One evergreen piece of writing advice on Wattpad is to set an update schedule—and stick to it. But a recent question from a reader provides a good opportunity to talk about what goes on behind the scenes so that the writer can keep to their schedule. Here's the full question:

Hey! I just had a question, you're updating High School Tabloid every day and I know you're not going to put up anything less than what you love which is amazing and motivating for people who are still stuck in the loop of writing and deleting (like me) and never updating on time (also me). 

 There a two possible situations I see here, the first one is where you update every single day and still maintain the quality of work under a schedule and the second situation is where you write a book without publishing it and without feedback on it and then publish it when it's completed.

 Both situations put a lot of stress on a writer and it becomes extremely tough either way. It's hard to complete a work after reaching a certain point, especially when you start losing steam and it's very inspiring that you're doing it! 

 So I wanted to ask if you're writing a chapter per day, or if you already had it prepared? 

 Because I kinda struggle with both maintaining a set schedule when I'm writing as I go and with preparing the work before hand and actually completing before publishing it because I get way to excited and publish it before I even have a set storyline in mind. Then I lose the excitement of writing that book or I can't figure out where to take the plot which eventually leads to me giving up on a book I once used to love. 

OK, there's a lot to unpack here. So, let me start by explaining how I serialize my stories. The short answer is that I've serialized both ways. 

The first story I published on Wattpad was Not Safe Work. Like a lot of Wattpad newbies, I didn't know anything about the platform. I had written several (twelve??) drafts of the story, and I thought I would take one more pass on Wattpad before submitting it to agents and publishers. In other words, the story was written in advance.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, is Peter's Little Peter—far and away my most popular story. I wrote that book as a NaNoWriMo project. I started with some characters, a premise, and a rough idea of how the story would end. I wrote a chapter every morning, rewrote it, then pressed Publish. 

My current story, High School Tabloid, falls somewhere between these two extremes. I wrote the first draft offline. My process is to rewrite as I go, so that draft came out more polished than a typical first draft. After I finished the first draft, I read the story a few times, then made some notes about changes I wanted to make. I'm currently serializing the story daily, which means I'm making those changes each morning before I post. 

So, which way is best?

Honestly, there's no right answer here. Each method has its pros and cons in terms of the writing process and building audience. The better question is which method works best for you?

Which brings me to a larger point. Comparing yourself to other writers is a recipe for disaster. Of course, it's also human nature to compare yourself to others, so it's not like we can just stop. And by we, I mean me. I do this all the time. Every time I poke my head up, I see writers who are better than me, more successful than me, smarter than me, more creative than me, more prolific than me.

These comparisons are what I call de-motivators. The more I compare myself to others, the less I work on my own material. I've lost entire days, weeks, and even months to this kind of thinking. But like I said, I can't just stop. 

What helps, I think, is some context. Because seeing that other writers struggle, especially writers you look up to, helps you see that your struggles can be overcome too.

So, let me give you a little context about me.

I've been writing longer than Wattpad has been in existence. I'm forty-two, as of this writing. I sold my first words when I was twenty-two. I have one published novel, a few published short stories, several published personal essays that I'm really proud of, hundreds of newspaper and magazine clips, a few screenplays I consider so-so, and some really great stories on Wattpad. I've also managed to support myself by selling words for the past twenty years. By some measures I'm successful, by others measures I'm not. But what I've learned in two decades of facing the blank page is that none of that really matters. 

So, what does matter? 

It may sound trite, but what matters is you. After all, your story won't get written without you. I'd wager that there are as many writing processes as there are writers in the world. The trick, I think, is to be adaptable. Steal what works for other writers and try it on for yourself. If it works, keep it. If it doesn't, cut it. And if it works for a time, use it while it lasts, and then—you guessed it—stop using it when it stops working. 

If you're having trouble keeping to a schedule, change the schedule or adjust the amount of material you plan to deliver. 

If you're stuck in a loop of writing and deleting, post your work and see what happens. 

If posting your work doesn't draw a reaction, rewrite it.

If you just can't keep rewriting the project, start another story.

If you can't finish a novel, write a short story.

If you can't write a short story, write some flash fiction.

If you can't write at all, promise yourself you'll show up and just type for twenty minutes. Why twenty minutes? Because anyone can show up for anything for twenty minutes. Will you write a great novel that way? Probably not. But you will get words on the page, and that's the first step.