#newwritingtips

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Welcome to my Tumblr blog. Here I will give my honest opinions and pour out my thoughts about the ideas behind my Wattpad books. You can take inspiration from this blog when you are planning to write a novel. I wanted to write a separate Wattpad book where I could talk about this. But I then decided that I wanted to reach a wider audience, and Tumblr was better suited for this purpose.

Please note: This will be posted in parts every Friday!

Edited by @wayward-heronstairs , @hashtag-amf and Hemingway Editor

I started my Wattpad journey in May 2016. I was staying at my cousin’s house, and she asked me whether I knew about the app called Wattpad. I had never heard the name before. It was such an odd name for an app, I thought to myself. I was not interested in downloading the app because reading didn't appeal to so much. A few hours later, I downloaded Wattpad. Yay.

Then came the shocker. I got my first follower. A thin guy with spectacles. I was nervous because I had never been on a social media platform before. I didn't know what to do. I was staring at his profile pic, wondering if he was a psychopath or just crazy enough to follow me on Wattpad. I am anxious like that. I wondered how on earth did he find my account within six hours as I had not posted any stories on Wattpad yet.

The first book I read on Wattpad was fanfic about 'The Fault in Our Stars.' At that time, I had no idea what fanfic was. I picked that book to read because I had watched TFIOS twice now. Unfortunately, I didn't like the fanfic, so I uninstalled the app the same night.

Then came December of 2016. It was the Christmas holidays, and I was very tired of studying. I owned that crappy Nokia XL neon green phone. Urgh, that stock Android phone was a nightmare. I downloaded Wattpad and looked for some good books to read. At that time, Midika Crane’s books were a huge hit. Her books had those dark black and white covers were guys with eight pack abs stared out of the cover at the reader. At first, I hated the cover because I thought she hadn't done a great job of selecting a good cover for the book. I remember clicking on 'Alpha Kaden', a currently published novel. I had spent half an hour on one page trying to decipher what was written. Halfway through the Prologue and I couldn't read more. Her professional level of writing was not understandable by me.

When I was halfway done with Midika’s book, I added ‘She’s With Me’ by Ava Violet to my Wattpad reading list. It was such an amazing book. I loved reading it. It was about Amelia who was running away from her past. She had enrolled herself in the school. I don’t remember the name because I read it a long time back) and she meets the heartthrob of the school and his friends. The story was like a cliché romance novel but what stood out was Amelia’s back story.

After reading more than 90 books on Wattpad I decided to make a writing debut on Wattpad. I spent more time reading Wattpad books than studying. I would read Wattpad books in the canteen, the student's study room, at home when my mom wasn't watching. It was addicting. In 2017, the first book I wrote was a fanfic of Hellboy, the 2004 film. I never imagined myself writing fanfiction about a movie I was so scared to watch. As a child, I was so terrified of that movie that the moment I saw Hellboy on the screen, I would look away in fear. All that I remember as a kid was the scene from the second installment of the movie 'The Golden Army'. He was holding twin infants wrapped in a white blanket. There was some sort of fantasy creatures running around the street. Hellboy was spot on with his aim, that she shot them with his gun.

Then in May 2014, I got a chance to watch Hellboy on the television again. As a teenager, I wasn't scared of him anymore, but I was more intrigued by it. I loved that movie so much that I had a crush on John Myers (Rupert Evans). He was 'the dude that didn't get the girl', you know. I empathized with him as he took so much trouble by fighting alongside Hellboy. He deserved more.

Later in the movie, the professor tells John that he is dying, and Hellboy needs someone in his absence. In the movie, Hellboy treated Myers like trash. He is more of a nanny and less of an FBI Agent. And because of this, Myers tells the professor that he cannot stay at the BRDP any longer. The professor tells him that he chose him for a reason as he saw potential in Myers. He adds that in many medieval stories there is a white night and Myers was that. He tells him to take care of Hellboy after he passes away.

Another reason why I felt like writing fanfic was that Myers and Liz's chemistry was so adorable. He tried his best to flirt with Liz (Selma Blair). I hoped that he and Liz ended up as a couple. But Hollywood movies are unkind to side actors. So, when Hellboy got the girl, my heart dropped. My heart couldn't handle it. I was screaming at this heartbreaking injustice. I was like, this man needs a girl. I had to make a way to help him get the girl so that I didn't have this heaviness building inside me.

Above: Rupert Evans as John Myers in Hellboy (2004)

And thanks to being a Wattpad writer, I came up with my own story. I named it Hellboy 3. The reason for keeping this title was because of Hellboy: The Golden Army released in 2008. I didn’t want to confuse readers about which Hellboy movie the fanfic was about. I researched Wikipedia thinking that Rupert Evans had reprised his role as John Myers in it, but I was wrong. As per Wikipedia reports, Evans was filming ‘The Kiss of a Spiderwoman’ so he couldn’t be a part of the movie.

Writing the fanfic was challenging. I was stumbling through the dialogues and the scenes. I thought that this will not get more than 20 chapters, but if I am not wrong, it surpassed 20 chapters. The story got some likes, some encouraging comments, but then I was not happy with my writing. I deleted it.

In 2017-ish, I wrote another story about vampires. I wrote down the story on one of the leftover books I had in my drawer. I had a good time writing it as it was one of my original stories. I made my original characters, a mythical place cursed by time. I named it ‘The Kingsmen’. Then after I had filled half of the pages by writing, I decided it was time to edit. I posted it on Wattpad. I published the chapters with no updating schedule. After surpassing fifteen chapters, I deleted the book because the grammar was awful. I felt I was adding unnecessary commas after the dialogues. I didn't have someone to edit the story, and I also had this nagging suspicion that my mom knew I wasn't studying. I hated college because I would get tired, and the studies bored me to the core. I studied for the heck of it. Everything was fine when one fine day, I forgot the password to my Wattpad account.

It was hell on earth. Panic rose within me. It was like the end of the world was near. I tried to calm myself down. I had to remember the password. I felt that I was such a miserable person for forgetting a simple thing as a password. I tried password recovery. I scourged my Gmail account for the recovery link, but Wattpad wasn't sending the link. At that time, Wattpad was super slow when it came to sending recovery links for passwords. I remember Wattpad sent me recovery passwords five hours later. Wattpaders know that logging via recovery link is time-sensitive. When I clicked the link, Wattpad said that the link wasn't valid. I did this three times till my patience wore me out.

I was devastated. I had put so much of my heart and soul while writing that book. It was my baby, and now the account was gone….I didn't cry. Thank God I didn't cry. I was sad. It felt like someone took a piece of my heart away from me and didn't return it.

This is how it looked:

In January 2018, I made a new account on Wattpad. Now I have written down all the passwords in a notebook, not going to repeat the mistake.

Okay! This was the end of part one. Tell me how you liked it!!

By the way, I got the chance to watch Hellboy (2004) on the television today. John Myers is such a cutie!! Please check my latest IG highlights for the video. I cannot embedded the video on Tumblr :(