philosophical Thoughts, Life Advice, and Unpopular Opinions

Thinking about leaving Wattpad for good.

It's been a nice run. I've found a few good books on her and met a couple of fans, but honestly I've been on here for years and haven't gotten what I've wanted out of this. I'm sad to say this site has done little to help me truly grow into the author I want to be. I'm beginning to wonder if I should steer clear from teens as my target audience because it seems like what they want is not what I want to provide. Even still I'm seeing the most trending stories in this age group to be what I like to call "the Twilight-ish" stories. Sure I could easily create a story with a bad boy and a sweet shy girl romance and most likely get hundreds of thousands of reads, but that's not going to make ME feel fulfilled. That's not the story I have to tell. Sure I could put the setting in a boring high school like most stories geared towards teens, but what good would that actually do for my reader? You see, I don't want to write PURELY to entertain or to set off raging hormones. I'm writing deep stories to INSPIRE and ENCOURAGE those going through darkness themselves. However, it seems like my original target audience (here) is not responding well to these stories (and I've been on here for YEARS). So I'm beginning to wonder if my stories were truly meant for another audience and if I should just move on from here...