I was thirteen when a friend from high school told me about Wattpad. She was actively writing a novel at the time, and I found it really interesting. Of course, I had to create my own account. I still remember the two of us huddled behind a small Chromebook during our break, setting up my profile together. At first, I mostly used it to read her work, but the thought of sharing my own stories lingered in the back of my mind. Up until that point, all my writing had been tucked away in notebooks—a habit that had started as a coping mechanism. Seeing the responses she got from readers made me excited and curious.
Still, the idea of putting my words out there for strangers to see was terrifying. What if people didn’t like it? What if they laughed at my ideas? Despite my doubts, I decided to give it a try. I posted the first chapters of a fanfiction in my native language, feeling both nervous and excited. The feedback came quickly—but not in the way I had hoped. Instead of encouragement, I received a flood of criticism about my grammar mistakes, including from a friend. Embarrassed, I deleted the story almost immediately. Dyslexia had been a struggle for me since middle school, and Dutch had always been particularly difficult. Seeing my mistakes laid out so bluntly shattered my confidence.
For a while, I stuck to reading. It felt safer. But the desire to write never really went away. Eventually, I decided to take a different approach—I would try writing in English. To quiet my anxiety and shattered confidence, I created an account under a fake name and kept it a secret. I didn’t tell anyone. To my surprise, the community of the fanfiction genre I was writing in was welcoming, and it seemed I’d found a small community of a few people (of the same age) who enjoyed this fandom as much as I did. I wasn't very good at English at the time, but no one ever said anything about it.
I remember how we were out in a restaurant one day, and I'd finally found the courage to tell my brothers about it. And it was that same night that one of my books gained 100 views. A hundred times, someone had clicked on my story. It felt surreal—like, for the first time, my writing truly existed beyond just me. I stared at the screen, barely believing what I was seeing—a hundred views. A hundred people had, at some point, clicked on my story. It might not have been a massive number compared to the big writers on Wattpad, but to me, it was everything. It meant that someone out there was interested in what I had to create.
That small milestone gave me a rush of excitement and a newfound motivation. If a hundred people could find and read my book, why would I stop? I kept writing, pouring more time and energy into my stories and experimenting with different styles and ideas. I set daily goals for myself. I posted every day. And I stuck to it. I kept up that routine for five years, and it helped me gain followers, views, and likes. At first, I didn’t think I was good enough. I didn’t think anyone would read what I wrote (and for the first month or so, hardly anyone did). But I reminded myself that I loved writing. If people wanted to read it, they could. And with that mindset, I kept going. In my beliefs, writing daily and putting effort into trying to understand how a story builds up is the key to getting better.
That little online community (that had been growing) was my safe–haven. I made friends who wanted to collaborate, shared ideas with people who loved writing as much as I did and received messages from readers eagerly asking when the next update would be. Hearing that they enjoyed my stories and that they connected with my characters meant everything to me.
Most of those people are still with me today. They still comment, read, and like my work, supporting me through every new project. Over the years, my audience has grown, and now, I’ve almost reached two thousand followers. And the next massive milestone? A million views. A number that once felt impossible now feels just within reach.
I often wonder what would have happened if I had never found that little community. Would I have kept writing? Would I have had the confidence to push through the doubts and struggles? I’m not sure. But what I do know is that their encouragement and their belief in my stories helped me. And for that, I’ll always be grateful.
Looking back, I believe writing daily and putting effort into understanding how a story is built is key to getting better. Of course, twelve-year-old me didn’t grasp that concept yet. Most of the time, I’d start a story and never finish it. Sometimes, I’d begin three books at once, much to the frustration of my readers. It wasn’t until I started writing my fantasy series that I realized how much preparation and research went into creating a complete story.
I had an idea. I had characters. I had a vague sense of the plot. And that’s how my first manuscript came to life. But, like most of my early Fanfictions, it had no real structure. There was no character development, no depth in the story—just words on a page. To fix that, I started reading more. I explored different fantasy series from various authors, trying to understand how books were actually written. I wrote draft after draft—second, third, fourth—but I kept hitting the same problem: the plot. I could come up with ideas, but I didn’t know how to structure them. And worse, I wasn’t keeping track of anything. I had no notes, no chapter outlines, and no roadmap for my story.
I tried planning, but every time I created a chapter outline, my story took an entirely different direction. After one (minor) mental breakdown on vacation, I decided to organize everything properly. I created an Excel sheet and started tracking my world-building (with the help of my father). I made a detailed map. I wrote down names, dates, locations, significant events, and family lineages. From that point on, I finally managed to stay on track and complete an entire manuscript. Looking back, if I had known then what I know now, I would have finished the full manuscript before getting caught up in endless edits.
A Realm of Fallen Darkness is not an exceptionally large book, but it is the first book that has been planned as an author should. Now that I am working on the second manuscript, I am more consistently writing down notes, and I have outlined it with major key points and smaller ones that are also important. I fill in the gap as I go. George RR Martin once said, “There are two types of writers. Gardeners and architects. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed, and water it. As the plant comes up and they water it, they don’t know how many branches it’s going to have; they find out as it grows.” I have always found that a beautiful and meaningful quote and kept that in the back of my mind as I wrote my final manuscript.
I failed to strictly plan out an entire book or even every chapter because so many things were added as I continued. Knowing the most crucial plot points and filling in the gaps sometimes led to unexpected turns. While this made writing unpredictable, it also made the process exciting—I never knew exactly where the story would take me until I got there. I loosened the reins a little bit and just went with the flow; that was how the final manuscript was created.