Refreshstration
The act of refreshing the page every few seconds to see if your story has posted on Vocal
Marlene knew deep in her heart: she was prepared to be a writer. She'd taken all of the classes on creative writing, attended a workshop on writing memoirs, had even built her own blog, for goodness sake!
She'd downloaded Grammarly and bookmarked thesauruses online. Used Spellcheck. Read the articles about AI and knew how to credit them in her work, while secretly scared to death to even contemplate doing so.
Marlene had flirted with Substack, slept with Medium, danced with Newsbreak, and in the end made it Facebook-official that she had married Vocal when she shared her first story with her social network.
She had known she was ready, but was stunned that all of that prep hadn't prepared her as much as had trying to purchase concert tickets on the Live Nation website.
The emotion was exactly the same: careful input of information (personal info to purchase the ticket vs. entering the text of the story), visual choices (Unsplash or Pixabay as the lead image vs. choosing just the right seat for the concert), and then the wait after submitting.
With the ticket purchase the struggle was to overcome the temptation to refresh the page just to get rid of the horrid spinning swirl as the moments ticked on.
With Vocal? It was giving in to the wild urges every second, constantly refreshing the page to see if the story had posted.
Refreshtration is real: damned if you do , damned if you don't.
~
Comments welcomed!
About the Creator
Judey Kalchik
It's my time to find and use my voice.
Poetry, short stories, memories, and a lot of things I think and wish I'd known a long time ago.
You can also find me on Medium
And please follow me on Threads, too!
Reader insights
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Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!
Top insight
Heartfelt and relatable
The story invoked strong personal emotions
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Comments (12)
That is a great piece, though I have given up on Vocal
This was hilarious. I loved it! Great topic, and well presented.
This word is amazing. I want to pronounce it so many ways! At once a tongue twister and a little ditty. Like others, i love that flirt, slept, dance part; beautifully said. I have felt this so many times, have done it even more. Great entry, Judey. ❤️
I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry about this post. I can semi-relate to it, but that's about it. What I mean is, once you get the hang of writing on different platforms,---for the most part, one should just let it go. The comments will bring you back if there is any interaction. Besides, there's another piece that is waiting to be written. 🌱✌️
"Marlene had flirted with Substack, slept with Medium, danced with Newsbreak, and in the end made it Facebook-official that she had married Vocal..." I had a threesome and worked real well! 😎😆
There is little less refreshing than constant refreshstration. I'm OCD. I have to go do something else to keep from going crazy, 😂.
Jeez, that struck a chord….memories. Lol this was great Judey.
ughhhh guilty!
Haha is great. I can relate.
😁 Spot on! And great word!
LOL OMG IF THIS AINT THE TRUTH
Yes, absolutely damned either way! This is a great word! I loved the flirt/slept/danced section 🤣