Hey everyone, my name is Lish and I'm back for my third Wattpad Block Party! Hooray! As I'm writing this, it's summer, but I know that by the time this post comes out it'll be close to school starting up again.

For me, I know that balancing my academics and extracurriculars with my writing is really hard. Especially when you're getting closer to midterms, finals, AP exams, etc. And I know I had to just be completely off of Wattpad for most of my second semester, which was not ideal for me or any of my readers.

So, to hopefully save you from some of that, I'm here with some hopefully helpful advice for managing school and Wattpad.

My first piece of advice is to definitely remember that your academics are more important than social media. And I definitely consider Wattpad a social media. Your parents will say it, your teachers will say it, but there's a reason I'm saying it. You see, when I first entered high school, I was on Wattpad constantly. I read a lot, wrote a lot, and I kind of let school fall to the side. People said freshman year wasn't important, and I just went along with it,

Let me tell you, the effect it had on my GPA was not pretty. And my cumulative high school GPA is suffering because of that. Learn from my mistakes, academics come first.

My second piece of advice would be to definitely monitor how much time you spend on Wattpad.

I've heard that reward systems work for some people, do a half hour of schoolwork, and then reward yourself by five minutes of social media. Obviously five minutes is not enough time to write a chapter, but it might be enough time to check your notifications, reply to a private message or two, maybe even check the latest update on your favorite Wattpad story. So it might sustain you for a little bit, but you do need a certain amount of self control for this, so you don't end up getting distracted and spending hours on Wattpad.

My third piece of advice is to try to have an updating schedule. Now, I know it's a bit hypocritical to say something that I am absolutely horrible at practicing. But for some authors, I know that works really well for them.

I know everyone's busy in high school. Everyone wants as many extracurriculars as possible, they want the best grades and test scores, and teachers will throw random projects at you. But if you have one day a week where you're consistently a little less busy than the others, try to use the extra time to write. If writing is important to you, or it helps you to feel a little less stressed, set aside time to do it. You'll make it work in there, don't worry.

And my final piece of advice would be to absolutely let the creativity you have on Wattpad show in your schoolwork. If you have a creative writing assignment in English, take that and run with it. Maybe you have a Spanish assignment where you have to write a book in Spanish, or a history assignment where you have to write a historical fiction book but still keep it time period accurate. Whatever it may be, don't be afraid to let your creativity shine through.

Obviously, if you have a strict teacher that doesn't like that stuff, I would do whatever got me the best grade. But if you have a teacher that's a little more relaxed, then let your imagination run wild. You've got a gift, use it.

Anyways, that's all I have for you guys today! Hope you have a good rest of your month, and good luck with school this year! Feel free to hit me up for a chat any time, I'd love to get to know you all :)

See ya!