Looking For A Kiss

With the title you may think this is about dating or even a piece on the New York Dolls as it’s the title of one of their songs (which we will use to lead in).

What I am talking about is why we write. In its purest form I think we would write only for ourselves and not share our words with anyone. That is like being a hermit but being completely isolated from communication with the outside world, but that means there is no external engagement , and sometimes your words could inspire , enlighten or simply cheer someone up.

While I would never want to question someone’s right to their own privacy , I do believe that engagement with others is beneficial to both parties.

And this brings me to why we write on Vocal. We do write for ourselves but we are writing for an audience of peers and appreciative friends, and we are hoping to get reads , feedback and love. This is what I mean from the title of this , we are looking for a kiss in the form of reads and appreciation and maybe the odd tip and bonus.

We all join these writing platforms , Medium and Vocal are the ones that spring to mind, with the intention of making money.

I joined Vocal thinking I could win a challenge and make money.

That didn’t really happen.

What happened is I rose to the challenge , failed every time, and made lots of incredible friends. I would not give up what I have now for a challenge win. I wouldn’t complain about winning a challenge but the love , encouragement and support I get from my Vocal friends makes me veritably euphoric.

My perspective on writing has changed and thanks to the support I feel my writing has improved incredibly. My early work on Vocal is very “finding my feet” bar a few I ported from Seven Days In , but now I can write easily, with the odd time when the words won't immediately flow, but closing on three hundred stories in eight months shows my appetite for writing. Given that a hundred of those are poems that is probably about a hundred thousand words on Vocal so far.

The other thing is thanks to a challenge for a Summer Sonnet I wrote a poem , and then another, and then in my Vocal Family became recognised as a poet. That was never a plan. Then I met my Muse and the writing keeps flowing with her love and encouragement.

I write for my Vocal family and for my Muse and love the appreciation I get from that, but I definitely am “looking for a kiss” with everything I write and publish, I do want everyone to read it and love it. Speaking with my Muse she tells me that people are waiting for my next poem for her, but in my directory fifty of them are directly for her , check it out here and see if you can spot which they are.

I see some people saying that all their writing is SEO based to get the biggest audience, and I find that a little sad. Writing should be for yourself and your audience not for a search engine. Certainly give a catchy descriptive title and subtitle and some relevant introductory words but what you are writing about and who you are writing for should be the priority , not getting a google front page placement.

If I search “Vocal Mikeydred” on Google I get my Vocal Home page and one article “So You're A Racist Now MikeyDred” plus a few other related article but I am not sure that is what you get, I have a feeling it gives me that because it is me searching. Here is the Google link.

I also see successful Vocal writers asking for reads to get them over ten or fifteen thousand reads , which I find frankly embarrassing. If you have hit five thousand reads and you are growing then you are a success. I will drop into reciprocal read groups and post new work but that is it. I tend to read because I write and post a lot. I don’t sit on my laurels and expect people to trawl my back catalogue, but won’t complain if they do.

Yes I am always “looking for a kiss” and so is everyone else and I truly hope you get lots of them and you can by cultivating friendship with your Vocal friends and keeping your words flowing