Wattpad? In 2024?

Typical. I decided to write a blog post because my cat had fallen asleep on my lap and I was at my desk, and of course he woke up and left as soon as I started typing.

Anyway, I got an email recently. I get lots of emails, mostly junk mail, but this one was from Wattpad. For those of you who weren’t teenagers in the 2010s, Wattpad is a website where people (mostly young people) can post and read books. And this particular email said, verbatim, “this story is so gooddd i wish you continued.”

Now for some context. In 2017, when I was sixteen, I turned one of my childhood imaginary friends into a book character and started writing a book about her. To be fair, this is not the first time I turned this friend of mine into a book character, and hopefully not the last. Her name originally, and in the Wattpad story “Find Me,” is Running Horse. At the age of nine, she was left alone in the Wisconsin woods after her tribe was forced to relocate, and the story picks up five years later when she meets and eventually falls in love with a pioneer named John.

In response to this email, I actually went back to reread “Find Me.” Considering that it’s technically the rough draft of something I wrote at the age of sixteen, it’s quite good. The plot gets very soap-opera-y at times, and sometimes Running Horse’s internal musings venture into a weird mixture of stoic and emo, but I still enjoyed reading it. The best part of the story is the characters’ voices. It’s best if I show you what I mean, so here’s a selection from Running Horse’s perspective:

And during the dark winter nights, when the wind howls and the snow flies, I tell myself stories. Some of them are of old; they are the ones Nokomis’s grandmother passed down to her. Others are of things I have seen; some are of things I want to see. Today, I am hungry, and my limbs ache with cold. I tell myself what I want to see. “Nimaamaa sits before a fire, telling stories to my cousins,” I begin. “My brother Black Wolf tells himself he is too old to listen, but he listens just the same, as he polishes the head on his new war-spear.”

John has some point-of-view chapters too, but they’re not as cool. Oh, and did I mention the villain? He’s a racist who’s hellbent on killing Running Horse just because she’s Ojibwa, and when she tells him that she’s half white, he tells her, “May God have mercy on your half a soul.” I forgot I’d written that line, and I think it’s really good. (She winds up knocking him out and tying him to a tree with his trousers.)

I really, really want to revamp this story someday. I’m grateful for this email that reminded me of where I used to be with my writing, and I’m excited for where I can take these characters. But, because Running Horse is Native American, I need to be very careful. I really would like to go to Wisconsin to do some hands-on research with the surviving Ojibwa if at all possible, and even then I’m probably going to offend people. (I already know that I’m going to have a bunch of white social justice warriors mad at me for something stupid.)

What do y’all think? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter! God bless you, dear readers, and stay warm this winter!