The Vocal Graveyard
A moment to mourn our forgotten stories.
Have you heard of the Vocal Graveyard?
It’s the place where I imagine all our wonderful pieces of work go after they have been thoroughly enjoyed and are now discarded. It happens for many reasons:
1. They were a Top Story and eventually made their way off the front page.
2. It won a challenge but a new challenge and batch of winners came along.
3. You published it, but it never took off so now it just sits in your Creator’s Profile.
4. It was on your front page but got bumped as you created new pieces of work.
5. It was in your pinned section of your Creators Profile page but you decided to update the section so it’s now pushed to the side.
No matter the circumstance, we all have pieces of work that now live in the Vocal Graveyard.
Some of them may even be so long forgotten that even you don’t remember them.
I’ve had this a couple of times, where a kid soul will dig through my profile and find a very old poem or story and leave a wonderful comment.
Not only am I grateful to the person for discovering this story and digging it out of the Graveyard of my forgotten work, but I also get to experience the joy of rediscovering that piece of work again. I get to remember how much I loved that piece when I first hit publish. But I spend a few minutes mourning the story/ poem that may never see the light of day again and I can’t help but wonder what can be done to give these stories more love.
Recently my solution to this was to create a “Library” on here to help revive some of my favourites but I can’t help but feel like that’s not enough.
I think this has turned into one of those instances when I have to start to let my work go and know that it’s okay to let it fade into the darkness of the Vocal Graveyard.
All good things must come to an end and this shall be no different.
So as part of my grieving process, I would like a moment of silence for all our forgotten pieces of work; our stories, poems, articles, rants, photo dumps and everything else we can think of. May they rest in peace and may we find peace in letting them rest.
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Thank you for taking a moment with me to say goodbye to our beloved pieces that have faded into the sunsets of their time and been laid to rest in the Vocal Graveyard.
Now to finish up this entry and get myself to 600 words, here is a fictional story about the conversations my work will have when I hit publish on this piece.
“Uh-oh. There she goes again, publishing another story.” Dragons of Legend comments.
“I swear if she hits publish, I’m gunna lose it,” Finter growls in agitation, vibrating in anxious anticipations.
“Oh don’t be a spoil-sport Finter. Everyone gets a turn and then it’s time to move down for something new.” My Library 2023 chimes in with an air of superiority.
“That’s easy to say My Library 2023, I don’t see you going anywhere anytime soon.” Finter replies, “You’re still brand new and a Top Story, no one is going to forget about you for a while.” They add in growing annoyance.
“There’s always room back here.” Feathers and And So It Began spoke together.
“Yeah, no thanks.” Finter snaps in displeasure.
“It’s happening, everyone slide!!!” A Tale of Thieves (Part One) calls in excitement.
“Bye Finter, see you in a new post or two!!” Sneezart calls with a gleeful smile and wave.
I guess because I added a story at the end, I could have just put this in fiction and didn’t need to reach the 600-word count…. Oops. Oh well!!
Thank you all for reading and entertaining my madness!
- Donna Fox, aka HKB
If you enjoyed this piece, please check out my challenge tahtw as inspired by it:
Challenge ends December 11th, 2023.
About the Creator
Donna Fox (HKB)
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Comments (49)
Oh so relatable!!! 🌟 This was an enjoyable read Donna 😁
The Vocal Graveyard. I know it so well. I, like many others, have created a library (in my case, Welcome) article to organize my content and in a lot of ways lament the passing of many an old friend (poems, short stories, you name it). Once I find a writer on Vocal whose writing I consistently enjoy, I make the effort to nav to the page and sort by oldest. Then I read and comment on their forgotten beauties. Thanks for encouraging others to do the same!
Opravdu hluboké zamyšlení nad vším co je pomíjíve.Bylo to opravdu k zamyšlení hodné.
I missed this one of yours, it's brilliant and I love it 😍 Sometimes I myself forget some of my writings in the dust, I should take better care of them somehow...
I'm so sorry-Thought I'd commented! Completely agree a libray is a wonderful idea. Congrats on TS!
Hahah!! Read on and write on. Some day it will be a Collection of Writings with comments on each! Nice story!
Occasionally I'll go back and look at my old work, and either sigh in frustration that it didn't get attention, or end up cringing at my own writing. I've ended up hitting Publish on some of my best works, and some of my not so great work!
👏👏👏 loved how you wrote this to pay homage to the pieces that were so popular! 
☺️👍 I dunno man..we could re-share.. or repost on fb vocal pages..I dunno.. seen a few posts like this I.e Paul and L.C sometimes shared people’s older pieces… and Pernoste and Dahl wrote something similar once.. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with vocal this week as I haven’t read much at all..head is just elsewhere, so I don’t think it’s ever personal. I am sure if we put a our two brains together we could think of something.. 😁 ps older pieces are sometimes shared on vocal society etc and the poetry weekend ..don’t know if you partake in those.. know you have an Alias so maybe you are not keen. Have a good one Buddy!!! 😊 Oh… And congrats on your top story! ☺️🎉🎉
...yet what we write in the past shapes us and makes us too. I like to think nothing is ever lost, even if it feels like it disappears. Thanks for these thoughts, they are much appreciated.
I can 100% relate to the feeling of when someone digs up my old work, leaves a comment (or hell, even leaves a TIP which is absolutely bonkers) and I look back and read my own work. And I'll sit there, astonished, thinking to myself "wow, did I write this? I WROTE THIS?" It hits so good. It's also very validating, but also sometimes makes me question if I can muster up that same amount of skill in my poetry again, ha. As for the feeling of letting go of our works and putting them out there, I think that's a skill of it's own. We can't really ever know what it's like to be done with something unless we actually cast it out, like a message in a bottle and throwing it into the ocean. Or pushing little toy ships out into the sea. Something I remember read from "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron was something like "a piece of work is never done--it just stops in interesting places." And since then, along with another video on YouTube I saw regarding "The Cult of Done"--which was exactly about that, being done--was something that solidified my desire to just make work, write my heart out, and then hit Publish and be done with it. Thanks for putting this together. Super relatable stuff.
Yes, the shelf life of a story can be short on here, but that's part of being on a platform like Vocal where new content is always prioritized. Sure, there are ways to find older content on here, but like a search engine, what are the odds that folks are going past the first page? Be it your Creator Profile, the coveted front page, or any of the Community landing pages? And yes, there are thing us authors can do to attempt to steer readers to older pieces, but the focus will always be on the latest: the latest Top Story, the latest challenge winner. Hard to overcome that in most cases. That's a large reason why I'm always looking at ways to get more mileage from these stories *outside* of Vocal. Many of these pieces received just as much effort as my non-Vocal stories, sometimes more. I want to honor that commitment by getting the finished product in front of as many eyes as possible versus leaving them to the Vocal Graveyard, as you put it. To that end, I have a couple particularly successful examples: - https://vocal.media/fiction/dash-point - https://vocal.media/horror/sealab-iv (This isn't me surreptitiously lobbying for reads. You only need to look at the first few lines to see real-life examples of what I'm describing above.)
Well, Donna Fox, I too have pieces that have never seen the light of day, and, that was shortly after I published them. The Vocal Graveyard is a good description of where they went to an unworthy demise. 😀
May they Rest in Peace 🤍
Silly me, I forgot which of your stories I started on so my long comment is on 'My Library 2023'. It's great to go back and revisit the children, because you know they're not coming to visit you. This was a clever story, well done.
I wrote about this graveyard eons ago, got a top story too. Asked if anything could be done about the graveyard. Eons later you to are asking about this. I have many times suggested they send them to Hollywood, get them into films and make us rich. Do they listen, oh no. They want to keep us poor and have us keep writing. Hahahahahahahahahahahah. I am so funny. Great story D. Good luck and congrats.
Woot Woot! Top Story!
Lol, loved Finter’s story. You are so right about the grave yard and maybe something can be done about it. I have at least one story with zero reads and likes and a dozen or so with just a few reads. One thing we can do to revitalize is slowly republish them. Now that we have more subscribers, chances are they will reach more people. I actually did this with a story that had been published for a month. I had it sent back to drafts because I didn’t like the photo. Well, it sat in drafts for 3 months. When I did republish it, to my surprise it became a top story. But I’m thinking there could be other solutions as well, maybe you should run a “Grave yard” challenge and encourage people to enter 1 of their pieces that they think deserves more attention. I’ll send more ideas if I come up with any.
Oh, I'm glad to see this as Top Story. Maybe it will make Vocal come up with some way of dealing with the graveyard!
Ha ha. This is too cute and funny … and accurate! I like the way your mind works! 🥰
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This is so true! I need to get my xit together and write a novel/novella to publish on Amazon, so a piece of my writing can live forever, instead of resting undisturbed in a social media graveyard.
This resonates so deeply! Your reflection on the Vocal Graveyard is both poignant and relatable. It's a beautiful reminder of the journey our creations take and the bittersweet nature of letting go. Thank you for sharing this heartfelt piece!
Entertaining… I do feel sad to read enjoyable pieces with minimal reads, or that seem largely forgotten… clearly not this one 🙃