Accomplishments

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.