Gotta Love Packing (or not.)

Bad news, dear followers: I’ll be gone for a week, starting tomorrow. And when I return on Saturday, I’m going to be completely and utterly exhausted, and for that reason, I’ll probably hibernate for as long as my mom allows. But, fear not! I’m going to leave you with one last post (or maybe more, depending on whether or not I can sleep tonight) to enjoy. While I’m gone, I’ll be doing plenty of brainstorming for new posts. Actually, that’s a bit pointless, considering I’ve got two notebook pages full of ideas that need written. But I’m getting off topic here.

Tonight, I’m going to be revealing the reasons that I both love and hate packing. It’s been one of my projects for the last week (and I’m still not done–surprise, surprise!) and so I’ve got a bit to say. Since I want to leave this post on a positive note, I’ll begin with my negative opinions and end with the more positive ones. Here goes…

Yet Another Late Night Post

I lied before, when I said I was going to bed. Who was I kidding? I thought I would go to bed, but then I decided to open up Pixlr, and all my plans went downhill from there. Anyway, the reason I’m posting is to show you guys something I made. It doesn’t match the blog, and it’s not well done, but I thought it looked kind of cool. Especially considering I only spent a few minutes on it. Anywho, here it is:

Why Aren’t They Reading?

I ask myself this question almost every day as I log onto my Wattpad account. “Why aren’t they reading?” Isn’t my work good enough? Isn’t it interesting enough? Haven’t I worked hard enough promoting it?

When someone takes the time to read a chapter of my book, all they ever tell me is how good it is and how much they enjoyed it. Rarely have I received a  comment that degraded my book or even suggested things I need to change, save for a minuscule editing error that I missed. So, unless all of those people have been lying to me, I know I’m a decent writer with a decent book in the works.

And even though I tell myself all the time that I can do it, that I can push past those doubts and just write, I can’t help but question why more people aren’t reading my work. Good things naturally rise to the top. So if mine is good, why hasn’t it reached the top yet?

I read other books that are in number one and number two spots, and I can’t help but think that I’ve done a better job in my own book. My grammar is better, my spelling is better, and my plot is more original and well planned. I’m probably biased, but that’s how I feel when I scroll through those books. Yeah, they’re decent. And obviously, a lot of people like them. But they aren’t great. Some aren’t even good, if we’re being honest.

I just can’t help but doubt my abilities when I see that my book only has a couple hundred reads and it’s not within the hundred rankings for its designated genres. I know I shouldn’t doubt myself, that I should press on and finish the book, but it’s so hard to do when I’m constantly being remind that people who work half as hard as me can get millions of reads and thousands of votes on their stories. It just makes me wonder if maybe I’m not good enough to be a writer.

Anyway, I’m sure this is totally normal as a writer. But it’s difficult. Sometimes I want to give in and write the most cliche story I can think of and jam-pack it with terrible grammar just to see the response I’d get. How ironic would it be if that story floated straight to the top of the rankings? I’m not going to give in to that temptation, though. I’ll stick to my writing style. One day, my work will prevail, and I will be the author selling hundreds of books every day.

One day.

Too bad that day isn’t today. Guess that’s life.

Anybody else feel this way?

xx Ashley

Currently Listening To:

The beautiful sound of the computer keyboard tapping out my thoughts.

I Want To Slap These People

Whoever made these deserves to be slapped. Repeatedly. With a softball bat.

Copulation: 1. sexual intercourse; 2. a joining together or coupling

So, let me get this straight... this person wants copulation to occur on their copy machine? As long as the involved parties don’t weigh too much, of course. How difficult is it to learn the difference between ‘copulation’ and ‘cooperation’? Because there’s a difference.

My Theme Song

The other day I heard this song on the radio, and I was like, “daaaaaaaaaang.” Because as I was listening to the lyrics, I got this surge of inspiration. Literally, I felt like I could do anything and be anything as I listened to this song. So, as of the moment I heard it a few weeks ago, I decided that it’s going to be my theme song for life. Here’s a few of the lyrics that I want to highlight…

AHHH.

Hi. It’s SUMMER VACATION! And, since I go to bed at four in the morning and my mom’s been trying to drag me out of bed earlier than ten, I’m not running on much sleep. When I’m low on sleep, I sometimes make spontaneous decisions.

This WordPress is exhibit A. I came across someone else’s WordPress and thought, “I need one of those.” And so, after spending four hours–yes, four hours–going through pretty much every template that WordPress offers, I decided on this one and went with it. Now, here I am, on my fifth edit of this post. Call me crazy if you want; it’s probably the truth.

Anywho, I added a bunch of pages and wrote up some stuff to slap on there, and here I am now, listening to some music and fighting my writers block. What are you up to?

Later, gator. Follow me and watch for some amazing posts in the near future!

Currently Listening To:

Lights, Ellie Goulding