Wattpad; the superior writers' platform
Top is my Wattpad banner, if you haven't visit my page, please do. Lower is the demographics showing where "Journey Home" was read at the height of its popularity.
Wattpad; the superior writers' platform
I've just celebrated my ten year anniversary on Wattpad, arriving here in February of 2011, and I had about forty or so online self-published poems to my name. A large group of us from Original Poetry (OP) became dissatisfied and we left the nest all at once. Some tried to set up their own sites that would eventually fail (with the exception of Poetry E Train), and others lit here. We didn't want to lose track of each other so we share emails and Facebook accounts, and those who we missed out on we tracked down, we were a family. John Wordslinger, aka John Ohara, told me about Wattpad. I tried it out, and I'm still here till this day. Several of us landed here, most still have a place holder here, but there accounts are inactive, as life struggles took precedence over writing, but for me I'd found a new home where the bulk of my work resides in relative safety, "touch wood." Wattpad is mainly a writers' site, fashioned for the novelist, but it was huge, over a million readers at that time, but where was the place for the poet. The font isn't expandable, and shape poems were and still are nearly impossible to write, hint, hint. Poets were a tiny margin of a much larger platform, yet I was made welcome by all. I was called "Sir Poet," or "Master Poet," and like every place poets gather we find each other, no matter what. Poets love to know fellow poets for community, for family, and for kinship. Very seldom do novelists read poets or vise verse. First if we spend all our time reading novels we don't have time to write, and I know that sound selfish, but I prefer to curl up with my novels and caress them with my eyes, with my hands, turn the pages one leaf at a time, and never dog ear them. At the end of the night I place them on my nightstand and off I go to dream sweet dreams of the author's words, but poetry is easily read, just as pleasant on screen or in a book, recitable, remarkable, and mountain moving.
I've found great, unbelievably talented poets, I am one among thousands of future legends in the field just on Wattpad, and the platform is sound, and really is a quite remarkable achievement. This site can and it does launch careers, and it can make your name and your work known around the world, if you're willing to labor for it, and if you're willing to market yourself. Okay, the sight has its flaws, but it is hands down the best writer/poet platform in the world and I only see it getting stronger, and better. Over the last decade we poets here have carved out a nice cubbyhole for ourselves, and we've earned the respect of the owners. I will tell you first off, if you are new to Wattpad, you only get out of it what you put into it. You need to read other poets. I'm telling you some of the best poets living are right here to read, and you will learn how to improve your own poetry. I was plodding along gathering followers, some are still close friends, until I got a break. Wattpad decided to feature poets as well as novelists. First they featured one of my friends from OP, and later a Wattpad worker asked be to create a collection to submit to feature, the collection I compiled was "Journey Home, consisting of thirty-six parts.
Up to this point I had about five hundred followers after almost three years, but that was about to change. "Journey Home" launched me into the stratosphere for a couple of years, before it was taken off the charts. It never reached number one in poetry, but it hover around two and three for six months. I was gaining a thousand new followers a month; I tried to keep up with all the comments as best I could, but the reads were gaining, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 100,000, and finally by 2015 it reached 200,000 reads worldwide, and from nearly every continent on the planet. Then they took it off the charts, and I submitted a new collection, "The Wizard!" I reach 6,000 followers and I've hovered there ever since, fighting for every new follower, just to see one drop off. What goes up, must come down. I've never duplicated that success, a one hit wonder it seems, but I keep writing. I think like anything, the more you do something the better you get; whether it is sports, your job, or your poetry, but you can't improve without writing or without reading others. I spend hours just learning a new style, a new constraint. Hell, I was scared shitless of constraints, the sonnet most of all. I just couldn't feel the meter.
I was on another poetry site, just before I came here, and I ran across a woman who wrote only sonnets. She said, "You're quite the sonneteer."
I replied, "I'm not a sonneteer."
She answered, "Well you better watch out, because you're getting quite the reputation around the world as a sonneteer." That shocked me. I had only four or so, how'd people find me; it was the magic of the internet. I started to take writing constraints more seriously. I gather a ton of solid references for writing sonnets, and other constraints, not just anyone, but I selected papers from large universities, because, believe it or not, most of the helps to write sonnets were useless, written by people who didn't know the first thing about constraints. It is getting better today to find good guides, but a decade ago most writers didn't know the difference between one form and another.
I have 27 sonnets, to date in this collection, and I've gone from taking years to be able to compose just one sonnet, then to months, then to days, and now down to hours; practice, practice, practice.
All this was scary as hell. I was putting myself out there and I was going to make mistakes, but with practice I would improve each time I wrote one. The main thing I will say about constraint poetry is to know it well enough to know how to make it your own; break the rules. Hell Shakespeare did, and I would have to learn that from another Wattpad poet. It doesn't have to be perfect; it just has to read well. You don't have to have ten syllables per line in a sonnet, it can have eleven, just to break up the sing-song rhythm to it, and it doesn't always have to be Iambic foot meter, for God's sake, have fun writing them, it doesn't have to feel like pulling teeth.
It is okay to make mistakes! You don't have to be perfect with every single poem you write. Quite different from the old days when you sent in your poem by mail and you were judged on your merit by your lack of mistakes. Today, just relax, if you make a mistake, guest what, you've just created a new style. People will read you if you are personable, if you read their works, if you send them private messages, and if you are just nice. Feel free to openly discuss a subject the poem presents, but just know every poet brings a story to the table and they might take offense to open discussion. You don't know their circumstances, and to them it may seem like you're attacking them when you just want to start a conversation in the comments.
Don't be an asshole, don't attack them, or always send out hateful vibrations, and for God's sake don't bully. I've seen enough of that on poetry sites. I'm not talking about honest critiques, I'm talking about trolling, following them, and berating them at every turn just to make their lives miserable; get over yourself and be soft. Overall, Wattpad is the best place for a writer/poet to call home. It can launch your career, but you have to work at it non-stop. Some don't want to be the best, they just want to write and have a fun place to call home. To have those warm fuzzy moments where you wake up to comments to answer. If you read, vote on it if you like it, if you like it comment, don't feel like you can't comment because you don't have the time, just say something, as it will bring a smile to someone who is hundreds or thousands of miles away. In fact, what you say may save their day.
Chainmail Leggings and the Mean Mutt (Satire)
©2017, Olan L. Smith
Who chews my bones wanting to devour me?
Who is this little bastard in the corner who creeps
To the bench and upsets my meal. Is it you? Shady
Fellow, do you want attention? Should I tame you,
Pet your head and say, "Nice boy, want a piece of my leg?
Shoo, get away from the dinner table, you mutt."
But you are just being you, ass that you are, not
Even cute, slimy to the touch. I want to shower
After petting you, alas, you are a poor mangy dog
Of the devil. Perhaps some love would fix you,
Yet―you keep us at hands length. Nipping, nipping
Always nipping, while in my home, no less. Should I have
The vet put you down? That would sadden me,
Make me think I did not try hard enough.
I have grown use to your bites so I wear chainmail
Leggings at the table and request my guests do the same.
(A.N. This is satire, I am a dog lover through and through, nipper or no nipper. This is a satire piece about the negative behavior of people who are trying to bully us into submission, when all they really are, are pests that bother poets. You don't have to go far to see these hate filled comments on the internet. Most of these people would never say these things to your face, but they will not go away; so I suggest buying chainmail leggings.)
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