"I've either made a brilliant decision or a spectacularly questionable one"

Three days. You're either incredibly brave or beautifully reckless, and honestly, in the writing world, those are basically the same thing.

Remember all those writing advice posts about "pantsing" vs "plotting"? Congratulations, you're about to become the ultimate pantser! Your outline is whatever brilliant idea pops into your head in the next thirty seconds, and you're going to trust it completely.

Choose your genre based on pure love and practicality: Romance because you can write feelings and dialogue quickly and everyone loves love, Contemporary because no complicated world-building is required—just real people having real feelings, or Poetry for shorter pieces with maximum emotional impact per word. Writing thriller or mystery? 12 Tips for Writing a Killer Thriller has quick structure tips that'll keep you sane. Fancy fanfiction? How To Write Fanfiction has got you covered.

Here's a game-changer: download a speech-to-text app. Walk around your room (or pace dramatically if that's your vibe) and tell your story out loud, then clean up the transcription later. It's faster than typing and sometimes helps you find a more natural, conversational voice.

Your editing strategy is now gloriously simple: read each section once as you finish writing it, fix anything that makes you go "wait, what?" and keep moving forward. That's it. That's the whole strategy. Use your phone's text-to-speech function to have your story read back to you while you do other things—making coffee, stretching, having a small panic attack. Your ears will catch things your tired eyes miss. Fix only what breaks the story flow, check that your beginning and ending connect emotionally, make sure your character's voice stays consistent, trust that "good enough" is actually good enough, and save the pretty prose for next time—clarity wins over beauty right now.

Fuel yourself with the three C's: Coffee, Carbs, and Comments from your amazing Wattpad family. Post in the writing communities asking for encouragement—the support you'll get will carry you through those 3 AM writing sessions when you start questioning all your life choices.