titanically- is an incredible writer who has written works like 'Three and a Half Good Legs' which has over 1 million reads! The aesthetic of this account is so cool, and I'm very intrigued by lots of the books myself!

Why did you start writing on Wattpad?

I first heard about Wattpad on this other writing site I was on at the time, Figment.com. I decided to check it out, and ended up making an account and posting a little bit of a fanfiction I was writing at the time, so see if anything came of it. Nothing did. My fanfiction was a little blip in the huge universe of available Wattpad stories and, as I wasn't really reading anything at the time, there was no way for me to be discovered and I went virtually unnoticed. The summer before I went off to college, I found Wattpad again. I had just begun to take some old story ideas of mine and spin them together into what would eventually become 'Astoria' (my oldest work on here), and for some reason, I decided to try something new and post it on Wattpad. It's now been about four years since I actually started writing on the site, and I haven't been back to my other writing site since. One thing I like about Wattpad better than my old writing site is that, on Wattpad (especially at the time I first joined), trading votes is discouraged, meaning that if someone reads your story, they are usually genuinely are interested in what you're writing. On the other site they traded 'hearts', in a 'swap' style; however, the people I tried to swap with (a lot, not all) generally just 'hearted' my story and left a generic comment like "amazing! keep up the good work!" after I left a detailed review. I still have a fond place in my heart for the other writing site, because it's how this whole writing thing started for me, but I can honestly say that Wattpad has helped me to move far beyond it in terms of developing my writing and getting my work out there.

What's been your proudest moment on Wattpad ?

It's probably a tie between two chapters in my Wattpad story. The first would be when I won a Watty award for my story "Winfred". Being historical fiction, it wasn't the type of story that normally would have been very popular on Wattpad, so to come out of class and have a message in my inbox saying it had won a Watty award was nuts to me! I was so excited that I called my dad (I was down at school at the time) and texted my mom to tell them I'd won (even though they had no idea what Wattpad was, or what a Watty meant lol). At the time, I'd been writing on Wattpad for less than a year, so that one moment gave me motivation to keep giving it a go on the site. Before that moment, I didn't have a lot of traffic on my page. After that, I got to interact with a lot more people. The second moment would be when "Three and a Half Good Legs" was featured. I was, again, in school, when I got the message saying one of my stories had been featured. It comes from a little thing called the 'wattpad explorer bot' and the catch is that it doesn't tell you which story has been featured. I thought it would be "Winfred". After winning a Watty, it had become my most popular story. Even though I wished people would read my new works, most of the traffic on my page was still for Winfred. So I went to the historical fiction category, only to not see Winfred there! Imagine my surprise and excitement to see that my story had been featured in the Romance category! Partly because "Three and a Half Good Legs" means so much to me and partly because Romance is such a vast category that being featured among all those stories is crazy amazing, that was probably my proudest moment here, probably even prouder than winning a Watty.

Where do you get inspiration from?

I get my inspiration from a lot of places I guess. I always find this question most difficult to answer, because the most random things inspire me. I guess probably the best thing would be to give examples. Any historical fiction I write comes from time periods or events that interest me. Astoria originally came about (in a convoluted way) because my sister and I were playing Super Smash Bros Brawl on the Wii and came up with a backstory for Marth (who I know is from something else, but we didn't know his character background story back then, so we made one up) and Princess Peach, and come up with a love story for his parents, who became (again, in a verrrrry convoluted way) Antony and Meredith, the main characters from Astoria. Three and a Half Good Legs has two inspirations that I combined to form one story. Brennan, one of the main characters, suffers from anxiety as she goes off to college for her first semester. She's based almost entirely off of me in her mannerisms, likes, dislikes, and background. Jonas, the other main character, is an amputee, and is based off of a random guy I saw out in town one day wearing a prosthetic. Other things that have inspired me are random things on Pinterest, random things people have said to me, and weird 'daydream movies' (aka:stories I've played in my head when I was bored or trying to fall asleep).

Which book has been the most fun to write?

"Three and a Half Good Legs' was the most fun for me to write. It was fun for me, and sort of therapeutic, to write a character with all of my anxieties and get it down on paper, sort of. And people related to her a lot, so that made me feel not quite so alone? Additionally, it was fun having it be featured before it was completed, so I actually had a good deal of people waiting for new chapters to come out, which made it really fun to write, because I felt like I was writing for other people more than I was able to in the past. Watching people be excited for new chapters of something I wrote to come out made me excited too.

What's the hardest part about writing on Wattpad ?

I think the hardest part of writing on Wattpad is starting out. When I first joined, as mentioned earlier, I didn't stand out at all. Starting out a first book was hard, because I felt like a big nobody, and it was very hard for people to find anything of mine. Even now, starting out a new book is hard, because it seems like a lot of people came to me for "Three and a Half Good Legs" or "Winfred", but don't necessarily want to read whatever new thing I'm posting, so I have to build another reader base for that story. Being someone who is very motivated by feedback, especially positive feedback, it's become very hard for me to motivate myself to keep posting when starting something new, because it feels like I'm right back where I was when I first joined, and it takes time to build a new story up.

What chapters do you enjoy writing the most?

I'm a real sucker for emotional chapters. Somebody dies, somebody cries, a breakup happens, a character finds out a big piece of the other character's backstory...you name it, if it's emotional (bonus points if it's sad or dark), I'm there. I used to type up sad/dramatic and or emotional one shots for my stories and, although I don't do that so much anymore, I still think about them in my head when I'm bored. :)

And finally, what advice would you give to a new writer on Wattpad ?

A few things:

1. Write for you. I know I've just said that I enjoy writing for others greatly, and thrive off of positive feedback, but in the beginning I had to write for myself. If I didn't write for myself, because I wanted to tell a story, I wouldn't have made it anywhere. It's going to be hard. It's going to feel like no one is reading your stuff. But keep writing for yourself, and eventually other people will come and you can write for them too. :)

2. Go read other people's stuff and COMMENT. Votes are good too. Whatever puts you on other people's radar. And I don't mean go to some super popular writer's stuff and comment there (although do comment and vote on their stuff; just because they're mega-popular doesn't mean they don't still get the warm fuzzies reading a lovely complement). I mean go to the undiscovered section, go to the community threads and find someone's work, someone who's just starting out, or just beginning a new story. Chances are, if you check out theirs, they might check out yours. You might make new friends. And you'll get more out of the Wattpad experience.

3. Go to the clubs. Respond to threads. It's another way to meet new people, to get advice on aspects of your story, and even to advertise, if you go to the right threads.

4. Enter that contest. You're brand new, you feel like you're not well known enough to enter the Wattys and win. Do it anyways. You never know what will happen. I took a chance; I got a Watty out of it. You don't have to be well known. You never know.

5. Polish your story. A few typos are fine, but if your story is riddled with grammatical errors and spelling flubs, people are less likely to want to keep reading once they start. Get a nice cover (there are a lot of designers who offer free graphics for their own practice or just because they're nice on the graphic design club under the community threads) and use it. Take time to write a good summary. It all helps.

6. Don't be afraid to talk to those more established authors. I was so afraid to do that when I first joined, but trust me, they're really nice, and even though they're busy, they love hearing from you. Just maybe don't go asking them to read your story, because that's the type of thing they don't want to hear. They already get a lot of it. Some of them go above and beyond and check it out for you anyways, but asking them is probably a surefire way to annoy them. Remember, even if it's hard to believe, they started where you are too. It's hard work, and they know that more than anyone. (And whatever you do, don't send them a link to your story with no message. Aside from the fact that being advertised to is annoying, that's like...the lamest way to do it.)

7. Have fun with your Wattpad journey. In the future, it's the beginning part you'll look back on...so just be in it. I spent my whole first several years (even now I have to remind myself to stop) constantly looking forward. Thinking 'if only this, if only that'. Write the best you can, have fun reading other people's stuff, make new friends, challenge yourself to be better, to improve with every story. The rest will fall into place.

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That was my lovely interview with titanically- !

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