How Vocal Has Changed My Life

Introduction

Yesterday it was raining hard and I was working from home. By about four o'clock I was feeling like I had been beaten with iron bars, every bone was aching. Unusually, I never left the house until I went out for a takeaway pizza after work.

I don't know if wit was the fact that I had not been for a walk or the state of the weather, but I walked less than two miles yesterday.

While I was walking I started to feel better. I got home and could only eat two slices of pizza, and when I went to bed the aches came back, I was actually hurting and unable to sleep so did not have a good night, finally drifting off around four in the morning, but then had to drag myself up at 5:45 AM. I had taken aspirin so that may have helped.

The aching was better and a shower made me feel even better.

This morning summer is back and I decided to take a decent walk and as I left the house it struck me how Vocal has changed a lot of aspects of my life. So here goes.

The Vocal Effect On Me

I started on my walk, planning to go down Fenham Hall Drive and loop around through the Church Garden in St James and St Basil's and maybe capture a few cats on my phone. I then realized that before Vocal I used to walk a lot further over Nunsmoor and to Cow Hill and pre Covid walking into work.

However, since joining Vocal and discovering the Facebook Vocal Groups some of my morning time is now taken chatting with Vocal friends and administering Vocal Social Society, and writing Vocal stories.

Since joining Vocal my Facebook friends have increased by about 200 although I only talk consistently with about ten but have sporadic interactions with a lot of them.

I spend time on Vocal now that I used to use to walk along longer routes, although I still walk as far as I used to so although the geographical walking area has changed, the distance I walk has not dropped. Although I walked less than two miles yesterday, I have already walked three miles today which means I could have a nap this afternoon if I were so inclined but I need to go out to take a walk and pick a few more provisions and maybe see a few cats. Below are the ones I have met so far today.

The other things that have happened on Vocal are, thanks to the support and encouragement of my Vocal friends I have found my voice as a writer and gained the confidence to actually share my work, and have been rewarded with a good following of supportive Vocal creators.

I receive some great constructive criticism, and have in my time, to self-publish a few anthologies of my poetry. I wrote on my blog Seven Days In to try and get the inspiration to write a book. I had a few false starts, but I never became a published author until I joined Vocal. So that is one more change to my life that Vocal is directly responsible for. My Amazon page is here.

Conclusion

Although these changes are not earth-shattering, Vocal has definitely changed my life, in my opinion, for the better. I now consider myself a good writer and I know that I can create things that others enjoy reading.

My daily routines have changed but I do feel my life is fuller than it was, in a good way.

Vocal has made my life better.

I included Bowie's "Changes" because it sort of illustrates the subject.