Letters To The World--AS ABOVE SO BELOW

Discovering Wattpad

Books here. Books there. Books everywhere. That's what Wattpad is all about. It is one of those sites that has an interactive community wherein anyone here can either be a writer or a reader. It's a portal for expression of thoughts through words in any creative way our minds can do. This is also a site where we can communicate with people that may be our friends in real life, or just a virtual friend from afar. I recently joined here in Wattpad last 2014 and it may be a rough journey ahead as I start.

When I was a kid, my mom had exposed me to the world of english language wherein I learned the language morely through watching movies repeatedly (that I consider as a hobby that I enjoy), listening songs and also answering english books. I'm not that much exposed to books, because my mom had made me interested in videos that I can buy in malls for a cheap value containing one story, which makes me a collector of VCDs and DVDs when I was a kid. But as a younger self, everytime there's an enrolment in my school, I usually am excited to read the stories which are inside the literature books, and I will read them all in one setting, all stories from first quarter to fourth quarter. I get annoyed at times when I read a good story from the fourth quarter, because I am becoming so excited for the teacher to discuss it to us, when I know that I still have three quarters to go through before arriving to that story. I just usually say to myself "Don't worry, we will get there. We just have to wait. Time flies fast anyways.". I always do that routine every enrolment without anyone telling me, because I just feel like I'm comfortable around stories. There, I concluded that I love stories. Mom will even tell me that I should stop reading the stories of the literature book of our school and study other subjects like math, science and etc. I'm fine with science since I love it and I will be a doctor anyways, so it's the main thing I will encounter. Math isn't my forte and I can say I hate it. I just find that reading stories is the best leisure time for someone like me. My elementary teacher even commended my reading skills, even if I know I didn't do anything "spectacular" because as a student, reading a story is so easy. I never knew that these are already obvious signs that I'm interested in the world of books.

I never knew that Wattpad had existed at around 2005, if I'm not mistaken. I was 4 years old back then. When I was grade 8, I saw my classmate was reading something in her cellphone in black background. I asked her what is she reading. She told the title of the story, which I had forgotten, and she is reading it in the application called Wattpad. My interest was piqued as I asked what is it all about. Finally, here comes the miracle, an application that I can install in my cellphone for me to read comfortably in a period of time I am free. I instantly downloaded Wattpad in my iPad Air 1 when my parents had bought me one for our outing when I was in junior high. I was in awe when there are lots of books that I can see that are hard to choose from. I had searched the popular authors and tried to read their works as recommended by that classmate of mine who is a Wattpad user. I was starting to read one book in a white background since my eyes are comfortable with it, but then my mom suddenly said "What are you reading?" I said "Mom, this is Mismatched Compatibility by Fallenbabybubu (Hi po ms. Carreon hihi, yes this is the first book po that I had read in here hihi) from Wattpad" and her eyes enlarged as she heard the W word. She demanded in an angry tone as she said "What again? WATTPAD?" I said "Yes mom. Why? I'm just reading." Then she instantly grabbed my iPad and uninstalled the application. I was shocked that she had done such a deed, since it's my iPad and I know I'm not doing anything wrong. I asked her and she said "As a doctor, I had some patients who had told that Wattpad is bad since there are lots of works made by authors there that aren't legitimate, aren't worth publishing, and aren't worth reading because of the content. Most of the writers there are new and their works are just made without putting much effort into it plus you may be influenced by the content of the Wattpad it brings, especially that the languages there that some books have are having the Filipino language. How can you train yourself in speaking in English? And how dare you, when you will just keep searching for love stories there? You're such a flirt!!!" And ever since this incident, I had a hard time using Wattpad. Everytime my mom is there with me, I do my best to practice self-control not to use Wattpad even if I'm so excited to read the next happening in the story so I ended up daydreaming. Starting those junior high school days that I'm always being accompanied by my dad the whole day during vacation days until night, I installed Wattpad in my iPad to read more stories, mostly english and some TagLish, because I'm still proud of my country, Philippines for this is where I'm born. I usually stay in the car the whole day not doing anything other than reading books in this site and I'm thankful that this exists, when I had learned that novels exist, in such expensive amounts, which is why it is expected that my mom did not exposed me to the world of books, especially the ones for leisure because it is just a waste of money for her. I'm thankful for some authors uploading their whole work in Wattpad without requiring the readers to buy their book in the store for the sake of reading everything, especially I can't go out because of having no freedom to read books or do anything outside. I'm an only child so I really have a strict family living, so books are the best escape portals other than movies since at around grade 6 my mom had stopped making me collect VCDs and DVDs. My godmother gives me novels from grade 9 to grade 10, but they only are just 7 books and I have read all of them. Of course I want other things that can entertain me. There are times that my mom caught me having Wattpad in my cellphone and iPad that she easily uninstalls it. If I don't lend her my devices, the more trouble I can get. As I had started my life in Wattpad as a reader, I decided to try writing just a tiny bit since it's kind of hard to write one complete book because of me being an escapist to use this. I tried to finish until 5 chapters if I'm not mistaken unless I lost interest to continue it because I'm no longer inspired to do so. I know that ever since, my teachers and my classmates are finding me funny that I always took time to write my thoughts, that it will always end up submitting more than 2 papers back to back within one setting versus my classmates that have just filled up an essay with one page. I'm even annoyed that most people are telling me to stop writing and it is already okay, but my mind insists that I still have more words to say so I meant what I say, and I say what I meant. Some are amazed, but I know that I still have things I need to improve. Like, I badly sometimes want to lessen my words for me to be direct to the point and not so expressive, but sadly, I'm still in the progress. In the future, hopefully I can buy lots of novels, build a library in my own room and write more stories for me to put my skills into good use, if ever they really say that I have.

Wattpad is really a great application for people like me, who have lots of words in their brains that needed organization for them to be expressed to the world. I may have a plan for my next big project,  that will be a novel someday hopefully. I just hope I can make it and for other new writers there, let's not be afraid to communicate to the world in any way we can. We are all humans and I'm sure we can voice out our opinions. These are all based on our real life experiences, and it ain't no biggie if we will share them, as long as the world promises not to judge us because we have things that we may learn from others and vice versa that can make us better voices of the community especially in Wattpad. To all the readers there, take your time to enjoy reading until you finally decide to become a writer one day, not for the sake of popularity, but for your own self. That's all, thank you Wattpad,  for being there for us.

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This is for you, started at 4:00 to 4:45pm on Nov. 13, 2018.

Gimme comments and voice out your opinions too hehe feel freeeeee

Thanksss muchhhhh!!

LigerCat