I've been drawn to writing since childhood. It's the only serious dream I've ever had.
And yet, if you'd asked me about my writing ambitions a few years back, I probably would have told you I'd missed my best shot at ever completing a manuscript dr...
I first came across Wattpad back in 2012. Since I was deeply into my marketing blog at the time, I researched and wrote a blog post assessing Wattpad's pros and cons as a publishing platform for aspiring writers.
I wrote 3,000 words on the topic but took a fence-sitting position on its value. It was a critic's response to a tool, intended to perform the act of analysis for my audience, not to really get inside the thing and assess its power.
Four years later, with a 131,000-word first draft of a novel manuscript in hand (thanks in large part to Wattpad), I look back at that blog post struck by how wrong my first impressions were.
What changed?
Discussions with an Angel The first thing that helped open my eyes to Wattpad's real power was a discussion with one of the company's early angel investors.
I know him through my work in Toronto's startup land; I expressed curiosity in his Wattpad involvement one afternoon and he told me about his decision to invest.
During that discussion, I posed my analytical concerns about the platform, which essentially boiled down to this:
Why do the Wattpaders who generate content make nothing when the platform is valued in the millions? Doesn't that devalue content, writing and writers?
"I didn't really consider that," the investor said [and I'm paraphrasing because I didn't make detailed notes]. "Wattpad's power is that they've built something extraordinary for the Internet: a respectful, friendly community that welcomes writers and lets them thrive. A lot of them are young women. They go on there and find an audience for their work. Maybe they get better. Maybe they just do it for fun. Maybe they make friends and connect with others like them all over the world. But that community is what I thought was exceptional."
This conversation, which took place in late September 2014, coincided with a handful of events that I now realize were pivotal in reigniting my writing life.
"Hmm," I remember thinking. "All I did when I was researching that blog post was upload some existing content to Wattpad that I had already written. I didn't try composing on it. Maybe Wattpad could work for me, too."
And so when inspiration coalesced in my brain barely 72 hours after that conversation, I decided to give writing on the platform a serious shot.
On Passions, Day Jobs and Parenting Like most adults in North America, my day-to-day life is demanding. I'm married. We have two fantastic kids in grade school. I have an intense career, love my family and wish I saw my friends more. My chore list is a perpetual motion machine. I'm (sometimes) disciplined about my gym membership.
But I've written since childhood. It's how I make sense of the world and the activity that most consistently allows me to experience flow.
Yet, after our kids were born, my writing life died.
During an interview I did with Guy Gavriel Kay while working at the University of Toronto in my 20s, he surmised I was an aspiring writer and kindly asked me about my ambitions.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
