, that this contest took so much time and energy. The amount of work and dedication I put into this is tremendous, and no contest holder deserves to have gone under this much stress. Especially during the last round of the competition, I went through each and every comment a judge wrote, each and every score since August, and wrote pretty much a multi-page analysis for each of the eight books.

Some may have been easy to take out, ones with relatively low scores and poor judging comments, but others were so hard. In the beginning, I went through profiles, encouraging them to enter. Then, I did the same to find judges. Once I found the judges, I was so happy, and ready to take a small break. Until I found out that not all of the judges could keep their promises and fulfill the duty that they volunteered to complete. I ended up judging so many books, and as much as I enjoy reading, I don't want to be forced to read so many books in such a small amount of time. I was on a timeline.

Those of you following this contest from the start know that this was supposed to end in October, yet here I am, on the last day of this year, posting the winners. When I first hosted this contest, I was so excited and I was ready to have fun organizing this.

But it was a lot of pain. It was worth it. I loved seeing the progression and which books got to stay and why. I have five amazing books to finish in 2019, and got to meet a lot of new people on the platform. I got to interact with a lot of people, and become friends with some of them.

But I hope you understand that everything I got had a lot of pain before it. I have spent hours, so many hours, dedicated to this. Making stickers, reaching out to judges, recording information, drawing conclusions, publishing chapters, gathering judges and entrants, and on top of all of this work, I had to judge so many, many books.

I want to thank every judge that successfully completed their task, helped me out, made up for other judges's work, and everyone who has made it this far into the contest and hasn't given up on it. I honestly thought of cancelling this halfway halfway through the fourth round, but I couldn't and wouldn't let down all the entrants. And thank you entrants, for well you know, powering this. Without you, this wouldn't really be a contest.

The number of people excited to participate astounded me. Those of you who won, I hope this is a great new year's present for you. I also hope your new year's resolution is to write even more. And those of you who didn't quite make it, you are still amazing, and throughout 2019, working on your stories might make you the winner next year.

I guess I shouldn't be talking. My writing here isn't actually the best. By the way, those of you still reading, this is honestly just my personal reflection, or rant, whichever way you see it. Okay, I really should stop talking about this.

Now that this is over, I am going to take a small break from Wattpad. You will see even less frequent updates as I unwind from here a bit. This is not a hiatus, as I will be regular on my message board, be reading a bit, making some new covers and stickers. But please winners, tag fest or writing contest, please be patient with receiving your prizes. This may take up to a month, but you will have everything you won without a doubt.

Also please don't think I'm doing this all for pity. I just wanted to tell you that this wasn't easy. I really don't want people to think that I just feel bad for myself. That is not it at all!

And contest followers, this is a goodbye until next August! Ciao!