Chasing Wattpad

You know you are on Wattpad when....

1. People are telling you bye and they never leave.

"This is my last piece before closing Wattpad forever".  I hate this, not because you're  leaving, but because you never left. You wanna leave Wattpad? Cool. You have your own reason and if you want to leave that is probably a good thing for you. But dammit I don't need to get 100 email notifications telling me you are leaving for 6 months straight. People like this remind me those "Going out of business" sales people have and then they never go out of business. Don't drag people to your page to give you some sympathy votes and then you never go anywhere. That is not cool.

One of my favorite writers just up and left without telling anybody one day. That's how you do it. Don't make a big scene. Take a vacation if you want. You can always come back.

2.  Everybody wants to tell you how to write.

I've run across more than a few profiles who expressly say they are here just to critique. Not to enjoy reading or try their hand at writing, but just here to point out everything wrong in someone else's story. Give me a break. That seems a little arrogant to me. You want to critique me? Let me see some of your writing. Critics are a dime a dozen. Write something.

3. People are complaining about Wattpad on Wattpad . 

Seriously that "Chasing Wattpad" guy needs to get a life and start writing real stories already. It's getting annoying.

4. You get the same message from a bunch of people.

You follow a bunch of people that are all in the same group. They all send out the same exact invitation to the same thingy that no one is attending but them. Lol. On that day you get like 100 invites to something you know you are not going to attend because, well,  you're  loner, a rebel. You don't go to such things.

5. You run into people that come to Wattpad just to be a-holes.

They don't want to write or read. They just want to spew crap. They want to hate on everybody because they can hide behind a computer screen. Cowards. They take advantage of the kids here. They bully people because they are young.  Their only purpose is to cause pain to others so they can feel better themselves. They are the lowest of human beings. May the fleas of a thousand camels invade their groin. Wow, I hadn't dished out that curse in 20 years. Damn stalkers are the worst.

6.  You are seeing about as many advertisements as you are seeing stories. 

Seriously Wattpad what have you turned into? I hear stories about the good old days of Wattpad when it was young. Those that were here in the early days talk about a Wattpad that was about writing and reading. It was all about the craft and the joining together to share the craft. Now it seems like it's one big money making entity solely designed to see how much commercial potential they can suck out of you. You make me sad Wattpad. You forgot who you were.

7. You hear a million excuses for not writing.

I swear about 70% of the emails I read for a new post include excuses. "Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I had homework", "sorry about the late post, my dog died", "sorry this is late but I had to go work for my sister's brother's cousin's uncle all summer and finally got a day off!".  I don't like excuses. Update when you want if you want. The excuse doesn't matter to me. But if you are going to give an excuse then tell the truth. I would. This would be me. "I would have posted something but hey, Netflix", "I'll finish this up soon but in the meantime, Netflix" " "I'm watching the Olympics and then after that, Netflix", "I forgot my password even though it is the same one as my Netflix account ,and I'm watching that right now", "I would be here more often but this is not Netflix". "I was busy watching a movie on Netflix, about writing".   So stop lying. Enjoy Netflix.

8. People exaggerate how much people are reading their books. The other day I went on to a writers website where they posted that their book had been "read by 10 million people on Wattpad"! Nope, not even close. There aren't 10 million people on Wattpad. The so called book was 50 chapters long and each chapter counts as one read so divide that 10 million by 50 and you get 200,000 reads, which is a lot by the way. But then you kept going and started adding more chapters just asking readers if they had questions and that added 20 chapters more to the book. So now you have 10 million divided by 70 so now only about  143,000 or so people read your book. So what did you do next? You got about 20 people to do "one shots" on your book and added even 20 more chapters you didn't even write! So now it is 10,000,000 divided by 90 so now you have maybe 111,000 total people that might have come by your book at all. But what you say? Your first chapter got 2 million of those 10 million reads so at least 2 million people read the book? No, not really. All we know now is that 2 million people at least looked at and maybe read the first chapter and then it went downhill from there. Only 120,000 read the second chapter and it got worse from there. So, if you think about it, 2 million started reading your book and then 1 million and eight hundred thousand decided that it was not worth it to keep reading! So yeah, your book was not read by 10 million people. Stop saying that.  Wattpad books are not like real books. They are an illusion. Don't fall for it.

9. Your average writer on Wattpad is barely out of puberty. 

I have nothing against kid writers. Some of them are very talented. But even the good ones write about things that I believe most adults are not interested in. Most of them got their understanding of the world from TV and YouTube.  If every book on  Wattpad was a real book in a book store and was free and I could have them all I would take maybe 0.000001 of them home with me. Half of those I would use as coasters and doorstops. Lol l'm just kidding. I'm just very picky. Love kid writers.  Just not kid books. Luckily there is something for everybody on Wattpad.

10. That's it.

I just hate ending it on 9 because, well, that felt wrong. Hope all you writers are having a great writing day. Oh by the way, when you get a chance go read a real book. Those things are still around and you might learn a thing or two.