How I Write For Vocal

Vocal has been a rewarding opportunity to grow as a writer. To test myself on what criteria I can cover and find out what I was capable of.

In January 2020, I found this platform when it was popping up on the posts I was scrolling through on Instagram. It was in the back of my head to possibly give it a shot for a writing job considering I just published my first book and I could grow my routes as a writer until I could make it as an author.

I could be able to do on Vocal what I've been struggling to do on my other places of social media. In the current hectic nature of the internet, it's appealing and fascinating to produce the kind content to create, but it's hard to find that exact place to share those creations.

I've done YouTube videos for the professional venture for almost six years, and it has turned into the most tangled mess of internet entertainment. With the unknown algorithm from the constant fast paced process for the audience that constantly has a new need for something else. With how the audience fluctuates to a certain topic, it makes those creators crumble from trying to stay relevant or trying to be relevant. In my case, it means I never stood a chance to get my kind of content out there.

In my strive to try and create my content for commentating on YouTube, it would take me days to get one video done and I'd be wasting more of my time. On Instagram, the posts would end up falling into obscurity, making the hard work on the post in the void. The website of tumblr could work but that also falls into the void without heavy use of hashtags and your lucky if you stuff can catch on. Instead of making my striving harder for me, I needed to expand my outlets and try something else out that would be easier to use.

But I had to remind myself that I want to be a writer, I want to be the kind of creator that can talk with a sense of nostalgia while bringing an awareness to a topic. I couldn't do that on places that weren't adept to help or acknowledge the kind of content I wanted to do. As I enjoyed being behind the camera and creating videos or editing pictures. I needed to have a place that could be efficient and professional.

After the third time I saw the ad for Vocal pop up, I debated on making this venture onto this platform. I had to think what was best for my future as a writer, as well as the future of my first published book, Inglorious Ink. I opted to make the reasonable decision that if I were to make it as a writer, I need to explore the jobs of writing I can do.

I made the decision for my future and I made the account.

With Vocal, I found that this outlet to commentate on was a better platform then trying to make it work on YouTube, tumblr, or Instagram. Getting paid for my ideas was a promising factor to think that I could get where I wanted with a place that was organized to cater to creativity. It was also a faster process to get my ideas out there with this website.

As of right now I have gotten a staff pick for one of my articles as well as an Instagram post on their personal page for acknowledgment. My article submissions are at 91 pieces right now. But with hard work to be rewarded it has to be consistent.

Writing is a creative way to broaden the spectrum on a topic. It's an art to talk about about anything, and it doesn't have to be set up with major scholastic words. As long as the point is highlighted and it made the mark on the topic, then it becomes a rewarding experience to talk extensively about any subject.

Right now I'm currently not in the range of the $35 dollar withdrawal which makes the strain to continue to shell out articles to achieve that withdraw of the amount.

But at the same time, it's not wise to put out content for the sake of putting out content. I knew I had to put out some interesting pieces but they had to be good pieces that are polished and interesting without dull or overused words. I've sat and scolded myself many times, in the beginning of striving to grow this job into success because I couldn't get articles out fast enough and having articles that had panache and flow.

But those feelings of self-scrutinizing are natural to anyone that wants to have a job be successful. I've had to remind myself that the review and revenue will just take some time as I navigated through my trials of testing out articles and finding my process. I just had to find the balance.

I had to know that I can get there but I had to find my routine to make this writing job successful.

Scheduling

I am striving for my continuing success in Vocal, but I am also a published author working on the sequel to my book Inglorious Ink. It's an equal efficiency to keep going for both parts of the products, but I also had be realistic that Vocal is my only beneficial factor right now until I get some book sales going. Vocal had to have more of my focus for that to be a steady career in writing. I had to find the balance to work these two parts of my writing career into a seven day week.

I set up my days to work on this productive platform for four days a week, Monday through Thursday, and submit 2-3 articles in those days. I chose three so I can be able to pinpoint the recent article for how it fared in the reads. It's still an experimentation to see what articles end up being lucrative in reads, some that paid off from the hard work as well as some that were a pleasant surprise to see the amount that this pieces was cycled around to be read.

I figure that way I'm not draining myself of my creativity and let my ideas come to me so I wouldn't feel furtive to not submit enough articles. But I also wouldn't be depriving myself of the pride I feel being able to accomplish my spin on the subject I talked about.

I originally thought that it was best to put out an article every day, I ended up overexerting myself from the stress of trying out that regime of submissions. My head was turning faster then Regan's head in The Exorcist from not having the balance to efficiently work on my articles and my book .

That has become a fair schedule to able to have my article days and my story days worked out.

Keeping Track of my Topics

I do enjoy being able to talk passionately about any topics, with Vocal's plethora of genres to choose from, I feel comfortable knowing I can express myself. I can talk extensively about what I've never been able to do before or challenge myself to talk about something I've never vocalized before.

If you look at my page you'll see a couple of familiar topics like :The Neighbourhood, Junji Ito, Friendship problems. But as much as I enjoy being able to go on about some topics, I have to keep track to be sure I don't rely up one topic predominately. No one wants to sound like a broken record, but there has to be some reoccurring elements to keep interest for expanse on a topic.

This topic tracker can also be of use to me to see if I would like to venture back onto a reoccurring topic that I haven't talked about in a while.

The Checklist

In school we were subjected to scratch our brains to a topic a teacher chose for an assignment that we could care less about. In the creative career of writing, there is an opportunity to expand on a topic. When I found Vocal, I was elated to be able to have the freedom to talk about anything I wanted.

But at the same time, my focus was stretched out into trying too many different topics or too many pieces about the same subject. My drafts started expanding with unfinished pieces that have yet to be polished and finalized. I have pieces that I have yet to start.

After I finished my piece titled, "What You Never Knew About Scooby-Doo", I opted to make a list of ideas of articles I wanted to do. To have a checklist for progress or scanning for selection of a possible idea to express.

In time I organized that checklist.

• The blue indicates that I need to finish that article
• the green highlight is the selected articles that I want to have a possibility for my three submitted articles, that usually changes per month.

Monitoring My Articles

I've talked about that in some of the sections that I make sure to monitor the three articles I put out per week. So how do I do that?

After having three articles accepted, I'll see how they fared in interest to viewers to see where they are placed in the stats. Because I chose three, it would be easy to remember which ones I'm looking for. I just concentrate on just seeing how those three did. Usually one of the three would be the lucky one for a lucrative gain or a topic to expand on.

I also had to track my stats everyday to see the change percentage fluctuate up and down and try to see which article made the increase as well as feeling a bit of panic when the change percentage went down. It'll let me know if I need to put out more content or try a different topic that would be an eye-catcher.

But if it is an article that covered a certain topic, either it was a topic I've said before, or it was the first to be elaborated on. Then I would make a note that the specific genre is one to remember for a category that works.

For instance, about 40% of my articles are music related, so that is a topic that I know I am safe with to talk about. But for topics that are analyzed extensively with success, any articles I submit that go into the genre of horror are also successful. Those are my top two genres that I have found to be successful to write about.

I also keep a daily list to monitor and document the top five successful articles to write down the number of reads per day. I've noticed that the top five or top ten articles usually increase a couple of reads a day, so I make sure to record the number per day. It reminds me that people are reading my articles, I can assure myself that I'm making progress.

I always put down what the number that was at the end of every month so I can compare it to the progress of the current month. You'll see that at the next to last portion of this article.

Experiment

How would you be able to see what your tone and style is for writing if you didn't do a couple of test runs on some articles?

There are creative tools to be able to convey how you want your articles to go. With the editing tools that Vocal provides, it makes the process easier to play around with while polishing your pieces to submit.

Think of it as a reinvigorating the re-learning process, in school we had certain ways to work on a paper for classes, but now that process is going to be tweaked to the advantage of becoming a writer in your own way. Even if that means to go against what you were taught in school to create a thesis or a neutral paced piece about a topic. School did help us on the flow of writing a paper, to make us aware that a presented topic must have the proper flow and panache.

When you submit an article, even if its not in the category as you expected, you end up learning where it is submitted to the genre, and you learn what your type of genre is for your writing style.

For the music articles I did, I did a couple of experiments. I did some articles that focused on just the song to analyze them, I also did certain playlist posts, putting a portion of the lyric to give a sample of the song to possibly entice the reader to look into the song. I've put a whole link to the song. I’ve put the title in bold to mark the section for an easy way to locate if the reader desires to reread the article for the specific part.

So experiment with your tools and your topics.

Stats

In the Monitoring My Articles section, I showed a picture about how I record the daily numbers for the increase of any of my articles and seeing how the most read pieces increase in their views.

Now at the end of every month after I've seen the daily progress and placement of the article for the most views, I take that information and place in into the section for the month of that recording to compare it for how those five articles fare for the next month. It's been a pleasant surprise to see which articles end up surging in views or the ones that still maintain an increase of views every day.

As you can see, in the photo below, my article analysis about Junji Ito's The Bully, has been the most successful per month, in has been in the status as my number one for four months. But then The Pros and Cons of An Undercut was submitted in July, and surged in views to be placed at number 5 at the end of August. Now it has placed as number 2 for September, and I have a hypothesis that it might be the new number 1 by the end of the month with the steady progress it has.

Having this organized process on documenting these stats per month has helped me remind myself that I'm making progress and that I need to be proud that I've made something that people continually read.

So this is professional for organizing and a personal reminder at the same time.

The page is a section out of the entire book I have designed as a progress log that I have dedicated to my work for Vocal.

If you desire to take Vocal seriously as a job, I would seriously recommend to have a log like this to keep track of your stats for comparison for future stats.

Starting Tips

With the list articles to do, those are easy to accomplish because you can track easily how far you are to the 600 word count.

When you begin writing for Vocal, please don't discourage yourself if you need to give yourself extra time to create your article the way you want it to be presented.

It's OK to add some pizzazz with different fonts to get your point across, there is no right or wrong way to do an article in the beginning process.

I mentioned that I have a book that I log my information in and I have it set up like this-

Creating content for Vocal has been the best decision I've made for my writing career. I feel that I can share my ideas in a place where it is valued and respected. As I have been making my strides as an author, having this job as a article writer has helped me find parts of intelligence I didn't know I had. I have seen a difference in my dialect that I have conveyed in my articles. I can apply that strength in my continuing progress for my brands of books I'm working on.

I am relieved and exhilarated that I can actually make money from the tips and watching my wallet increase every day.

It does take time, but Vocal really does give rewarding experiences in more ways then just the financial gain.

If you want to grow as a writer, this is the place to do it.