The Vocal Challenge, The Novel, and The Life Changing "Post"

I've always wanted to be an author. I knew it all the way back when I was ten years old. I was visiting a friend of mine and noticed a book with a fantastical red cover (it was Inkheart by Cornelia Funke) on her bed and the whole world halted. I stopped everything I was doing and sat down to read it. My friend was annoyed, rightfully so, but I plowed through five chapters before my mom called me downstairs so we could head home.

That was when I opened up an archaic, slow running version of Word and started writing. I finished my first YA novel around the age of ten and a half. By the time I was twelve I finished three more and started a fifth. My parents noticed the passion, they encouraged it, and somehow managed to get a publisher to take on one of my books. By the age of fifteen I was editing my book with a professional editor, desigining a cover, and going to conventions and book signings.

As life tends to do, it beat the crap out of me once I hit "legal adulthood" and it didn't stop for a long time. Writing took a backseat to anxiety, grief, and the weight of trying to survive. After insurmountable losses, being forced into a college I didn't want to attend, and having to work and scrounge to appease people I didn't want to appease for years, I finally hit burnout. I didn't know what to do to fix it, either.

That's when the world came to a stop. March 2020 rolled around and my long-term job ceased for an unknown amount of time. That's when I remembered a sticky note with some character names that sat on my phone for well over a year. It called to me and I needed to take my mind off of the state of the world so, on March 27th, 2020, I sat down to start writing again.

It was a space opera, it became my everything, and I poured myself into that narrative with fervor and love. That date, 3.27.2020, is tattooed on my finger. It was the day my life shifted and I was able to re-center myself and re-discover my passion for storytelling. Around the two year anniversary on 3.27.2022 (five days before that, to be exact), I finished the first FIVE books in the series. Each one is 650-750 pages long, and book six was close to 300 pages at that anniversary. I hit a million words in the series in July of 2021, and the collected manuscripts currently sits at 4,200+ pages / 1.5 million words with book six nearing completion.

I began submitting to lit mags and anthologies in the spring of 2022. It took a while, but my library of published "disturbances" (I love horror so I call my short, scary stories disturbances) finally grew to a point I felt confident enough to put myself out there. I'll be in a novella-in-flash this year, as well as a Western horror anthology, and I was able to successfully fund a printed version of one of my favorite short stories via Kickstarter last October.

Things are going great. It's slow, sure, the market is oversaturated and everybody has a story to tell, so small creators like myself tend to get lost for a while. But my work is out there, people read it, and I have consistently been writing 28-30 hours a week for years. I just finished my second novella and am querying a home for my first one.

So, what does this have to do with Vocal? Took me long enough, right? I'm long-winded, what can I say? I did write 1.5 million words for a single series in the span of two years, this shouldn't surprise you.

I'm a big fan of Vocal's challenges. They always seem to pull me out of my comfort zone and help me try new things I'd never dare to try without the push. After the Fantasy Prologue challenge rolled around and I got some great feedback, I felt hyped up. People enjoyed my story. My sister said she wanted a full book of it (that will happen at some point, fingers crossed). That's when the "New Worlds" challenge popped up in my inbox and I knew, I knew this was going to be something important.

I write sci-fi, it's what I do.

So, I wrote that first chapter. I titled it "Wayward Souls" and spun a narrative about a young man named Jocasta and his musings after watching the world collapse through his space station window. About the pain of grief and heavy thoughts of isolation, and what happens when they're interrupted by an unexpected knock on the door. It was a simple story, but it was a nice change from the heavy narrative of my space opera. After two years of writing a war-heavy, eco-horror space-fairing tale full of loss and death and terror, this felt good.

I couldn't get the story out of my mind. August rolled around and I was still thinking about Jocasta and Troy. I decided to step away from my other projects and see what waited for me in chapter two. What conversations would occur after that initial meeting between the two leads. What happened if I took those wayward souls on a journey. So, I did.

The next thing I knew I was five chapters deep. I grew attached to these characters, to this story, and had a strong urge to do something with it. My space opera was (and still is) being written and it will take some time to get it out into the universe, but I know that getting yourself out there is a crucial thing for a new writer. This story could be put out there, I wanted it out there, and I felt confident enough to do so because of Vocal's challenges.

That's when this little story, this little tale of a documentarian and the commander who interrupted his life, became something more. It became a story about isolation, grief, and the importance of celebrating the little moments in life. It became a story about queer and disabled characters and the journeys they take to better themselves during a time of transition. It became my first web novel and, on September 1st, 2022, the first chapter was uploaded to my new Patreon account. That first post left me invogorated. Two more soon followed. Now it's on a weekly schedule.

The story is now nearing completion - on the writing side of it, anyway - and it will be close to 500 pages long. Chapter 27 just dropped on my Patreon last weekend, which I like to call "The Big One" since it starts a pivotal shift in the relationship between the two men. It updates every single Saturday, sometimes on Sunday, and I have chapters scheduled all the way out to December of this year. It will wrap up with chapter eighty, EIGHTY, which is insane to me and I am so proud of myself for writing so many long stories in just a few short years.

I am an author. Simple as that. I've done it. My childhood self would be so proud.

And, honestly, this story and its wayward souls wouldn't have come into existence without Vocal. The community who shared such love and kind words for my Fantasy Prologue story and helped me find confidence to hit that "post" button.

The Wayward Souls of Avalon, my slice-of-life meets soft sci-fi web novel, came into existence because of a simple push from Vocal to do something challenging. And I am eternally grateful. I wear my Vocal Creator's Club shirt to work once a week, I tell people about the platform and the incredible opportunities that can come from taking a risk. I owe this story's existence to Vocal.

This is my thank you note to the platform. I haven't been able to write new stories here for a while now, I've been lost in space with my boys, but I always smile whenever I see a new challenge pop up in my inbox. Those challenges can be life changing, so make sure you take a risk if you have the chance to do so.

And, if you want to come get lost in space with me and my boys, hop on over to my Patreon and hang out for a little while! I'd love for you to come hang out and see how a passion and love for storytelling, when given the right push, can turn into something epic. You can find my page here.

Thanks, Vocal.

- Al