I nearly gave up writing because…

We all have our moments of discouragement. With this thread I’d like us to share each other’s experiences and at the same time hope to encourage everyone to not give up. We’ve all been there before.

Share your moment when you felt like giving up but didn’t.

I’ll go first.
Shortly after I published my first story I was overjoyed to see I had not one but two unread fan mails. After opening them I saw that they were both from the same person telling me that their outfit choice wasn’t remembered correctly in two different chapters. Somehow I misspelled one of the gains which messed up the dressing game. At that time I was so embarrassed and felt like my story was an epic fail. I just wanted to take my story down and not write anymore. Instead I mentally cried a little in the shower and then fixed the mistake. I now understand it’s ok to make mistakes. You can just fix them and update again. At that time this tiny mistake discouraged me so much but taking down my story and throwing away weeks of work would have been a much bigger mistake.

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I had a really mean creative writing teacher and at the end of the year we had to write a short story about overcoming obstacles. So, I decided to write about a girl who was very shy and just lost her parents. At the end of the story there was a high school pep rally and the main character went and ended up talking to (a boy but the gender didn’t matter to me) and opened up to him. My teacher said the ending was terrible and that talking to someone isn’t going to solve anything and asked me if I’d want readers to believe talking to a boy would solve a girl’s problems. He gave me a bad grade and told me over video chat. I was so upset I wanted to quit writing altogether.

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I felt like giving up when I couldn’t get this dressing game coded properly I tried about 5 times and it just didn’t work. But I eventually got help with it and it ended up working properly and I love seeing people choose completely different outfits from others when I do R4Rs with people.

Another reason when I felt like giving up was when I had to completely restart my episode one as well it wasn’t making sense on who the love interest was and whos POV the story was meant to be shown from. But I eventually figured out another way to show that and i rewrote episode one.

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My first story gained quite a bit of attention, more than I expected and as a perfectionist I kept going back and changing things ,even to the point where I’d create a whole new scene. I used advanced directing, mc gender choice, pronouns and everything that just completely overwhelmed me. I started feeling bad for not uploading often enough, but at the same time i kept pressuring myself to make it perfect. I stopped coding for a long time, I came back and decided to tone it down for myself so I can enjoy what I code. I found the joy again, and it’s been going really well, my new story isn’t out yet, but I’ve been coding faster than ever and I’ve been enjoying it and I don’t go back fixing every little thing, I’m sure of what I code, and that’s keeping me here, and I’m glad to be back, even under a new username.

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I nearly gave up writing because I was comparing me today to the old me. Back in 2017 during “peak” Episode, I won a contest. I didn’t check for awhile and when I came back I had 60k views! At one point I got 7k views in two days. I felt like I was on top of the world. But I felt like a “one hit wonder” because every story I wrote after that barely got any views. I kept trying to write things that could recreate that success but it never worked, and I just felt that my success was on accident. But then I realized that I should write because I love it, not to get famous. So now even 100 reads is a huge win to me, and I put more effort into creating stories that I’d love to read myself!

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This may not be the same thing but…

I’ve used episode since a young age, and have been creating stories since we could still do it on the app! But, even though I was young when I started, I could never get past the first chapter of a story, even if the plot was amazing! I had so many drafted stories on one account, I created a new one!! The motivation would just leave me whenever I got to a trickier part of coding, and before even making it to the end, I’d give up because I lost interest in the plot and got bored. I’ll even admit that some of the plots I started writing were amazing, and some were unique, and yet I could never keep going. Because of that, I would have spells where I was on episode everyday for a month and then not touch it for 2 months.

But finally, I’ve got past the first chapter and am currently writing my third!! I’m actually going to be publishing within the next week or so😊
I’ll be a first time publisher, but not a first time writer, so I hope that people seeing it’s my first story won’t discourage them due to the thought that the story will be bad!

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I can only imagine how much work goes into writing on this app more so that you have to code everything. Try not to be discouraged.

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I nearly gave up writing cause my story wasn’t gaining any traction. I stopped writing for 2 years. I’m on maternity leave right mow and just snapped one day and said “you know what I’m going to finish what i started for ME” sure I’d like my story read but that’s not what the goal is anymore. It’s just to learn, use my brain, express my creativity.

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That’s the attitude we should all have. :clapping:

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I in fact did gave up writing because I have disconnected from the episode community for a year or so. I was lacking in motivation or any contact that was related to episode so I used to forget about my story. I’m currently trying to start it again (have 8 episodes so far) and I hope I will gain the motivation to finish it or at least find some friends to chat with about stories :heart:

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I started writing my current story since July 2021 where I as a student, was absolutely free (although I did flunk school almost entirely for 2 whole years :skull:). Though I still have some vivid “what if” thoughts because if I could code as well as I can during 2020 I’d get more free time to finish my current project because right now I’m a college student and I barely have time to even sleep :melting_face:

But I still managed to squeeze out a few hours for coding, plotting (which is funny, because there’s literally a world war brewing in my story :skull: :joy:), doing research, etc…

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Wow, that’s almost unbelievable. So what if it’s a girl talking to a boy or vise versa? Communication is the cornerstone of any and all healthy relationships. And the idea that talking about it isn’t going to do anything??? I’m genuinely baffled at how they could be upset at the content / believe those things.

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I’m sorry to hear that! I’m glad you didn’t take your story down. I’m sure whoever the reader was still enjoyed your story. :heart:

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I actually did quit writing for…6 months. Which is the reason why I posted it yesterday. :sweat_smile:
Now, if I had stayed with it, it would’ve been published last October, since I started writing it in Spetember 2022. Now it’s March 2023 and I finally got the motivation to finish it! :partying_face:
As much as I’ve wanted to quit because my codes weren’t working, as much as I’ve just had to tough it out and tell myself that I can figure it out - was a lot. But in the end, I’m so glad I did. This goes to show that you should never give up.

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I’m glad you didn’t give up. :clapping:

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Thank you! :blush:

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I Nearly gave up writing when I was 16 I was young back then didn’t know what I was doing and didn’t have that many friends who understood me I got bullied a lot and lost my grandpa my best friend was cold hearted when I told her he passed she just hung up on me the many times I wanted to leave this earth I only had one other friend that didn’t let me. That’s when I came up with Within time because it was my way of coping with his death I got way to many hate mail because my story was about mafia It was my way of expressing myself to truly find my passion I found Cat’s and Jpassens gc because Cat invited me in I felt like I was alone that no one understood my pain which isn’t true I have made the most amazing people on this app I’ve wanted to delete it so many times and give up because people told me I wasn’t enough I suck at writing and I need to add customization I tried making people happy but it was putting me back in that dark place I was when he died and I got motivated by my fam to keep on pushing myself to make my story the way I WANT I just turned 22 and I still get hated but I said Screw the haters and moved on I haven’t gave up sense my goal is to get positive feedback and maybe some negative to help me approve Not to mention I got bullied by my teacher who laughed in my face saying I’ll never make it this far she pretty much Shit on my dreams and I did make it this far to all of my haters im sorry your insecure and I hope you are doing well in life but Karma’s a Bastard and will bite you back in the Ass

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I started forming my idea for a story this summer. It was so exciting, tho hard, in the beginning. I was learning to code, I was inspired, I was coming up with the whole plot of my story. I even made an instagram account to start interacting more with the community. It was all going great for several months. I finished the first chapter, but it took me soo long. Because of instagram as well, I saw people coding so much faster, and i kind of felt bad. I also want to start publishing my story when im close to finishing it because im slow and work only when inspired and dont want to keep the readers waiting for a long time, i want to be able to have a schedule (also i want to do a really good job and not be sloppy). Anyway, as I was at my peak, college finals were coming up in december, suddenly i didnt have that much time to code etc. Then it was Christmas and i wanted to take a break from everything. And then i didnt want to deal with episode at all. I even stopped reading stories that much. I wanted to continue my story, I wanted to bring it to life, but i just couldnt. I didnt have any inspiration and coding is not my favourite thing anyway, so it was impossible for me to keep going. But a couple days ago I just had this urge to code. And I did, and it was good. It felt refreshing.

So I have 2 advice:

  1. Don’t compare your time of work to others’. Everyone works differently and there is likely no wrong way. Do it your way.
  2. Take your time. Do it as you enjoy it, don’t force it on yourself, cause if you do the end product is not gonna be that good. Do it for yourself first, not for the readers nor the fame. Do it cause you like it.
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If it helps, I’ve done this too.

I almost gave up writing when I had worked on my story for months and no one was reading it. Anyway, I felt like all my work had gone to waste. I also realised that Episode wasn’t as popular as it used to be. I also didn’t consider the fact that people may copy my ideas. The only fanmail I got was asking for love interests. I did R4R’s and it worked, but I realised that the only way people are gonna read my story is if I read their story. So it didn’t really matter because they only read my work to gain something from it. And the story I wrote over a year ago hasn’t gotten any reads it like 8 months. My new story is doing sort of well now (only 80 reads but, hey, it’s something).
Anyway, this is what helps me. Don’t write for other people, write for yourself. Think of it as just writing a story because you want to, and if other people read it, it’s a bonus.

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This is so true. We should also not forget that if we’re not getting payed for the work we put into creating an episode story then writing and coding one is considered a hobby. And hobbies should be fun. Something we do in our free time. Whether that is an hour a day or an hour a week should not matter.

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