The Journey to Writing a Successful Story: a tip book

Don't Leave Your Books or Profiles

Yes, everyone's life gets complicated. Everyone's life may end up getting interrupted. You may be in college and have to focus on exams and graduating. You may be in high school and have to focus on your school work. You may have a job and have been getting too busy in the office and with your social life that you can't sit down and get on Wattpad. You may be a mother, a father, or a guardian of a child and have to raise them and constantly be distracted. You may not have time to write your story or be on Wattpad for a few moments. But it doesn't mean that you leave Wattpad.

You can take short breaks every now and then if your life is getting too complex.

If you want to continue to stay on Wattpad and gain feedback and readers, you have to stay on Wattpad. Don't just get up and leave. You will lose followers. You will lose readers. You will lose motivation and inspiration to write your current stories. You may even lose the idea of your story, and the meaning of why it's being written.

You can lose it all if you get up and leave.

If you don't update within a few months (over two), your readers will lose interest. You don't want that, do you? If you don't update within a year or so, you have lost 99.9% of your readers. They have all taken your book out of their minds, their libraries, reading lists. You are now longer holding the respect of those readers.

How do you hold respect? How do you hold your readers, at least most of them?

Update your stories. Keep your readers updated on your life. Make sure they know you're still active.

I know a few writers on here who have not updated at all in over two years. They made an account at least three years ago, or in over two years, put up a few chapters, and got off of Wattpad. Their accounts are still up, but they are no longer active. It's like they completely forgot about Wattpad. And I bet you, that most of their readers are gone.

One of them was being a bit active few a while, but she had left. She was writing messages every few weeks, sometimes every few months. But one day, she stopped.

It's like they died.

Update your stories every two weeks, every week if possible. If you can't, that's fine. The most I've ever gotten was going two months without updating. When it gets to that point, I then have to update. I know it sounds bad, as it is, but I do have a life. I do get busy to a point where I'm not near my book on the computer. I do forget to write because the day has gone by too quickly and when I feel like writing, I should be sleeping as it's like three in the morning.

Message to your followers on your message board about how you're doing, what you're deciding on doing, what's going on in your life. You don't have to be too specific if you don't want to say anything too personal, but just make sure they know your plans and what you hope on doing. I know of a writer on here who had given birth for the first time (a first time mother) and was writing to her readers about her child and how busy she was with him. You just want to be able to tell your readers why you haven't been writing and if you will write and update again.

As far as being active, you can be in the clubs - play some games, talk to people, things like that. If you want to be more active, you can do what I'm doing - making rants, advice, maybe write some short stories or poems or lyrics. You can have your own small blog on here! Do whatever you want. Just be able to show that you are still an active person.

This all tells your readers that you haven't fallen off the face of the earth and are just dealing with a complex life.

Now onto how you can gain time to write.

Look at your daily routines: when do you wake up in the morning? What do you do in the morning? Do you have a job and if so, what does your schedule look like? Do you go to school (high school, college?) and if so, what times do you go to school, come back, and how much homework do you have on average (how long does it take you)? Do you have a child or are taking care of your siblings? Is there anything happening in your life that may cause you to stay away from writing? Do you have friends and if so, do you hang out with them a lot? Are you living with your parents or are you in your own place? What time do you usually go to bed? What happens when you come home from school and or your job?

Questions like these can help you make a time to write. I'll go through some of them to have you get a clearer picture of what I mean. And you do not have to take any of the advice below.

When do you wake up in the morning?  What time, basically? Are you getting up super early as in five in the morning? Is it six in the morning? Seven? Or is it at random times because maybe you're working and your job is the cause of your weird sleeping schedule? The earlier you wake up, the harder it will be for you if you do not have time to sit down and write.

What do you do in the morning? Your basic routine. When my sister was in school, she would do everything in the morning, which was why she got up so early. Her bus would come at 6:45 in the morning, meaning that she usually woke up sometime between 5-5:30 in the morning. There were times she would wake up at 4:30 in the morning! Why? A) It took her a long length of time to pick out her clothes; she couldn't decide on what to wear! B) She took a shower in the morning, not to mention she dried and straightened it, so that took more time. And C) It took her forever to do her makeup. So if you're like this, writing in the morning before school wouldn't work, unless you made changes.

Now, when I was going to school, my routine was this: I would take showers at night. It was easier for me. I would pick my clothes out before bed (and sometimes, I slept in them if I was deciding on being too lazy). I brushed my hair and put it in a ponytail, nothing fancy. My hair never worked with a straightener (until now, sort of... but that's because my hair is shorter). I never wore makeup, unless I was trying to impress someone or I randomly felt like it. Originally, I would get ready within ten minutes. If I was going to straighten my hair and or do my makeup, it would take about fifteen to twenty minutes. I usually woke up thirty minutes before my bus arrived, so I was always on time. On this schedule, I can write for a few minutes.

How much homework do you have?  You can try to take writing breaks during your homework; do the work, then take ten to twenty minutes off to write, then continue with homework. Same thing with studying. I never studied as it wasn't right for me, so I ended up just doing the homework and calling it quits. Hey, I have a 3.5 GPA, 'K? You can still pass without studying! Ha.

Also, if you get homework on Friday, it's best to do it on Friday. Look at your weekend schedule. Is there anything planned? Are you going to parties, dinners, family things, friend things? Are you even busy? With me, I was never busy on the weekend. At least, most of the time. It was great, though, because I would do homework on Friday, leaving the weekend stress-free and being able to write during it. Which actually, was how I got through half of A Nightmare's Fate - I was busy during the weekdays, so I took the time to write during the weekends.

Is there anything happening in your life? During the last week or so of October (2015), things were getting a big crazy. My sister came earlier in the month which I hadn't really seen in three years (minus three weeks - one week during Thanksgiving when I was sixteen, and two weeks for her vacation earlier this year in March). So we were catching up, hanging out, all that. Then we were getting ready for my other sister's wedding. Then Halloween. Then sooner or later, I ended up distancing myself from the computer since we watched movies or I just slept most of the day... yeah... you get the picture. But what could I have done? Taken an hour off from watching shows and getting caught up to write. Bring my laptop over to the hotel so I can write, though it would have been late at night. Not going to places so I can stay and write. Or just bring a notebook and a pencil and write, so later I can put it on the computer.

I mean, think of things like that to help you look at your own schedules and your daily routines. See if you can change it up.

And again, like I said in the chapter Updating & Schedules, if you can't make it work, you have to force yourself to write.

If worst comes to worse, tell your readers you're taking a break. If you're going to write a new book and post it on Wattpad, be sure that you aren't going to just post a few chapters and then fall off the face of the earth. If you're unsure because of your crazy life, then maybe it's best to write out your book first then post your chapters.