The Vocal 2024 Bucket List

Considering resolutions each year are limited by time, they are a bucket list for that year.

The year is now 2024, meaning that I've been a member of Vocal for the past four years, give or take. What would I want to achieve on Vocal in 2024 that I haven't achieved since I signed up in 2020? Some might ask, what do you think you can do that you haven't done in the over three years you've been around?

Three years is a long time to be on a writing platform. While I've had what might be called success, it's been limited success at best. However, there are things that I'd like to accomplish. My goals may be lofty to some and ambitious to others. They are still the goals I'd like to see become a reality.

Vocal Bucket List Item #1: A Story I Haven't Been Able To Tell

The first resolution I'd like to see become a reality is I'd like to tell the tale of a particular event. That event is something I couldn't report on in writing until January 1st, 2025. It's a lofty aspiration. Some might call it simple or easy. Somehow, that hasn't been the case.

After a nearly 37-year run, I'm still chasing one moment. There's a New Year's Eve tradition. At the stroke of midnight, the New Year's Eve kiss. It's a time shared between two people, either on their first date and caught up in the moment or with someone special.

Looking back through my hazier than I'd like to admit memory, I can't figure out how I've never been with someone on New Year's Eve. I've been in love more than a few times. I was once married, albeit not that long. And without bragging, I never found it hard to meet women or date. Somehow, I've never shared that moment in time with someone.

For those who do, they are sharing a moment and an intimate act at the focal point in time between the next and the last. I heard New Year's Eve described that way once. It stuck with me. It seems the most eloquent way to describe its significance and what you're doing when the clock strikes twelve.

Of all the romantic stories I'd like to write on Vocal, I'd like to be able to write that story from the first-person point of view. What leads up to the kiss? Was it a chance meeting? Did two people, thrust together by circumstance, become caught in the moment?

It may be overly romanticized, but of all the stories I could live and share, that one magic moment in time has evaded me my entire dating life. After a lifetime as a serial dater, writing the story of crossing that off my bucket list on January 1st, 2024, could become a reality instead of unfinished business.

Vocal Bucket List Item #2: To Finally Win A Challenge

I remember when I first signed up with Vocal. It was the promise of opportunity. I'd always been someone that played around with storytelling. The idea of making money doing what I was already doing as a hobby sounded good. Then, there were the prizes.

I haven't written anything that spoke to the judges. The trick to winning a competition in the arts is finding something that speaks to the judges. That is why many people have dumped their memberships, left the platform altogether, and felt hopeless.

Hopelessness gets to us all. Especially when you know you've done something unique and stretched yourself beyond your prior efforts. Not everything I've written was a homerun. When I look back to November 2020 and compare my work to the entries I wrote for the Whodunit challenge, I feel a sense of pride in how much more polished my writing is today.

This year, in 2024, winning a challenge is essential to my future as a writer. Like Babe Ruth, I'm calling my shot and saying the Whodunit challenge is mine. But why stop with just one?

Vocal Bucket List Item #3: 10,000 Reads

When it comes to milestones, 10,000 reads is a big one. For me, 10,000 reads on one story is a particular milestone I hope to achieve. The good news is I don't have far to go.

Since writing my story about Phillip Marshall and the Great Bamboozle, I've nearly gotten to 8000 reads in the past couple of years. Of all the items on my 2024 Vocal Bucket List, this is the one most assured to win.

Whatever you want to call it, resolutions, plans, to-do's, or a yearly bucket list, we've all got to shoot for something to keep the growth and development of our skills progressing.

That said, good luck, and may 2024 bring everybody closer to the goals they have next in line.