How To Write Good: A Lightly Salted Guide to Stepping Up Your Wattpad Game.

The Why of the Do

MOTIVATION!

Geez. Yeah, I said it. Now I've got to write about it, and it's gonna suck for both of us, because I've made a commitment to being honest, and let's be honest, the last thing any of us wants to hear when we start making excuses is honesty.

Okay, deep breaths...

Why do you write? Do you do it because you have a passion for it, or is someone forcing you to do it, or perhaps you want the accolades of a writer, or just want your circle of friends to think of you as the creative one? Are all of these valid reasons, or are some more valid than others?

Yes. Also, no. It depends on what gets you out of your bed and in front of the keyboard because, in the end, only one thing makes you an author: publishing books. Then why, on a platform dedicated to storytellers, do so many works go untouched and unfinished?

I'm going to answer that question with a question. Do you believe in writer's block? Because if you do, this will sting a little, and I'm not going to apologize for tearing off the bandage; it'll do more damage if you just pick at it.

Writer's block, as we like to think of it, is horse crap, and right now about 70% of you are unfollowing me and cursing my name to the heavens because we like to lean heavily on that excuse to get out of writing when it gets hard, or when we don't feel like it, or when the pressure of seeking affirmation from a handful of randoms on Wattpad gets between us and making progress on the works we claim to love.

For the two of you who are still reading after making it through that gauntlet, I want to show you a simple, step-by-step means of dispelling the illusion of writer's block and actually doing what you set out to achieve. Ready?

Step 1. Realize that nobody wants to read your stupid book.

Let me clarify.

Your book must be important to YOU first. If it is important to you, then you should be writing it without worrying about receiving accolades from people you've never met.

If knowing nobody else cares about your crappy story makes you stop writing it you probably should find a different hobby. Writing is lonely and difficult, and if your only goal is to receive praise from other people you'll only end up quitting and blaming the community at large for not supporting you.

Writing a book is also MUCH different than building interest in it. Think about everything you waste your free time on and why. Everyone else does the same thing, and the chances of your rough draft or beta ending up higher than a Netflix binge are a lot lower than you want them to be. They love you but that doesn't mean they give a petrified rat turd about your Avengers/BTS/Shrek crossover fanfic.

That brings up another point. Writing commercial fiction, something people desire to read, isn't the same as writing because you think you've got a fancy idea, or writing beautiful words for the sake of your (ahem) art. You have to think like a publisher, be willing to accept the hard truths, and make yourself far more vulnerable than you're probably comfortable with. You might have to accept a crappy paragraph that readers actually want to read and throw away the profound chapter that turns you into a puddle of undiluted feelsies every time you edit it.

Writing is fun, isn't it?

Here's the truth: we all write stupid and crappy things, but the art of writing stories is taking that stupid crap and making it sparkle like polished frickin' cubic zirconium. That takes work, not praise, so shut up and buckle up and slap your foot on the gas and tell all those readers who are whoring their attention out to other peoples' books to suck air because you have things to DO, baby!

Step 2. Don't hold anyone else accountable for your failures.

There's only one person responsible for what you accomplish in life, and that's you. It isn't my job to drag your ass across the finish line, nor is it the job of the next person who reads a chapter in your book, or that random tween who's browsing book covers for BTS fanfic. It's all on you.

That's good news because it means your success isn't in my hands. If it were, you'd be subject to my procrastination and innate laziness on top of your own and neither of us would ever get anything done.

If you don't get the praise you want from Wattpad and it discourages you so badly that you quit writing, that's not writer's block, that's a blame-game born from straight-up addiction to the hollow praise of social media, and you 100% need to break out of that crap right now.

Yes, I love it when my alerts light up as much as the next person. I love to see that someone has read my work and approved of it. I love it even more when I get comments and criticisms. But there are days when nothing graces my inbox or DMs, and if I stopped writing because of them I'd never produce anything worth reading.

Step 3. Do it anyway.

Don't feel like writing today? Tough. I didn't feel like working on a spreadsheet last Friday, but I did it anyway because if I didn't, I wouldn't get a paycheck.

I have a secret for you, and I think it's super exclusive because not many people seem to be aware of it. Ready? If you don't do the work, it won't get done. If you want people to love your stories then you have to write them, and writing is work. If you don't work, you don't get paid. If you want the benefits, you need to sacrifice your time and energy. Excuses only make the job harder.

If you're having an off day, do something else that's constructive for your story, or write a future chapter, or edit an old one, or write a 1,000-word synopsis of a new book idea, just make some kind of progress. I don't always feel like writing either, but I put some kind of effort in every day. Some days it's just half a page, but it's a half-page more than I'd have had otherwise. Sometimes I work on worldbuilding for my current WIP or a future one - that's how The Autumn Prince started out and now there are 200,000 words and counting.

And you know what else? I'm no better than you are. If I can haul my unmotivated self over to the computer to bleed out a chapter when I'd rather be pounding down a box of chocolate in front of Netflix, so can you. 

Best of all, the more often you overcome the ennui that plagues the prima donna artist lurking in your breast the easier it becomes until you wake up one day and discover you've developed actual honest-to-goodness productive habits.

What are you waiting for? Stop reading my crappy book and write!