I've been a part of the Wattpad community as an individual since June 18, 2012, but in reality I've been here six months before then, on a separate account co-founded by myself and a dear friend of mine. So really, I've been on Wattpad for about 5 years.
I've been writing for even longer than that. I believe it was since second grade. I love stories but I love it even more when I get lost in them. So I'm not quitting.
I hate it when authors do this. I always feel like they don't think about the readers when they make decisions like this. They promise to upload a new chapter within the next few days but months pass without one. I don't know what to think of them but I find myself becoming one of them.
What I detest is what I've chosen to write. "The Alpha's Twins" was written originally because I knew it was something people would want to read about. But the more I waded into it, the more lost I became. I had ignored one of the most important rules in writing--experience. I don't know anything about babies or children or how to be a single mother, and I felt that I wouldn't be able to do Kayla any justice. She's a strong woman but she became more and more dependent on Glade, who was a cheating Alpha male no one really liked, not even myself. And the more I wrote, the more I witnessed. I didn't want it to be the cliche type book, and it still isn't destined for that. But the reading lists its put into, the things I see..."babies", "cheating alpha", "alpha twins", it made me feel like a generic writer and that I wasn't fulfilling my idea of being original and creative. I felt worse and worse as time went on.
And I think it shook me even more when Carrie Fisher died. I didn't know much about her but I loved Princess Leia and what a strong character she was. I want all of my female characters to be like her but the more I write, the more needy they seem. Even worse, Carrie Fisher was an advocate for mental illness and to come to a realization of the way I felt around the time of her passing was shocking.
I've felt "this" way for a while. A friend of mine told me that once you feel "this" way, it doesn't get better, as I had hoped. It gets worse and its important to find ways to help yourself so it doesn't continue.
I think my breaking point, my reason for doing this, is jealousy. There's a girl I was friends with a long time ago. I knew what she was like, but she's one of those people that draws you in and makes you want to impress her. She puts you down until you struggle to pull yourself up. For a while, she destroyed me, and I let her.
But I can't solely blame her. I allowed her to put me down, to make me feel worthless, and it was my fault because I didn't stop her. I've always felt like she was better than me, but I knew that I had two things she didn't--a heart and a conscience. I wish in truth that everyone knew what she was like, how destructive she is. But like I said, she has one of those personalities that makes you want to impress her. She knows what she's like too, she acknowledged it in my presence, but this acknowledgement doesn't make up for how I felt and how I still feel.
Our friendship ended disastrously. It was revealed that she never trusted me and for months she hid something from me which I was too naïve to see, something that everyone else knew but I didn't. I felt betrayed, and even more so when she needed my help to continue to keep it hidden. I haven't had a real conversation with her since.
Recently, I found out that she won a writing competition. I don't know the details, but witnessing her success in a path that had always been something I had wanted to pursue made me lose faith in myself.
I realize fully that with all these thoughts in my head, I can't continue to live in this way without connecting to the person I was before. I hope that I will be able to do that and I realize that I don't know when I'll be able to come back. All I know right now is that I love stories. I love to read, I love to create. My mind is full of possibilities, of characters and fantasy worlds and visions that I want to share, but in creating, I ignored the brick wall building around them and I find myself stuck in my dreams and unable to escape.
I want to say thank you all for your support. I'm seriously considering taking my stories down so I will be able to start anew. I know that's not something that anyone wants and I didn't want to do so myself. For now, I think I will. I want to experience how it feels without the weight of those stories in my mind. Maybe once I get the help I need, I will be able to realize if I can move on or if things need to stay that way.
Thanks,
Serena
