5 Years on Vocal

Five years. Doesn't seem like it.

It seems like yesterday that I wrote my very first story on here, a Villainess Review, of course. But it wasn't yesterday. It was April 29, 2021. At the time, I was still enjoying Lifetime movies, and also, it was still during the COVID pandemic's height. Barely over a year after everything shut down. Being a sports fan, I was enjoying that shortened NHL season with the localized divisions as well.

And here it is, April 29, 2026. Exactly five years to the day later, and just over 2000 stories later, here I am. Still writing, still thinking, still creating.

Vocal is an amazing platform where I've written a lot of good pieces. The sports section (Unbalanced) is my go to, and I write weekly recaps from the NFL and CFL, and I write about the playoff races as well. Of course, I really enjoy the "What Went Wrong" stories that talk about teams who lost out in the playoffs. And I do game by game recaps of the World Series, the NBA Finals, and the Stanley Cup Final. One of the stories I wrote is one I still treasure:

That wonderful evening of June 26, 2022. This was a Top Story, and on that subject, I beam when I get Top Story bonuses. My happiness increases when the Top Story is a non-sports story, but I am happiest when it's a fiction story. The reason is simple. I had always lacked confidence when it came to my fiction writing. I had always felt that while I had the imagination, I couldn't piece anything together. Vocal did help with that. I've written 100 fiction stories spread out into various communities, and this is one of the lucky few that got Top Story:

One of my many fantasy Lifetime movies in one short story right there. There is one thing I'm confident in: I can create villainesses that are just as good, or even better, than what we see on Lifetime and in wrestling. I've been writing wrestling stories in the last year, and I do love what I've devised lately. Among the wrestling fics I put together is this little ditty:

One day, I was thinking, "What if we had a mother-in-law from hell story that was settled in the squared circle?" I was inspired by these animated stories I had been watching at the time that feature these evil MILs messing with DILs, and that led me to create the protagonist Tiffani Ross, an up-and-comer in women's wrestling who faces stern criticism from her mother-in-law, wrestling legend Clara Maxwell. This comes right before Tiffani is houded by the evil Hardcore Demon, who Tiffani deduces is actually Clara, leading to an overdue battle.

I also enter challenges as well, and I had vowed that I would win one. And finally, on April 17, 2025, it happened:

I was almost in tears when I learned that this story that I wrote, actually placed in the 500 Word Shockwave challenge last year. I'll be honest, I've had mixed feelings when my entries don't place. Sometimes, I don't think much of it. Other times, when it involves stories I really worked hard on, I do wonder if I made some sort of mistake or something. I almost reached a point where I resigned myself into accepting that I would never win a challenge, but when I saw that my story, "Beneath the Surface," placed, I was elated!

And let's get one thing straight. While winning the cash involved did help and was awesome, I was more happy because I felt I truly belonged when it came to writing fiction. Speaking of the pay, one thing I really loved is that the money I did accumulate during a period actually helped during the holidays. I did some good holiday shopping one Christmas thanks to Vocal!

* * *

Five years. It's amazing. And I still have a lot of stories to piece together. Thank you for reading this, and thank any and all of you who have read my past stories. Here's to more on the horizon!