Tag: garden
Protected: Fighting for Rose Garden Sanatorium!
Rose Garden Sanatorium Top 10 in the Cryptic Awards 2018!
… But I need your help to get to #1!
Yesterday I got a little notification from WattPad… how I love to see that little red dot on my WattPad account to tell me I have another notification!
And when I opened it up yesterday, I found my story; Rose Garden Sanatorium, had made the Top 10 in the Cryptic Awards 2018!
*Gasp*
I have a LOT of faith in that story, so I know it will do well, I just need people to give it the chance. ❤ And seeing it make the Top 10 really made my day yesterday (especially since I had a slightly crash because of my Fibromyalgia too, feeling better today though!)
WattPad has a lot of readers (and writers, like me) who love to read stories, but I see a general pattern with the *type* of stories that get read the most on there… they’re mostly romance. Now, I don’t mind, I write romance too, but for the stories like Rose Garden Sanatorium which doesn’t focus heavily around romance, they are harder to get seen. Well, to be honest, getting recognised on WattPad is hard enough as it is! So, Rose Garden Sanatorium, although it’s been my main project since January 2017, hasn’t been as popular on there.
I have submitted it to the Watty Awards, I have sent it to a literary agent, I have even sent it to WattPad Studios as I have faith it is a good story (the whole series is). And winning Top 10 in the Cryptic Awards is (hopefully) the first step into getting more momentum on the story!
HOWEVER… it seems that to win top spot on the Cryptic Awards means I need people to vote for it, so I am writing this in a plea to people to go on WattPad (it’s free to set up, if you don’t have an account) and vote for Rose Garden Sanatorium to be Number 1 and Best Dark Adventure!
Here’s the link to where you can vote: [voting ended]
Voting closes on the 15th September 2018.
And here’s the link to the story if you’d like to read it before then:
[link no longer exists, sorry!]
Using constructive critism… and not throwing in the towel!
I’m feeling 100% well lately, but I’m still going to attempt this blog post!
A couple of days ago I decided to reach out on a Facebook Group called ‘We love reading books.’ What better way to get advice on your writing but from book fans!?
So I wrote a post asking if there would be anyone who’d be interested in reading a few chapters of my ‘Rose Garden Sanatorium’ so that I could get feedback. I was actually surprised that a LOT of people commented back jumping at the opportunity! So after sending out a load of personal emails with a PDF of the first few chapters, I’m starting to get a little bit of feedback.
Of course, my skin isn’t that thick to deal with negative feedback, not because I was shocked to hear my work isn’t perfect! But because I have low self-esteem in general.
But after getting the feedback, I realised that- okay, so THAT person didn’t like it – Well, not the story, but the writing style, he did say he’d like to read more! I have had some ideas on how to improve it!
I also got a lovely reply back from another reader and she was very nice. She was a lot more supportive in the sense that she told me she loved the story and did give me some feedback on how to improve it a little too.
And what is interesting, is that, I actually feel all the more happier now that I have used that feedback and done a few alterations. It’s that little bit better than it was before I sent it out. 🙂
I did also, get some lovely comments on Twitter from some other authors, so if you are reading this and you were one who encouraged me, thank you for your kind words!
And no, I’m not giving up. I’ve spent ten months so far writing this damn book (well a series), I for sure am NOT giving up on it! And I do want it to be the best it can be. I’m proud of the story line and I love the characters (well, most of them).
Moral of the story, take negative feedback with a pinch of salt. Not everyone is going to love it, but use the critism to your advantage, use it to make it better!
Plus, even famous authors have negative feedback! Just look at Dan Brown! Now his works are getting put into films! (I love his books!)
The Girl Who Whispered 