One Year on Vocal

I had been wanting to share some details about my own personal life for a while, and I decided that this was the perfect time to do so. Hello, my name is Clyde E. Dawkins, Jr., and I joined Vocal on April 25, 2021. I was born on March 18, 1985--a late Monday evening in Amory, Mississippi, but since the age of three, I've been a Southern California guy. I got my high school diploma on June 11, 2003, and celebrated Grad Night at Disneyland (had never went until that day; can you believe it?).

As you can tell from some of my stories, I'm a big sports fan. My main teams are the Colorado Avalanche (NHL), Green Bay Packers (NFL), New York Yankees (MLB), and Chicago Bulls (NBA), though I've also added the CFL's Toronto Argonauts. I had known about Vocal since around 2020 because of another writer, Trevor Wells, and on that fateful day (April 25, 2021), I was looking to write about a recent Lifetime movie on a message board, but it was down. So when I went to Vocal, I decided to join, and wrote about it, which turned into my first story.

So one story became two, and it became 10, then 20, then 50, then...well, you get the gist. I absolutely love this site, but I'll be honest, I never thought I'd have so much in my profile. The reason is, well, I'm a bit of an introvert, and I honestly didn't have confidence in my writing at first. My thinking was, "Well, I'll write this, and if it gets so much as about five reads, I can take some pride in that." Yet I have had good read counts and a lot of good feedback from my stories. It's absolutely amazing. I've even had Top Stories here, which is huge for me, because it says that something I wrote is of high relevance for that day.

I write a lot of sports stories on Vocal; usually on certain teams and their history or current seasons. During playoff time, I write about eliminations using the title, "What Went Wrong," though I have done some about teams who were eliminated during the regular season. My stories aren't all sports-centered, as I've also written a number of "Villainess Reviews" as well. I've been a fan of female villains since the age of eight, and I'll delve into that in a later story, but I have a number of stories about some female baddies who have really caught my attention, and they come from many forums: TV, big screen, shorts, and yes, Lifetime films.

I have even written some fiction, and that's the biggest challenge. I have quite a vivid imagination, but it wasn't until the early summer that I decided to write my first fiction piece here. Again, I was nervous; the questions were in my head:

"Is it too short?"

"Is it too long?"

"Will people read it?"

"Will they like it?"

So I finished that story on a Tuesday night while I was watching Cruel Summer, and I would write some more fics when ideas started percolating. As those who have seen my writing know, my ideas for fics are basically my visions for Lifetime movies. I've had good feedback regarding those stories as well, and it includes something I've mentioned before: one person actually told me that he shows my fics to his daughter. That, in my view, is the greatest bit of praise I've ever received, and it really makes me smile and get a bit emotional every time I think about it. That, alone, says, "You did very well."

This story marks one year that I've been doing this on Vocal. Hard to believe it's been a full year already. I love doing this; it's been very fun for me so far. I still have two goals that I hope to accomplish. One is for one of my reviews to become a Top Story, but another is to win a challenge, I'm still hoping for that.

Thanks to everyone who has read my stories, and to everyone who has given me positive feedback and advice to improve my writing. It is all greatly appreciated!

Check out a couple of my stories below!