The Magic in the Tapestry

I first learned about inkpop when I saw a post by author Gail Carson Levine on teen publishing. I had heard about online writing sites but had never looked closely at one before, so I decided to take a look at it. I liked what I saw, so I created an account. My plan was to post part of the book I had been working on and off for two years. Needless to say, when I went back and looked at it, I was horrified with what I found and knew I could never post something like that for other people to see.

After having an account for a couple of days, I felt weird being on a writing site and not having any projects posted. So I posted the only thing I felt was presentable - my short story "The Magic in the Tapestry." As with every piece of writing, it has a story behind it.

In English, we had to write and finish one short story that we would get a grade on at the end of the year. Because I was in one of my 'off' writing stages where I couldn't bring myself to write anything, I dithered and procrastinated. By the night before it was due, I only had half the story done and no idea how it was going to end. I was up all night tearing my hair out, trying to figure out how to end it.

After posting it, I was curious what people's reactions to my story would be. Inkpop is a teen writing site - there aren't many projects on there with unicorns in them. I began swapping for it, more to see what people's opinions were than to raise its ranking. Inkpop then changed its format - before, it was mostly books that got into the Top 5. Now there are three separate categories - fiction, short writing, and poetry. More and more people started picking Magic because of the category changes. Magic's ranking moved steadily upward.

Not only did this teach me a lesson in procrastination, but after being on inkpop for two months (tomorrow  marks that day exactly) Magic has reached the Top 5 with a ranking of four. I am so grateful to all of the inkies who have read, picked, or critiqued Magic. I really couldn't have done it without you all.