I like to
write. I like to talk about writing.
I like to read about writing, and I
like to write about writing.
Anything
related to writing—I dig it.
But, one of
the things that I see often overlooked—especially among my writer friend—is their
own personal accomplishment. Often it feels like a classic case of “This dress
makes me look fat” rather than “Booyah! I reached my word goal!”
I find the whole idea that writers should be
humble and silently grateful for
anything thrown their way to be pointless. So at the risk of sounding arrogant
and—god forbid it—like I’m bragging, I’m going to list all my personal
accomplishments for the world to see.
Now, before I get a ton of messages about how I’m
not even published, or that I still have problems with English grammar. Then I’d
like to say: Yes. I know that I’m far from being truly accomplished. I have a
long way to go—I know that. But if the road to success is only littered with
stones, branches and burning coal, then nobody wants to go there. Me included.
In 2010, I got my first smartphone. At the age
of 20, this was huge for me. I’ve always loved reading, and the android market was
filled with illegal apps of full books. Day in and day out, I was reading the
latest vampire books, for then to search for more, read them etc. I wanted more
and more. One lucky day, I stumbled over the Wattpad App. I didn’t know it at
the time, but this app changed my life.
I loved reading, and the neverending supply of
books was amazing to someone like me. It took me awhile to discover what all
the random messages at the end with “vomment” or “thanks for all the comments”
meant.
But finally, I figured out that it was a website, as well. It took me
approximately two hours before I had made an account and uploaded the first
chapter of something I’ve written.
It sucked of course. But eh, I’d never written
before and my education in English was lacking—to say the least. If you don’t
believe on how much it sucked, you can look at it yourself:
http://www.wattpad.com/710991
Around a half year after I’d joined the site, I
applied to be an ambassador and was accepted.
This was in 2011, where I had studied English as
an online course due to some illness. At my oral exam, I got a D-, or “F” which
is just barely passed in Denmark. It wouldn’t have meant so much, except for the
fact that it was on C-level—the lowest level of them all, and I almost didn’t
pass.
I was devastated. I mean… I wrote stories in English,
and could just barely pass an oral exam? The reason was my lack of vocabulary,
my pronunciation and my limited knowledge of Australian Aboriginals.
My ambassador friends cheered me up, and to
look on the bright side, I had passed so I could move up a level. Around six
months later, I started the story that you might know as “The Lores of Lyra –
Rising Star”.
I had to take another exam in English on B-level right after I finished Rising Star. I was a wreck. I promised myself that I wouldn’t write anymore if I didn’t pass. Two years of writing, talking and living in English online had helped though. I passed with an A+ in my oral exam, along with a B+ in my written.
All this, thanks to Wattpad and the fans, the
friends, and of course my best friend Shawn who encouraged me to study hard. He
helped me by looking over my homework, along with talking to me on Skype
helping me with pronunciation.
After that, everything moved to fast for me to
even begin to fathom.
In November 2012, Rising Star was nominated as
a Watty Award Finalist in Fantasy – On The Rise.
In January 1013, it won the Watty Award for
Fantasy – On The Rise. I got a prize of 200 dollars for this.
In March, I finished the sequel “Shattered Star”.
In July, I finished my second standalone story “Retro-cognition”
In August, I came home from my first trip overseas.
I’d just been two weeks in America, in the big apple. For the first time, I met
two incredible authors from Wattpad.
And now, I’m here at home, writing this.
I’ve just started a new story called “Immortalia”
which people seem to like very much, and I’m almost frantically refreshing my
newsfeed to see if people have voted, added, followed or commented on anything
of mine. And for the most part—they have.
Does this make me an accomplished writer by
social standards? No. Not even close. But all of this is my personal
achievements during these three years I’ve dedicated to Wattpad. And I need to
sit down and just be proud of all of
these. Because in the future, when I’m getting bad reviews or plugging through
one of my Novels for misplaced commas, then it’s these things that I’m gonna
remember. It’s these things that made me to the person I am today, and it’s
these things that make all the sweat, tears, hair-pulling, sleepless nights and
bad reviews worth it.
And it all started by me finding the Wattpad
Application on my smartphone.
