Am I going to use Wattpad?

Background: On the weekend, Geoff read an article in the Globe and Mail about Wattpad (an article I would link to right now except the Globe and Mail website is “experiencing an internal server error. Our engineers are working to resolve the problem as we speak” so I can’t) and was very Why don’t you try this out? You could get new readers! You could get better feedback! You could be even more awesome than you are now! Well, sort of that with less exclamation marks and reinforcing of my awesomeness. So I said I’d look at it, but I was on the iPad and I don’t like typing on that silly in-screen keyboard, but I did sign up and today I actually went to look at Wattpad and the answer as to whether I am going to use it or not: I don’t know.

The first thing I did was read through the Terms of Service because of the one thing I wanted to know the most: If I post something on Wattpad, who owns it? Me or the site? So the Terms of Service say For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions, which made me think okay, but then goes on to say that Wattpad can use, reproduce, distribute, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the Wattpad.com Website and its affiliates. So I started to go hmmmm.

And now for short stories, almost everything I submit to now seems to have big flashing warnings saying (don’t worry, I’m not going to use a blink tag) Your submission must have never appeared on the internet before, so I’d be reluctant to put shorter things out there. But I could use Wattpad for longer stories. I could get some additional feedback for Come From Away and stop complaining to Geoff about my course: I am getting feedback that is helping my novella become a better novella, but I am finding it to be a very negative process due to only negative feedback with nothing positive. And I assume Wattpad is like an echo chamber – people will be like I loved it! because if they hated it, they probably quit part way through and couldn’t be bothered to comment. I love being loved.

I read a story on Wattpad. It was decent. Reading through the Terms of Service, I’m not 100% convinced I am supposed to link to Wattpad stories. But I will. The worst that can happen is they kick me out and I haven’t done anything other than make my avatar the picture we took in Costa Rica in June of a tree frog. I might make my background picture Debre Sina, Ethiopia, then it’ll match my twitter profile.

I am trying to find more stories to read. There are four separate categories for vampire, werewolf, fantasy, and paranormal. I can’t seem to find literary fiction. The closest category seems to be Other. Maybe Non-teen fiction?

I am going hmmmm again.

I recognize that, with the exception of short stories which I will continue to submit to journals, self-publishing is likely the route I will end up taking. I’m not sold on Wattpad yet. Margaret Atwood telling me yay on the about page doesn’t cut it.

Still, I need to get over my squeamishness regarding self and online and e-book publishing. But, at heart, I fear I am a book Luddite.

On Friday I told you that I was in contention for a writing contest. Well…..

I did not win.

But I am a runner-up and my story will be published as such, so it is almost as good as winning, except for the not-winning part and the prize of books and money that I am not receiving. But runner-up – still yay! Four years ago when I switched from math to writing, I never thought I’d even ever be good enough to publish, and here I am almost winning a contest. Bonus – the story that will be published is an odd length (approx ten thousand words) that is hard to find homes for and my story found a home, so lots of little bits of happiness around.

So, stay further tuned. I will update further with links when published, but the basic info is as such: my story Darién Gap will be in the upcoming issue of The Puritan! <--exclamation mark mine, not part of the journal title.

New mentor’s advice contradicts old mentor’s advice. I do like new mentor’s advice better so I’m not really complaining per se but I’m wondering about that thing in Burroway probably that if someone is giving advice, you don’t have to follow the advice, but you have to admit that there is something in your story that isn’t working.

And there is a lot in my story that isn’t working but I knew that even before I started this course. That is actually why I started this course: to help make some of the problems go away by having impartial eyes upon it.

I also just wish that Come From Away would go away.

And I keep typing LaTeX markup rather than HTML in this post so clearly I need to be doing something else right now.

This and that has been happening. Tesfa had a five day weekend because her school has a lot of long weekends. She spent her days off back at Montessori and I had some more time to work, which I spent typing because typing is what I do. But, then, after typing, I don’t feel much like coming here to type, so things have happened that I haven’t much commented on and now I’ll do it in one, large, glurggy, list.

1. Typed more of my faerie story. Changed the mechanics again, but this is why I am typing it up. I can’t remember all the mechanics I’ve used so far in my notebook and typing is supposed to be helping me weave together all the threads. Instead, I see plot holes that need fixing. Maybe I’ll fix them by magic again.
2. My writing mentor for my course is incapacitated. So I got a new writing mentor. There is no onomatopoeia that really fits here – but picture me making the sound of grinding my teeth. Things happen. Only one month in. Not that much work lost. Still, me grinding my teeth.
3. I learned about the word saudade, which is a good word for my time-travelling story about loops that I haven’t written or really thought about yet.
4. Everyone’s first novel is a failure. So I keep telling myself about Come From Away. It’s okay. It’ll make my faerie story all the better
5. I got a rejection (We were intrigued by your writing, but didn’t feel that this particular submission was a good fit for the next issue). Did my sulk. Then sent in another story to another journal (The Antigonish Review – they will publish something of mine someday!) Then (more onomatopoeia sound of happiness or joy or something) got an email about being a finalist in short story contest. I don’t know if I’m allowed to link to the contest or the journal before the results are announced, so I won’t, but check back in a few days because they’re supposed to give me the results soon and then you can find out if I won or if I am a finalist and either way, they are publishing a story of mine, so stay tuned.