Mental Beatdown

Writing Excuses/Expectations

I am really getting sick of seeing really dumb excuses to quit writing. 

I don't care if people quit WattPad; that's their decision, and I've thought about it myself. I kind of have, in a way. I barely update anymore, and I'm only using it to connect with friends, really. That's for no reason other than my desire to keep some of my stories private and my focus on other things at the moment (namely, reading graphic novels until I die and working on my collection). 

But what I do hate are the excuses I keep seeing for it. A common one is that "WattPad forces things upon writers" and stuff like that, meaning boundries with what you can do. Fucking break it if that's what you think. I know that a lot of people on here only care about reads and are on here for recognition, but that's the wrong way to go about it. You have to go in here expecting nothing. This is only a playground, guys. This is not the real deal. Sure, I can come on here and bang another Darlings in an hour and play author for a bit, but that's nowhere near what you need to get published. So when I see someone complaining about there being preconceived notions of what you can do and then not doing anything about it, that bothers me.

You can't bitch when you've found a problem you can fix. Know how you get reads? From experience, it's from breaking the wall a little. My most popular story, Darling, is not what you'd call "generic." It's a weird philosophical journey of a girl who barely talks and the whole story is 80 words. It has over 80,000 reads. That's over 1,000 reads per word. My guess is that people liked it because it was different. My semi-followup, Oh, Green World!, is also very, very different if I could say that myself. It's about a cynical closeted-lesbian in an impending meteor attack. 

Also-- fun fact if you read it: it's all a metaphor. The apocolypse isn't real. It was written when I was coming out as a lesbian and that's how it felt, so I wrote it down. It felt like the world was ending, and it all stopped when I fell in love. So there. That clarifies every goddamn question I've had about that story and the last chapter.

Anyway. If you say that there's a problem, fucking fix it. I know from experience that people are willing to read weird shit to the end just for something different if you write it well enough. It may not be lots, but you really shouldn't give a shit. A little leads to a little more leads to a lot. The whole reason you should be writing anyway is to connect with people and exchange ideas, not worthless reads on a fucking website. 

Another thing that has been bothering me about this website is the recent urge for every fucking person on here to publish. That's fine, and I respect that, it's totally awesome that you want to do that and  I wish everyone the best. But when I see notifications in my newsfeed about how your story is on sale and you took it down and you're bitching about how you're not making money, I'll get pissed. This is a writing website populated by teenagers. Teenagers don't have any fucking money, and they won't spend it on a story if you've already put it up and taken it down. The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to leave it up for free and sell one and just hope that people like it enough to pay. I would, if I had the money.

I'm not saying not to take things down and publish them for cash; do it, if you want. But don't bitch about it when you're not making money, no matter how popular you are. Popularity won't fix poverty. I'm not saying everyone's poor, but I am saying that everyone's poor in the sense that most won't spend money on a book they've never read by a teenager writing on WattPad. I know I wouldn't. I've read enough shit on here to know that it'll probably be shit, too. Even if it is just two dollars, or three, and you have 45461213215464 fans, realize you probably won't make jack shit in terms of profit if they've never read the story. Unless you're some sort of writing god that shouldn't even be here (*coughs*JUDE*coughs*), you probably won't be making any money. You have to realize that and be okay with that. Jesus Christ, anyway, you FUCKING PUBLISHED BRO! BE HAPPY. 

You joined this site knowing that it's free and non-profit. Keep that philosophy. Use it as a training ground before jumping into publishing. If you want to jump into publishing, awesome! Just don't be a dick about forcing people through pity to buy your book/poetry collection, because that's some bullshit. Say it's on sale once or twice, but if I see another "How come you guys haven't bought my story on Amazon? :(" message, I'm going to lose my shit for real.