First of all, I'd like to say a huge thank you to KellyAnneBlount for choosing me as one of the authors to take part in this month's Block Party! It has been one of my Wattpad-long aspirations, and finally, here I am!

For those of you who are unaware of who I am, my name is Emily, my Wattpad pen name being PaintPastel. I first joined this website 5 years ago, after I had read an article in a British teen magazine about a best-selling author who had first started out on Wattpad, and so I, a young, hopeful author, had to join the site at once. I was amazed that you could write a book about absolutely anything and have people from across the globe read and give you feedback on your book in a comments section. Just over five years ago, I was barely a teen, and not a very internet-savvy teen at that; I preferred video games over MSN and Facebook. At once, I knew I had to join, and so I made an account, this world all being very new to me.

Of course, as most Wattpad users do once they join the site, I read. I was VERY into Harry Potter at the time (I still am now, but I was extremely obsessed) so I read Harry Potter fanfictions; light and fluffy ones, obviously. I cannot remember which ones I read in particular, but I read them, and I was inspired. I still have not published this story, and I don't know if I ever will, but I wrote the makings of my first ever fanfiction. The readers who know my stories may be quite surprised at this, as I have never published any stories to do with the fandom... yet. Now, you might be wondering, what would young thirteen-year-old Emily be writing about Harry Potter? Well, I have the prologue for you:

"Her wand rolled from her still hand, unscratched and unscathed. The rest of her body regained strength and she snatched her prized possession back up seconds later. This was it. This was her chance to prove she could fight. To prove who she really was."

Dramatic. But drama is always exciting to write. Now, thinking about it, I regret not having the confidence to publish a story or carry on writing it, but I was such a shy person who would've never dared do something so out there. However, I did name the protagonist after myself, example:

"Natural light from the sun outside streamed inside Emily bedroom, hitting her face and waking her from her slumber. Emily pushed her duvet aside and arose from her bed, squinting in the light. It was such a dramatic change from the darkness she had been used to for most of last night.
She then remembered- she was going to London that day! Emily smiled and left her room. She still couldn't believe what thart happened yet only a week ago. It must have been a dream, surely... but it was true. It was real. It had to be."

I don't know what 'thart happened' means, but I love the dramatic change from darkness, it really sets the tone. And, unfortunately, I even included my own address in Emily's Hogwarts letter, so it probably would've been a bad idea.

Moving on, I didn't write for another year, on Wattpad or in real life; I had a rather long period of writer's block - yes, a year long! But I loved writing, and it pained me that I couldn't think of ANYTHING whatsoever. If I recall, I'm sure I wrote the start of a novel set at a school, very much like Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers, but I scrapped that after I couldn't make it interesting enough. That wasn't a first for me; from primary school, I've been writing short stories, and I always thought of books I could write, yet being dyslexic, I found it harder to articulate what I wanted to write and would often forget the idea altogether.

And then, a year later in 2014, I found the official Wattpad Science-Fiction profile while reading Doctor Who fanfictions, as you do. More specifically, I found a book of theirs, SciFi Competitions and Challenges, and that is what gave me the push to write again; I just needed to be prompted. I have written a few short stories for this particular account's competitions, but my first entry was a drabble (100 words or less) short, the requirements being that is started with the phrase "We landed on this pile of ice and dust expecting to find something that would advance our scientific knowledge, but what we actually found was...". Now, I was quite the physics buff back then, and so I had been keeping up with the story on a comet – 67P, as it was classified – for it was being covered on all across the world. This was my spark, the lift I needed, so I took it, and was inspired from then on in.

I say this, but really, the only thing I wrote after that was duoabble, which is twice the size of a drabble. However, as little as it seems, it was a step up for me, the girl who had only published a short story of 100 words so far. And, as I was reading lots of Doctor Who fanfictions (and Sherlock ones, naturally), I modelled it around Doctor Who.

Fast forward half a year, and the third season of Arrow has started. Well, it had in America; I was waiting for it to air in the UK. And this waiting, it somehow gave me the idea to write a fanfiction on the show. The first series of The Flash was also on the horizon, and so I just couldn't wait any longer. Thinking about what could be in season 3 gave me ideas for a story, The Starling Vigilante. My favourite character was Malcolm Merlyn, so I wanted to write a story very focused on him, but I couldn't just work with characters the show already had; no, I needed to make up my own protagonist. I was still into physics, so Aria Coleman would be going to university for an Astrophysics Course. And then more and more ideas started popping in my head, and before I knew it, I had a story!

Now, I will confess, I had no idea about how the series was headed. I knew what would happen right at the end of the second book, The Starling Saviour, which I have recently just finished writing, but the in-between bits were to be decided. In writing, it's a miracle if you have every little detail planned for a two-to-three year span, so you, more often than not, think of things when you go along. I have had weeks of many ideas and lots of chapters written and published consecutively, but I've also had many lulls, particularly at the start of the second book, where I didn't publish anything for about half a year. Recently, I have writer's block regarding my last book related to the series; my spin-off, Reporting From Central City, centred around The Flash rather than Arrow.

I have also written many short stories along the way in the genres of Science Fiction and Horror. Keeping writing not only helped me to finish my main series, but I was noticed by Wattpad and I won a Watty Award in 2015 after I had published all of the first book and gone on to write the next one. I only had about 40K reads back then compared to today, but my hard work and growing as a writer got me that award. And now, more than two years later, I'm at university studying the exact thing I love the most – writing! Specifically, screenwriting, but now I know I can write and believe in that writing, I have the confidence to strive to be a writer for film.

Now, I haven't written this to gloat about my 'writing journey' or to show off about how 'great' I am at writing. Instead, I wanted to tell this story to you to show you how you can go from being somebody without any ideas and readers to someone who has lots of support from readers with opportunities like this Block Party. It is hard, with no knowledge of the future, to know if you will or won't succeed – I certainly didn't. This has been a long, five-year road, I must admit, but it has been worth it, every day of it. And I'm still not as well known as other authors, but I will still write and dream to bigger things, even if that means I will get disappointed along the way. It's hard to be confident in your work when you don't have people reading it, so I recommend you get your friends and family to read and even edit your chapters with you. Talk to other readers, and read what they're putting out there. And if you're proud of your work, YOU put it out there! I guarantee that someone will come across it and love it, even if it's only one person – many, many, MANY people use Wattpad. And most of all, write for enjoyment. There is no use in writing something you don't have your heart in, I assure you - I have tried and failed.

So, to the writers who are feeling that they can't get over writer's block, or that they aren't going to ever do well or become 'popular', I encourage you to write to your heart's content! If you are passionate and have a flair for writing, the world deserves to read your wonderful stories. Without stories, we wouldn't have the entertainment we often take for granted. Anything written, whether it is on paper, online or read verbally, didn't just appear out of thin air – at least one person is behind that work. Even computer games and software are written by someone, but in a completely different language to what you are reading now.

So go out there, and write, for goodness sake! I believe in you, and I'm sure many other people will. Writers are some of the most important people in life, they even help shape our own lives; after all, if J.K. Rowling hadn't believed in Harry Potter, I never would've written my first fanfiction.

Emily x

And now – giveaways!

I will be giving away one lucky winner a piece of artwork; a portrait of your favourite character from the TV show or film of your choosing! The drawing I included with this post is an example of artwork, and it is a close up of the portrait I drew a while ago of Aria, our Starling Vigilante. And of course, the winner will also get a shoutout on my profile. Unfortunately, the giveaway is only open to the UK, but I hope that in the future I will be able to offer more to everyone internationally.

Here are the links to the giveaway:

Last of all, for my readers, here is a preview of the start of The Starling Guardian, the third instalment of Aria Coleman's story. I hope you all enjoy it!

'Now, honey, this is a good morning.'

The sound of the clear, blue waves crashing against the shore was like music to my ears, its calming rhythm bringing me solace. Golden sand flowed through my fingers, its warmth from the hot sun comforting me as I slowly woke. I wrapped my fingers around Tommy's as we stayed lying on the sand, his arms not leaving my body while we clung to each other, almost as if our lives depended on it.

'I can't believe we stayed here all night,' I sighed peacefully, watching as the sun rose from the horizon. 'It was so beautiful, the sunset, the little fire we managed to set, and most importantly, being here with you.'

'I couldn't agree more,' he grinned before we shared a kiss, I slightly messing with the smooth, golden ring on his finger. 'And I think we've finally found what perfect is. Our perfect. We can't worry about anything on a stunning island like this, I don't want to ever leave here.'

'You could relocate Merlyn Global here,' I suggested playfully. 'After all, you are the boss.'

'I might take your offer up, Mrs Merlyn,' he grinned again, bashful.

Our moment was interrupted by a strange fog that filled the beach around us, the sun becoming shaded and dark. The temperature had dropped greatly, the both of us shivering and clutching onto each other in a scared uncertainty. The ground felt like it was shaking, shouting coming from every direction. And then we heard the gunshots.

Tommy was on the floor, bleeding out from his chest, and fast. There was no time to stop the blood loss or to remove the amount of building infrastructure that had impaled him. I was in a deteriorating building, everything falling apart around me. It looked oddly familiar, a city skyline just visible from a large, missing chunk from the wall next to me.

I gasped for air as my eyes jolted open, the harsh, morning light blinding me. It was the same routine every day, the sun shining through the clock face of the tower and onto my unsuspecting, sleeping face. I stood up, stretched, put my hands on my hips with purpose and looked out onto the city, ready for the day. It wasn't much, but it was enough and was what I deserved after the events of the Undertaking. But that was all in the past now. I was ready to repent for my sins, saving one citizen at a time.

Well, that was when I had the courage to actually save someone. I had a lot of work to do yet.

★ ★ ★

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