If you're wondering where great story ideas come from, this quote from Stephen King's book On Writing will enlighten you:

"Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up."

So, there I was one day in August 2017. I just decided I would write my first ever romance novel. The next question in my head was: So, romance, but what romance story exactly?

I thought it had to be modern and techie because I wanted to target the youth demographics – it was Millenials then but by the time I revised for publication, it became Gen-Z. Modern, techie and young. So, cellphones. And then I envisioned a novel that was completely or mostly made up of text language, like those text-based short stories in video clips on social media.

And so, a girl would be receiving all these mysterious text messages from a stranger. The question is, which stranger? A ghost? A secret admirer? And that was when it hit me: an A.I. chatbot... 

Mind you, I didn't jump and pump my fists in the air or shout "Eureka!" like Stephen King warned in his book. Writing is a solitary and lonely (and mostly unappreciated) endeavor. Also, from the first to the last (109th) MS Word page of The Boyfriend App with 120% line spacing, between the first and the last word, I still had to fill in the gaps with memorable prose. No one else was going to do it for me.

Like Deadpool always says: Maximum effort!

As a writer, it also behooves me to do background research on any topic I'm writing about because I don't want my story to appear amateurish or like some kind of hoax. But authors our generation are lucky because we have the Internet – a whole universe of information right at the tip of our fingers. Just imagine authors of the previous generation who had to go to libraries and scour physical books to find the extra information they needed.

It's easy in the movies because an author would be struck by the lightning of genius and type for 6 hours straight while Palatino Linotype letters literally rained around him. When he surfaces from his trance, the pages of a Nobel-worthy masterpiece is piled on his desk. I wish I could tell you it was that easy but it never is.

This brings me to the final topic of my book and the alternative to everything I just taught you. It seems counter-intuitive to add such an important topic like an afterthought but, trust me, I have a perfectly good reason and well, save the best for last, I guess.

It could be a personal bias of mine but I think many writers are introverts. This means they're not good at marketing and they're not so keen on approaching strangers to ask them for support. Most of the things I talked about from Chapters 1 to 19 are writer-centric actions. They're all about polishing one's craft and presenting one's work in the best possible way and I think many writers can readily apply any of those tips. On the other hand, what comes next is a sort of back-up or secret-weapon-type option.

Now we're gonna talk about the other group of people: the influencers and the ambivert writers.

If you're not so good at working alone (like Batman) and you actually feel more comfortable brainstorming and bouncing ideas off of a bunch of people, don't hate yourself because that's actually a good thing. You remember when I told you in Chapter 3 about an author named Andy Weir who wrote a book titled The Martian? His book got adapted into a movie which starred Matt Damon and grossed $630.2 million. The book itself was a commercial success and its trade paperback edition was on the New York Times Best Seller list for a total of 76 weeks and on the top spot for 19 weeks.

Even more inspiring, before all these, Andy Weir had been rebuffed by literary agents and decided to serialize his book for free on his own website. That's right. He was a self-publisher, too. But of course if you check out The Martian now, it had been re-published by Crown, a part of Penguin Random House, which paid over $100, 000 for the print rights.

On his website before all this, Andy Weir spent 3 years building an audience; a loyal, dedicated group of thousands of followers. He released The Martian chapter by chapter and his hard science fiction fans would sometimes send in corrections for the technical aspects.

As you can see, there are writers who function the other way around. Instead of having writing as a solitary activity, they transform it into a collective process. And they're good at it, too. Some Wattpad writers can reach out to so many people and convert them into very involved Followers, not just statistics. These fans help the writer polish the craft and, when it comes time to release the story, they also give their all-out support. They're basically an army who's got your back.

If you're the type of writer who can do this, you should because it all boils down to having supporters; people who would pledge to buy your books – and do it, too. This - what I propose to call the Influencer/Author - is like the Kryptonite of traditional publishers. Once you achieve this level of popularity, believe me, you won't need to go around looking for a publisher. They will find you.

Up Next: Goodbye

Stay Phenomenal!

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Hi guys, 

The Boyfriend App is now available on Shopee and Lazada, too. Yay!

If you're a regular of these online shops, check out the new and improved version of The Boyfriend App. It's got 6 never-before-read chapters plus 1 juicy bit about our beloved leading guy (bot?) Ecto. It also has a gorgeous new cover.

Just visit my site www.phenomenalpen.com for the links. Thanks!