If you follow along on my Instagram (@alifetimeofpages) you know that I’ve been working on writing a book since mid April. I worked quite diligently April-May and then fell off the horse a bit in June. This past week I renewed my efforts and tried to get back at it.
Some back story on my writing of this book. In the past 2 years I have started and stopped 2 books. I made it about 20,000 words into each of these books and simply lost interest. With quarantine and everything happening with COVID, I decided now was the perfect time to write the novel I have been wanting to write. I had had an idea of a romcom centered around collegiate swimming for a while and decided I wanted to make it happen. There are so many young adult/new adult books that take place in high school and very few that take place in college and I wanted to be a part of that 2nd grouping.
I recently reached 58,000 words on my document on my computer. At this point I wanted to make my WIP/document more accessible. It’s my first written work and I haven’t had but 3 people read a few chapters up to this point, so I decided to upload what I have to Wattpad. I have seen various reviews on Wattpad, but knowing of a few authors that got their start there and still use it, I decided I was okay with giving it a go.
So, I took time and uploaded all 58,000 words (32 chapters) of my YA romcom onto the site yesterday and although there was a slight learning curve for the site, I ended up quite happy with the result. I am not only now able to share the link to my book easily, but also can update my book on there each day. On top of that, there is the opportunity for people to comment on my work, giving me immediate feedback as they read it.
The other helpful thing about uploading it to Wattpad (other than finally creating a cover of sorts) was being able to reread everything as I uploaded it. Since I haven’t written much in the past month there was quite a bit that I forgot I wrote that I not only was proud of but also learned from and fixed as I went.
Do I recommend Wattpad? At the moment yes, but I’ve only used it for 24 hours now. I have liked some of the aspects of it (commenting and being able to share), but I know there are also downsides to these as well so I am interested to see where this goes. If you have used Wattpad or have recommendations for using it, I would love to hear those!
Feel free to check out my book, Deep End, not yet completed but updated daily on Wattpad!
Link to book: https://www.wattpad.com/story/234932832-deep-end
HAPPY READING!
Joyfully Jacquie 