The Millenial Post

Introduction

This is my thousandth story on Vocal. I certainly didn't expect this and wasn't sure whether this would be a poem or something more involved. On thinking, the poem limit on Vocal is just a hundred words and at this point, I have already written fifty words and I have not yet begun to say what I want to say.

I am writing this as my story count sits at 996 plus one awaiting the subject's agreement so if I write another three then the thousand story landmark will happen a long time before the New Year, and for me, that is some achievement.

Quality Or Quantity

You know the quantity is there, but the fact that Vocal have never rated my fiction as a Top Story, and only two of my poems sometimes make me doubt myself, but then when I see the positive feedback I get from my audience plus my actual belief in my own talent, then I realise that Vocal is just the place where I store my work, nothing else. They seldom reply to my emails and never converse with me, so I know to them I am as ephemeral as a ghost and no amount of anything will change that.

Each month Vocal pays me (after I pester them) more than my subscription so it is a platform that costs me nothing to stay on. I do have a lot to be grateful to Vocal about.

Vocal are the reason that I actually published my first book, an anthology of Vocal stories, which you can read about below.

What Next?

I enjoy writing and enjoy being an administrator of Vocal+Assist and do wish I had some way to properly talk to people in Vocal when there are issues or to make improvement suggestions but that will probably never happen. I have tried in the past but emails were just left unanswered and eventually you give up.

I will keep writing and may even try to write a book but my limit seems to be a three or four episode series because my audience has demanded more from one of my stories.

Every story I write has been a short, in my opinion, stand alone piece, hoping it will stimulate my audience to come up with their own conclusions, but they ask me "What Happens Next?" so I always try to give them what they want.

The Countdown

I never saw the possibility of making a thousand stories before New Year and was resigned to maybe hitting it by the end of January. I could have used the Vocal Haiku Challenges, but the flood of other people's entries really overwhelmed me but I still ended up with two in the first challenge and five in the second one, which I feel was too many, but a Haiku is only seventeen syllables so it makes it very easy to create a Vocal story very quickly. I first included Haiku in this Vocal story last year.

So I am familiar with the format and it is a great challenge to put a lot into such a minimalist format.

This week I was up to 984 stories so needed maybe two a day to hit the deadline before New Year's Eve.

At this moment I just need another three stories and I have five days to complete them so it is hardly a countdown anymore is it?

Conclusion - A Short Poem On The Situation

This Is The Countdown To A Thousand Stories

Vocal Has Helped Me Hit This Great Target

I Feel Like Mozart Watching Polidori

I Will Go Further, And I'll Have No Regrets

I think Lindsey Buckingham's "Countdown" is perfect music for this article