I have this problem with sharing my stories with people. I think the only person who's read even little parts of my stories in the recent years is my sister, and that was just so she could grammar check it. I took a creative writing class last year and that was actually the hardest part: letting people read my work. I'm super self conscious about it. These stories are totally from my inner thoughts and feeling, so letting people read them is totally putting myself out there.
But here is my predicament: taking that class was really helpful and having people critique my work was really effective, not to mention you can only write so many stories before you just HAVE to have someone read it because you're dying to know if it's any good. But I'm still scared. That is why I have a pen name and why I simply stick them on a blog hoping some random person will read them.
That isn't really working. Not that I think this blog is a waste. It's a good place to store all my stories and I can do Blog-to-Print for a really nice printed record, but audience wise, this blog doesn't do much.
But, recently I discovered this site called Wattpad and it's where a bunch of people upload their stories and you read and comment and can even vote for them. I like reading random stories on there sometimes.And then it occurred to me to put one of my own stories on there. I have like a billion different stories and none of them are even closed to being finished, but this site has you upload it chapter by chapter so you don't have to have it all written when you upload it! This is perfect for me! I also like it because all of the stories on there are completely amateur and some of them aren't even really written that well, which makes it significantly less intimidating.
So I uploaded the first part of my Treasure Island story on there! I still use my pen name, but I feel like this a place where I can actually get people to read it. So far, no one has, but it's only been there for a couple of days and it's only two pages so far. I need to add more and then I need to get involved in the 'community' of that site and get people to read it.
I'm so hopeful! I think this is a really good way to get people to read my stories without them having to know who I actually am.
Which brings up another point. I know writers aren't weird, and I don't think enjoying writing is dorky, but you have to confess that most of the people who are hard core amateur writers who upload on sites like Wattpad and come up with all these random stories.....tend to be really odd people.
I don't want to be odd.
I really don't want to end up being one of those writers who just comes up with random odd stories that are poorly written and just uploads on writing social sites, pretending they are going to publish some day, but are never nearly that good.
REALLY don't want to end up being one of those people.
In the writing class I took, the teacher read one of my short stories and told me it was really well written. Not just a being nice 'this is a good story', but he actually seemed impressed with my level of writing and even highlighted some phrases and said they were really good.
I guess the point I'm trying to get at is that I believe I have a natural knack for writing and that if I really work at it, I could publish someday. Sure my grammar is terrible and sometime I forget and leave out details, but overall my plots make sense and are interesting (according to friends I have shared story ideas with) and my character developed and details are particularly strong.
I CAN WRITE.
So that's why I am uploading stories onto Wattpad. Not because I want to become one of those odd writing network people, but I want to get better and I have to start somewhere.
Wish me luck.
