Progress Report: My "Evil" Plot To Dominate Vocal

When I first joined Vocal in October of 2020, I didn't do anything but read. I joined with the intention of writing, but honestly, I was too scared to show my work.

So I waited. I read. I secretly gained confidence little by little and in February 2021, I took the plunge. I paid my $10 for the month and decided to give this thing a try.

I immediately met some wonderful people through Vocal Facebook groups like Vocal Social Society, Great Incantations, and the like. People like Call Me Les, Cathy Holmes, Babs Iverson, Mikey Dread and so many others!

These people were my main competition for challenges, but they were also some of my biggest cheerleaders along the way.

When I started seriously entering challenges and writing, I had a goal in mind. It wasn't an elaborate goal. t wasn't an original goal. I wanted to win money. It was that simple. I wanted to win money with my words. I like money. It buys things like wine and food. I like those things.

I also wanted to transition into a full-time career as a writer. Vocal was a sort of testing ground for that. My thought process, rudimentary as it was, was if I could get noticed here, if someone could tell me I was good, maybe, just maybe I had something worth reading.

Well, boy howdy, did I! I still remember my first challenge win. It was for the Boss Mom Challenge back in 2021. I had done something in that story that I'd never done before. I told the truth. The entire truth, ugly, unvarnished, and from my soul. I lay bare my complicated relationship with my mother, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And it resonated. I was finally a real writer:

Honestly, I almost deleted the email advising me of the win because I thought it was a scam.

That win tasted good. So I kept entering challenges. I won some and lost some. But with each challenge, my confidence grew. I started moving outside my comfort zone, writing fiction, horror, dystopia, and poetry.

And that was where my sinister plot was born.

Sometime this year, in 2022, I decided, after a comment in a Vocal Facebook group calling me a "Vocal Legend," that I was going to win a challenge in each category. Non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. Then and only then would I be worthy of the title "Legend."

But, that was a tall order. My non-fiction was pretty decent. I've lived a crazy life, one that just begs to be written down. But fiction and poetry...ugg!

I love poetry. I've written it since I was a kid. My first poem was published when I was 5 in the Hubbard Avenue Elementary School newspaper, The Roadrunner. It was called Snow and I was the only Kindergartener to make the cut in the construction paper and photostat compilation.

I love fiction too, but it was my weakness.

The competition got stronger as more and better writers joined the site.

I was forced to work harder. That's not easy for me. I'm used to things coming easy. I ate my humble pie. It tasted awful! But I needed it. I needed a couple of slices.

And I worked harder. I read more. I watched and I learned from my fellow writers as they continued to cheer me on and share their stories.

My writing continued to grow. I somehow managed to make the first cut in the Vocal + Fiction Awards and get a free year. It was the first time my fiction was officially recognized and it happened in 2022.

That really inspired me to work harder. I haven't won a fiction challenge yet, but I have recently been a runner-up with my little Aquarium Challenge story, The World According To Ignatius:

Then, I got a couple of Top Stories. I never get those. No, seriously, never. In my time on Vocal, I've won or placed in 7 or 8 challenges (including the Ukraine thing and the Vocal + Fiction Awards, which by the way, Vocal, should be noted on our profiles, just sayin', they were challenges and credit where it's due). But I couldn't buy a Top Story with all the money in the world.

Until recently. A poem, a haiku for the Blue Haiku Challenge:

And for my entry in the Behind The Last Window Challenge. This one meant so much to me because it was fiction, my nemesis:

As I sit here, celebratory beverages cooling reviewing my year, I have to say it's been a good one. My plot is unfolding nicely. I will dominate. I will get my prize in all 3 categories. And it will be in 2023. Then, and only then will I be satisfied. I still won't be worthy of the title "Legend," as previously ascribed, but I will be an actual, for real, serious writer and that's good enough for me.