The Paranoia That Accompanies Posting Your Work Online

As I talked about in my last blog, I decided to post Heirs of War on Wattpad as I edit. I've posted all the way up to chapter 16 and am currently banging my head against the brick wall that is chapter 17 and the changes that need to be made.

But I digress. So, I've been trying to become active in the Wattpad community because, well, that's what you do. I tried to do the same with Figment, but in getting so overwhelmed by spam, I just deleted my account. Which I feel bad about because I promised some people I would read their story. One thing I have learned to be annoyed by is the people in the writing community who want something for nothing. Don't expect people to read your work or comment on your work in a contest if you aren't willing to do the same. Make a commitment to the community and you will reap the rewards.

That's a soapbox for another day, I suppose. Because the point of this blog is all about writerly insecurity. Yup, I has it. I didn't think I did. Well, not that bad anyway. But man does this whole read counts and voting system really screw with a novice writer's head. I might even blame it for my current dilemma with chapter 17. You see, I have (currently) 155 reads according to my title page with the blurb. Does that mean 155 people have read that page, or total for the story? No clue. I explored the site but didn't find an answer, got frustrated, and went back to writing.

Moving on. Chapter 1 has 61 reads, and chapters 2 and 16 have 9. But! Some of the in between chapters have as little as 2 reads. Does that mean people are skipping around? Or the reads count is inaccurate? No clue.

Moving on. Out of 61 reads, I only have 2 votes (both by people I know). Does this mean it sucks? Or do people wait until the story is complete to vote for it? No clue.

And not sure if I should move on. I'm wondering if maybe this whole Wattpad thing is creating more of a fuss in my head than it has the potential to give me reassurance that all my effort is worth it. I'm not willing to do the whole "Read/vote for my story, and I'll read/vote for yours" thing that annoyed me so much on Figment. I've got a list of stories I am going to critique, but I made it clear they owed me nothing but patience in return. If someone is going to read my story, I want it to be because they like it, not because of some deal.

Maybe that means I am the wrong kinda author for sites like that. I'm going to give Fictionpress a shot since they don't appear to have anything like the systems used on Wattpad and Figment. And I suppose I will keep posting on Wattpad until the story is done...but not with much confidence I will gain anything at this point.