First time being a writer(not a chapter)

I have been reading online novels for a long time now.

It's fun and actually quite thrilling, to be honest. You get to understand varied subjects when reading. Reading on my phone kept me awake most nights.

My first novel, as a reader, was an anime-adapted book. The long tiring scenes of anime always left me disappointed as the impatient me always wanted to know the plots quicker. I also felt like my imagination was more tasteful than the movies.

Then, from wattpad to novelupdates.com I surfed around a lot; reading many books indeed.. I love reading almost all genres of content. They exhibit their own different styles and ideas. But I mostly tilted towards the boy love genre (me being a girl). It somehow felt refreshing hearing stories from a boy's perspective. I would have been able to get such an opportunity otherwise.

I'd find myself in the female characters and make up scenarios of how I'd react if I were them, which would leave me agitated when they wouldn't react my way. This is what made me a biased boy love story fanatic.

I decided to write a novel myself. I had some ideas for quite a while and I finally did it. I was not planning to publish it or anything. It was just to let my creative energy flow. But I ended up writing six chapters and felt like why not complete it.

It was only after seeing an ad on Instagram of Webnovel Spirity Awards, that I thought of publishing it. I thought, if I did enjoy my work, I might as well let others taste it too.

My sister had been hyping me up to publish it. She had told me that even if I hadn't done the best job, it would still be precious as my first novel. She added that even if people would have criticisms, it would only help me get better.

I was having a blast working on my novel and that's all that mattered. And this pandemic gave me a lot of free time to work creatively. And even if I get tired of it, I can leave whenever I desire. So there's no loss for me here.

I was talking to my friend about thinking of publishing it and she volunteered to edit it. I'm grateful for all the trouble she's bearing for me.

In fact, I posted my first draft that very night. I invited all my friends and family members to read my work. They all were hyping me up all along. Most of them didn't even read novels, but they actually downloaded the app for me. I am truly blessed.

They wanted to rate my work. But finding that it needed 140 words to write a review, they just commented "amazing amazing" all the way till they reached 140 words. It became a total laughing matter for the past few days.

When my first chapter was released, my views were actually pretty decent. But after the 3rd chapter, the views were a lot less. I was actually worried about it as a writer. It left me feeling useless, to be honest. I started having thoughts like: Is it because of my starting? What more should I do? Is my story bad? Should I stop doing it? and whatnot. Seeing my anxiety, my family suggested that I might as well stop doing it if it makes me feel that bad. And maybe start again, the next time I feel like it.

Google helped me gain a bit more confidence when I found out that I wasn't the only one in such a situation. Some writers actually give up writing because of a lack of readers or rush to end it. There were many people who don't like such novels and would rather prefer to read the whole book in one go.

In my case, the fact that I was in a competition actually kept me going. It gave me an exposure and an opportunity to explore myself too, which I never thought would come my way.

I actually forgot for a moment about how happy I was while writing my novel. I ran after views and ratings; which left me anxious for a while. I am just on my 7th chapter (I update everyday) and it feels like a roller-coaster ride.

It's fun when I think my work is being read by people. I actually don't regret posting it. I would actually suggest people to post their work if they are thinking about it. I am also starting to learn from sites like Udemy and YouTube, which are very informative.

At the end of the day, we all are the main characters of our lives. Things may not work out how we want them to but we can still learn and do better.

Every author has a different story to tell. There's nothing called working less or more hard . We all try to do our best. It's just that to be a winner, others need to lose. Some authors work on online novels for a living. It's honestly great because it is a lot of hard work and quite stressful too. There are others who do it for fun as well.

The one thing I realized is that it's not easy to write novels. Yet, it is fun. The constant support leaves you happy, hate comments leave you believing that you're a piece of trash (which actually hurts a lot), blockage of ideas leave you feeling frustrated, and there's so much more. And this package of emotions, helps you do nothing but grow beyond your limits.

Just like a butterfly, finally flying with a beautiful wing to support itself. ❤️