Is Wattpad a good or bad thing? Are the people on here writers or do they just think they are? Whatever your answer to those questions there are a lot of mysteries surrounding Wattpad and the people that choose to write here. Every day thousands of...
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Of all the messages I get from "Whatpad" -this is what people think I say when I tell them on I am on Wattpad, the above title is my favorite. Nothing sadder than looking at your phone at 2 in the morning (who me? no) and finding out that even though there are millions more people on WP than there were at Trumps inauguration, none of them are reading you.
I turned off notifications to WP on my phone a long time ago. I got tired of hearing those pings and having it take up my time during the day. I will check it once or twice a day as I have my phone with me nearly all the time, but I no longer find it necessary to even have it on my phone so it's probably getting uninstalled there. The only thing that has been keeping me from that is that there are still a couple of things you can do on the phone app that you cannot do as well on the web version.
Writers need feedback and WP has figured out a way to make you addicted to it. You love those little rings from your phone and you love wondering about it. You make guesses in your mind. Is it a like? A comment? A message? Oh and when you just finish doing an update and those pings make it sound like your phone is actually receiving a phone call from all the pings coming so close together? Be still your heart! I sometimes wonder if there have been any reported heart attacks because of WP. For sure there has been an increase in teen anxiety. Anyone with half a brain (not me) would have bought stock in Xanax the moment WP reached a million readers/writers.
If you are reading this it is probably too late for you. You are caught in this matrix (and I am as close to meeting Keanu Reeves as you'll ever get) and there is little hope for you.
But there is a little trick you can do to ease the pain. I do it and I find it helps me write. See the problem is you get used to writing by submitting here and getting immediate feedback. That is a new thing. Writers from the days of real writing (yeah I said it) never got that like we do. I think sometimes writing isn't completely yours if you let the feedback affect you too much.
Save something for you.
Write a story away from WP. Don't show it to anyone until you are done. Listen to the story yourself in your own mind and tell it the way you want to. Tell it from beginning to end and see it all for what it is, - completely yours and yours alone.
When you are done you can keep it or share it if you want to. But you made it all yourself from beginning to end without knowing what people would think of it at any point in time, and that is such a different experience than writing piecemeal like we do for WP. Too many of you were born writing here and don't know the feeling of doing it without everybody talking to you about every sentence you write as you write it. Writing is a very personal thing. WP has taken that away from many of you and you should get it back. I honestly think your writing might improve when you do.
Now I don't mean get off WP. Write there also. But hold a little back. Keep some words for yourself. You just might be surprised what a great writer you actually are when no one is looking.
So don't let the notifications rule your life. Let them be part of your life sure, but not the biggest part. Go write something for the sake of the words you love so much.
