Invisibly Masked

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

It's been a long time since I've logged into Wattpad, but I've missed you freaks.
I finished Invisibly Masked in 2016, and I haven't finished anything else since. Although I may have stopped posting on this account, I never stopped writing.
"Writers write."
Given the fall of this glorious app that has held a special place in my heart for most of my teenage life, I believe it's only appropriate that I give this profile its final farewell. So this is the final rose on the coffin:
You would be aghast at the heaps of unfinished prose, character sheets, and worlds half built. But it was never about the finish line, was it? "It's the journey," or whatever that one person said. The world has changed so much, and has changed me so much, and when I come back here I feel like I'm walking empty halls I used to run through screaming, "Look! Look! Read what I wrote!"
Cringing at my grammar, my run-on sentences (dialogue is still my strong suit), reuse of the same words over and over again. However, I can't help but love that part of me that never truly went away. In the real world, I was so afraid of being weird, but here, I could be as weird as I wanted without any judgment. (Absolutely APPALLED by my reading list- what do you mean I was reading straight-up BDSM at 16? I hadn't even kissed anyone yet, good GOD).
I adored being with all you little freaks (now grown-up freaks), and I can't say I'd want it any other way- although actually finishing something for NANOWRIMO would have been a nice notch on the bedpost, iykyk.
The last chapter of Invisibly Masked was posted on November 5th, 2016. This year marks 10 years since I finished that book. Also, the 10th anniversary of my mother's passing. And now, people are migrating from Wattpad to AO3. This feels like Tumblr all over again (teenage me will never forgive them).
I had just graduated high school and started college. I was so young, and so scared, and so free. Lost my virginity, I fell in love, fell out of love, wondered if I ever even knew what love felt like. I started therapy, I struggled spiritually, I couch-hopped through college. I got my driver's license, bought my first car, and had four jobs at one time. I made friends, lost friends, got fired, quit, and was unemployed. I got COVID twice; I got a dog; I left someone terrible and rebuilt myself on less-than-honorable choices; the knife-sharp decisions a woman has to make to survive are rarely based on morality. We never leave something without a little blood on it.
I packed my life into my Subaru and moved 22 hours from home. I left my siblings behind. I cut off my father. I moved in with borderline strangers and made friends with everyone I met- and lost those connections all within two years. I broke the 2-year-quitter rule for a job. I met someone I actually adore and love with all my heart- it's true when they say love is a mirror. You never truly know until the worst parts of you are studied under a microscope (am I actually the problem?) No, but a wound rarely heals if it's only just acknowledged. Shadows without light simply turn to shame. I leave a trail of blood for those behind me to learn from- see the way my gate slightly drags a line through the crimson.
This is the best piece I've ever written. My next piece will be better. I'm nothing if not a manifestation of my teenage self's dream- but a dream rarely follows wishes and wants. They show you truth. And in that reflection, within that manifestation, you'll see it- the version of yourself you've always wanted to see, blood dripping from her fingertip because "... I leave claw marks in everything I've ever loved." It's hard to heal the gouges across my own skin.
I became a part-time poet, part-time part-timer, and I never realized I was running until I turned around and saw no one chasing me. I returned to what I loved. What I was good at.
Storytelling.
I outline, build, polish; I have Thesaurus on speed dial, bookmarks filled to the brim, and 3 different Youtube videos playing so I can maintain the mental ambiance while writing. Light candles, take notes, put meaning into every sentence I create. Imperfection is vital, and I still forget how to spell words I should probably know in Braille.
"i before e except after c but sometimes y," but WHY are there still exceptions to this rule, I am just trying to write about love.
I love writing about love; about intensity; about passion; about heartache; about grief; about what I know. About what I don't. About what I will know, about what I want to know. I learn something new after every paragraph. A new word, new idea. A new way of thinking. A new fact. A new piece of myself.
Dear Wattpad writer-
Dear Wattpad reader-
Dear lover of the written word, never stop discovering yourself through the work of others. Through your own writing. Through your own thoughts.
AI will never replace staying up until 3 am reading One Direction fics; crying over prose carved into a dramione one-shot; the devastation behind a citrus scale; the absolute honor of reading an original work by an original person.
"Tony Stark built this in a cave, with a box of scraps!" but it's teenagers before AI, writing with no experience and posting it anyway.
It is human to be curious, but it's also human to heal the wound past the acknowledgement.
It doesn't have to be good. It has to be real.
I'm a bard in a torturous modern world on the brink of fracture. This urban fantasy is missing the fantasy; I want off this train; I taste cinnamon in my rat poison. Dead dove: Do Not Eat.
All this to say- I've truly always been this dramatic.
All this to say- no, I'll never stop.
All this to say- you bet your sweet ass I'm writing another book.
All this to say- I'll never let you go.
I haven't posted any of my work online since IMASK, up until last year. I have a work on AO3- yes, it's a fanfiction; yes, it's ACOTAR; and yes, I'll supply the link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/78806146

(no, it's not finished yet because I'm nothing if not consistently inconsistent)
I am writing a book.
I will be finishing this book.
Do I have a publisher?
No.
But will it be published?
Yes.
When?
When the story is complete.
Will I be giving any hints?
Absolutely not (I've been practicing my hand at keeping secrets, you see.)
But fuck, if I haven't gotten a bit better at the written word.
But, fuck, if I'm not 100% true to myself when it's just me and words on a page.
I'm 28 years old and yes, I am giggling at buttfuck along with 16 year old me. I hope you are too.

Cause... fuck, I love telling a story.