For The Love Of Writing

Motivation And Some Other Words

Say hello to Sid The Motivational Penguin, he's up there to help us have this conversation together.

Look, I get it. Sometimes you just can't. Sometimes you just don't feel like it. Sometimes you've got better things to do. Sometimes a satellite crashes and your only source of internet connection is a wire you've used that's hooked up to a potato.

But are those really good reasons to not write?

Losing motivation to write is a phase that every single author, whether on this platform or not, goes through. Believe me, I've gone through it about thirty different times just in the last year. I mean, I've got my excuses though, I'm a senior in high school taking college classes while simultaneously working at a job. Of course, I've got a lot to do. But if we're being honest, sometimes when I've got the free time to write...

I just don't write.

And then when I don't write, I just continue to not write.

Losing motivation is obviously going to be much harder for writers who are just starting out on Wattpad. We've been through how terrible my first story was, but I didn't mention how after that story did so terribly I was resilient to post another one. At the time my first story only got around 500 reads for the entire story, which obviously wasn't the sort of numbers that I was aspiring to have. Clearly I had never thought about the reasons why my story wasn't necessarily doing so well, but that's besides the point.

I was only fourteen chapters into "The Girl Who Stutters and The Boy Who Mutters" when I had starting thinking about dropping the entire idea and deleting the book. Let me tell you, I had no direction that I wanted that book to go in. I had absolutely no idea what to do with any of the characters while I was writing it. And I was convinced that I had bred a terrible idea that was going to fail just like my other books would.

That same book that I almost gave up on writing just hit 5 million reads today. If that isn't motivation enough to keep writing those books that you're thinking about giving up on then I don't know what will be.

What made me decide to keep writing it? Clearly it wasn't the amount of people reading it in the beginning.

You have to set aside the read count, the votes, comments, etc. I know, I know, literally the entire point of this guide I'm writing is to help you guys gain that sort of stuff. But until you stop writing just for reads, you're never going to actually get those reads. I feel like I shouldn't have to explain why, as it goes it should be pretty self-explanatory. Writing should be a passion, write for yourself, blah blah blah. That's all of the stuff that's true, but that everyone just doesn't feel like hearing.

And in order to do that, you actually have to write.

I don't care if you do have writer's block. That's right, I don't give one big 'ol shit what your excuse is for not writing. Pardon my French. But I just don't want to hear it. How do you plan on conquering your daily writer's block without writing?

If you truly are passionate about writing then it shouldn't really even be a challenge for you to write on a daily basis. You should be continuously writing anyways. At least one chapter a week is all that I'm asking you to do. Just one single chapter. Then maybe if that's working well for you move up to two and so on. When you're first starting a new book, however, I would suggest that you try to get the first five or ten chapters on there as quickly as you can.

Not only will writing on a daily basis help you develop a good writing schedule, but it will definitely without a doubt increase your reads count. Updating on a daily basis is the most absolute surefire way for you to continuously get and maintain your readers. I can promise you that.

Let's talk about when you do get readers though. You get readers and maybe you start slacking on your chapters for a little bit. But this time it's not just you that knows you're slacking, now you've got an army of internet swans screeching 'Update! Update! Update!' in your ear every other day. Don't feel pressured to write.

There is an extremely high difference between pressure and motivation. Feel motivated to write because you love to and because you know your readers love your writing. But if you genuinely have no idea what to do next then don't force out the next chapter. And obviously don't get upset with readers for wanting another chapter and spamming you with comments. They have a right to do that, but instead of using the caps lock as a form of shouting obscenities about how stressed out you are at them, politely tell them that the next chapter is coming as soon as you'll be able to provide it.

I have fallen victim to the 'ah I'm a Wattpad writer and can't write every single day so shut up and leave me alone' phenomenon. I'm a victim of being a victim. I will admit that. I've learned from my mistakes. Most commenters mean no harm, some do, but most don't.

This all pertains to the hypothetical future when you do gain more readers, which is going to happen as long as you plan on working for it. People who wanna write crappy stories, post every couple of decades, and then complain about reads annoy me to no avail.

So don't be those people and we'll get along.

Hopefully this isn't getting too boring for you guys right now. You didn't sign up to read little 'ol me giving you a lecture about staying motivated. But there's a lot of truth behind everything that I said. The only way to stay motivated in doing something that you aspire to be better at is staying consistent with that talent.

If an athlete never practices then what happens? They grow tired during games because they aren't in shape, they don't perform as well, and they end up on the bench because they aren't as good as other players. Instead of being in the starting line up like they used to be instead they're stuck on the sidelines with the kid that picks his nose and Creepy Craig.

The same thought-process could be applied to writing. If you never write/post then you'll never make it to the hot page. You'll always just be on the sidelines, at the bottom with everyone else. And who wants to be at the bottom when you could be at the top?

So there you go. There's me rambling another 1000 words of information that I think you might need. Maybe you don't need it. Maybe you don't need it at all.

But you got it.

You're welcome.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.

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