Autumn

Background

Disclaimer: there's gonna be like no grammar rules cause I'm kind of just talking to y'all

I feel like these sorts of things go at the beginning of the story, but I'm now realizing you guys don't know anything about me

I think I meant to post something like this months ago and just never got around to it

Feel free to ask me any questions too :)

Some of you may think I completely ghosted this app during my unannounced hiatus, but I checked back in every once in a while and to say that I was dumbfounded every time my reads went up would be an understatement

Anyways here's some background of how this story got started and stuff/me getting a little vulnerable

I started writing this story during lockdown a few years ago. It was my solace when I wasn't in the best mindset which I'm sure I lot of us went through.

I was going through some mental health stuff plus another like main thing that I still don't think I've come to terms with. I had the whole "other people have it worse" mentality, which is very unhealthy.

But this was also around the time I started really getting into reading and eventually writing. I needed some sort of outlet.

I remember I opened up a Google Doc one day and just started writing for fun. *pretty sure I still have some of the og chapters before I transferred them to here too*

I would write for hours at a time and I loved it to say the least.

Writing and Wattpad became my best friends. It was probably unhealthy with the amount I did both some days, but I didn't care.

I had written a lot when I decided that I wanted to actually become an author on here (I think this was January of 2021). I copy and pasted what I had already and edited it up here

I posted probably a few or so chapters, I can't remember, but I took it down after not that long because it flopped. I think I was also just impatient.

So fast forward to about June (I was still writing up until this point) and I decided to try again.

I even started a tiktok account because I was really gonna go for the whole author book promotion thing

I had a motto that I've still tried to stick by to this day and it's helped me a lot

I promised myself that if I was going to write this book I was going to do it for me and only me. Writing this book made and makes me happy and I didn't want to lose that.

So no matter what happened I was going to keep it up and write it because I wanted to.

I really didn't think much was going to happen and I was content with the few comments I had.

But then one of my tiktoks blew up (third one pinned on my tt account) and stuff changed after that

I still remember waking up and seeing 99+ notifications and just staring at my phone. I scrolled through every comment and checked my story and I had a lot more reads than the night prior.

My engagement only got better and more people started to read my writing and actually liked it. I'm not a very confident person a lot of the time, so seeing all of y'all's comments made me feel like I was actually doing something.

It motivated me and I loved everything that came with the engagement.

Then my tt views took a nose dive and it made me a little sad, but I was so grateful that my videos did well given the algorithm

I told myself again around this point that I was doing this for me, but it grew into more because I had people that counted on my chapter updates when they had a bad day

People were laughing together in my comment sections and talking about my story with friends

You guys gave me a sense of purpose that I don't think I had felt so largely before.

I literally have a folder on my phone filled with some of my favorite comments from you guys like I've literally teared up reading some

I think something that a lot of authors go through though is burnout and pressure for updating.

Eventually the time it took to update and write my chapters took longer

There would be a little voice in my head constantly telling me I needed to write better, put out more chapter and videos and it can get extremely tiring.

It got to a point where I didn't want to write anymore, which was one of the worst things ever.

It ducks when you slowly lose your love for something and can't really do anything about it

I felt so bad because I couldn't think of anything and I honestly didn't want to.

But I wasn't just letting myself down, but you guys too which was the last thing I wanted to do

Fastfowarding again to last summer I was pretty busy. My last chapter was in July and I genuinely never even planned to leave this long.

Okay so more background so this makes sense, I'm still in school okay and one of the things I do for my school starts like really doing things during the month of August which creates long days.

I have admitted many times that I am a slow writer, especially if I don't already have an idea. I will write chapters and paragraphs and scrap them if I don't like them.

I can't remember if I wrote during August at all because the chapters after "Lights, Cake Mistletoe" I was pretty much in a writing slump

I knew I was going to give you guys a happy ending, I just really didn't know how I wanted to do it.

School year starts up and it's honestly worse than I expected it to go. Like I said previously I'm not the most confident person, and last semester did not help that.

I wasn't doing as well I as have in previous years no matter how hard I tried. I wasn't doing well in my school activities and honestly it just felt like i could've been doing better in life.

I was doubting myself and my abilities a lot.

I've doubted my writing abilities before, but I just knew I couldn't keep writing for the time being.

I did not want to end up not liking the entirety of Autumn when at one point it was like the one thing that made me look forward to the day.

So one day I just pushed the story to the back of my mind. I did know how long I was going to do that for, but I needed a break.

I'm not going to lie the longer I went without posting anything, I thought that my story would just fade away. One of those non completed stories that people would find years later and be mad at how it ended

But as the months went on I would occasionally see comment asking when I was coming back or that they missed me and it only reinforced my belief that my supporters are the best people on the dang planet

I wish I had written more sooner because I genuinely believe it's a healthy thing for me to do

I just got overwhelmed sometimes and I don't know if I feel better because I took a break or what but thank you for all the continuing support while I was gone

If you've made it this far im shocked but thank you for listening to me for a bit

Before I left I talked about a possible new book idea called "What About Forever" and then I ended up changing it to "More Than Summer"

I started writing it, I'm not sure if I will continue, but let me know if you want to read a snippet of it or want me to explore that idea more

Anyways love you all <3<3<3 and I hope you have a fantabulous day wherever you are in the world