Look, I'm gonna be blunt here. I have spent near years within this site. It allowed me to write as I please and show everyone that there's a writer within this heart. I've enjoyed every word I produced. I felt, cried, screamed through these words. Unlike most social media, the words I write aren't scars that every person that decides to look at my history can hold over me forever. Feeling free, I would write every day on that yellow bus every time I get from home to school and vise-versa.
Being honest: I only use this site to publish my works now. I have never read any other people's books at all. I love a good narrative, don't get me wrong. It's just filled with content I don't approve. It's all erotic stuff with different fetishes and fan-fiction I have no interest in. The type of fan-fiction which treats a character under a romantic lighting. I mean, I applaud the hard work that people put on those things, but rather turn me on, it turns me off. If I wanted to look for love, Wattpad isn't the first place I'd go.
So I move on with my works and occasionally come back to Wattpad when I feel nostalgic. I refined my works by taking classes at my local college. Whenever I wish to write freely, I now use Google Docs. If I think it's good enough for everyone to see, I post it somewhere online. I don't look for fame or stars or whatever rating system Wattpad has at this moment. I just write for catharsis. I do appreciate the people who comment on my works or just simply wanna talk, but that hasn't happened for a while.
Looking back, I did miss some of my friends. Ironically, a site where you can socialize with other upcoming authors is no longer a site I can socialize seriously. I think I know the reason why. The first thought is that I outgrew this site. Maybe I have, but I still come back. It's like a Club Penguin or a Runescape account. I have it for a while, you take a break, you forget about it, you come back and it's not the same. I haven't changed though. All my work and personality stayed consistent throughout the last few years. So what else could part me?
Well, there's the works. Wattpad is filled with stories and some are worth reading, but I can't endorse it or take them all seriously. I'm not saying it's the stories with bad grammar or poor logic or stories that their vocabulary is so complicated that it sounds they ripped it off from a thesaurus online. Trust me, diction is fine, so long it stays consistent.
There's a little trick with all stories, both online and physical. Every book is judged chronologically. The first impression, the first chapter, etc. There are great artists who make fantastic images who make covers for stories. The best stories are outright in whatever genre they are. The dominating genre in Wattpad is romance and fan-fiction. This is where traction starts to abide. Many of the covers create an image, while not pornographic, has a sense of sex appeal or a type of fetish. That's not an exclusive problem in Wattpad. It's everywhere. I understand it's a trend in literary works that will probably not leave any time soon, online or in libraries; however, it's not something I'd like publicly. Romantic and fan-fiction novels seem to capitalize on this "money making" method. I try not to use it, but so many seem to do.
Answer me this: when's the last time you've seen some shirtless guy/girl as the entire cover of the book? Some may not come across, which I call the lucky ones. Now, spread that image across every genre with different sexual fetishes, and we have a growing problem. I understand that this is harmless and I don't have to agree with every system; however, there is a difference of telling a story and selling a story.
I continue writing, but I don't read very often. I'd visit forums (if they still exist at the time) and occasionally talk to others. Unfortunately, talking works feels like a bad workshop. Other works can help refine your style. If all the dominating works are something you can't agree with, I'd just make works where I battle. It doesn't improve work, other than frustrates me. I know somewhere in my reasoning, people will find a hole. Feel free to agree or disagree. I just write for catharsis rather than a narrative at this point. I writing against a war with a system I don't agree with. Maybe I just need to dig deeper into my reading selection. But to do that, I need to dig up a layer of bullshit. I just saying that bullshit is recognizable and it smells.
I may have grown over the demographics of this website. I'm not exactly that teen with a million story ideas and will try to show them all anymore. Still, I have a bunch of stories leftover that may be worth writing at some point. So, I'll write for the enjoyment of it in a site I may have outgrown. It's faster than having a publisher release it anyways.
