17 April 2020
Dear Community,
Why hello there - how're you doing?
I'm not sure what to write, to be honest. I haven't written a letter since I was about six and that was far from pouring my non-existent heart through a leaky watering can into a sea of pixels. Ninety-percent of that letter ended up being some version of "What are you doing?" or "That's cool" and, paired with my small anecdote of me grumbling about my English group at school, I'd created such as masterpiece that the recipient never wrote to me again.
I'm hoping my letter-writing skills have a bit more finesse nowadays, but I make no promises.
I guess I should probably start at the beginning, so you can see what makes the existential dread-filled demon tick.
I joined Wattpad on November 28, 2016. I used it for maybe a day or two, got bored and left it for two years. When I picked it back up in 2018, I was invested much more in reading - and writing - and immersed myself in devouring, voting and commenting on whatever the hell I could find. I even had a mildly successful review book for a bit.
This is when I started planning my own book (not my first but we don't talk about that one). It was about a demon-angel hybrid (the demon side is dominant so they'd usually just say demon) called Vex Hellfire and the book was centred around sacrifice, finding hope and what loving your family really means. I spent so much time planning the book, writing tiny extracts in my head and dreaming about the book (seriously - I still have the dreams to this day) that I realised what Vex was. They were a part of me that I could look at, thorns and all, and still love. So that's who I became.
Vex Hellfire, at your service. Nonchalant nihilist with a wicked streak. Part pyromaniac too.
At some point between 2018 and 2019, I got bored once again and decided to go on the hunt for entertainment. This is when I found the Weekly Wattpad Contests. At first I had no intention of entering any of them; I was there to leave amusing, relatable, dark comments every other paragraph and see if anyone responded. To both my surprise and delight, someone did.
After a couple failed attempts at entering, though I never left a contest without learning how to better my writing, I joined the August 2019 community project, also known as Whodunit. That's when I really found out what a community was.
It was amazing and I'd never seen anything like it. Person after person, through effort and time and courage, created something astounding. Just the fact that a group of people like me set out to do something big and not only did it happen, but it went well, blows my mind. I still don't fully understand it.
Why the hell would I leave? I stuck around and discovered the whos and hows and whys behind the operation. I reached out to more people, took more risks, procrastinated less and actually felt proud of what I was doing. Not to mention the sheer amount of amazing people I've met and would now call a friend. Thanks to the things I've learnt from the community, and other communities, I feel like I've found something worth doing I can love.
Plus I've had fun with chaos and shenanigans along the way – it keeps the others on their toes ;).
So here's my two pieces of advice to you – find something you love worth doing and do it, and don't take every second too seriously. Sure, there's time to work diligently with a poker face, but don't forget to relax, to have a little fun, to "live a little" and all that. Life's more enjoyable with a little disorder.
Whoever you are, from whatever corner of the world (or other world) you may come from, whether you're human or demon or just someone who dreams, I wish you the best.
With chaos and companionship,
YOU ARE READING
Community Letters
RandomWe have some letters we want to share with you, written by our team and our community members. These letters are to the community and everybody who are - or want to be - a part of it. You can always write a letter of your own if you want it publishe...
