Vocal, You're Real Funny

So... I've only been at Vocal for almost a year now. I joined during the Christopher Paolini's Fantasy Fiction Challenge (which I completely lost because of my lack of knowledge on how dragons & Vocal judges, two things that really relate, work), just because I was excited to finally have a writing platform to share all of my thoughts and masterpieces on.

Well... you see... it turns out that sometimes Vocal can be a lil iffy place.

I haven't written anything for a while now because of it. Sometimes I look at the Top Stories and think "What in the name of Caeser's Ghost are those Vocal-people choosing?" And then I look at the Latest Stories and think "These are so amazing and hilarious!" And sometimes I look at the Challenges and think "Jeepers... why are these so specific and difficult?"

Vocal's funny sometimes. I was hyped to find out that I had won Runner-Up in the Reset Your Password Challenge for my greatest writing ever, Child from the Past, a story from the perspective of an Operator about a futuristic world where a girl who's been asleep for several hundreds of years wakes up again and tells the tale of her childhood. Child from the Past is one of my most heartfelt writings, because it describes the pain and the sympathy that the Operator feels as he unravels everything he was told by the child and realizes that the futuristic world he runs and lives in lacks one major element: love. By the very end of the story I remembered that I had to include the phrase "reset your password," so I added it in at the last second, just to be fair.

I don't know if I'll ever write anything that surpasses Child from the Past. I'm still amazed that it fared the way it did with the Vocal judges, who usually look over my work and probably dismiss it (except for in the Sky's the Limit Challenge! The phrase "children dreamed" used in their explanation of the Challenge could have referred to my story Child in the Sky!) and probably move on to better works, or worse ones, depending on opinion.

Anyway, to feed back to my point, I've only ever done one or two significant things here on the Vocal platform. (Which is what made me stop writing.) For some unknown reason, my two stories The Shadows' Day and A Day in the Future got Top Story back in April! For no reason! The Shadows' Day is yet another sad and futuristic story that I thought up and A Day in the Future is a lil happy thing that I thought up. For no reason, these two stories were included in the Top Story section two days in a row.

Then my walk of fame stopped, so I basically stopped writing. I tried entering into a few more Challenges, being really excited with my Child in the Sky writing because of its mysterious quality, but out of them I got nothing but adrenaline that led up to only disappointment.

That's why I stopped writing on Vocal for a while. One, the Top Story section started to be overflowing with strange, secular works that I wasn't a fan of, and signing on to Vocal and seeing the front page filled with strange, secular works when you aren't a fan of them isn't the most inviting sight. Assuming that you aren't a fan of them. Two, the Vocal judges for Challenges seem odd. It depends on opinion, really, and I am happy for those who win, but sometimes (you know the feeling!) you just look at a first-place winner and you just go "Huh?" because you're confused and have no clue why they just won. Three, and this is the one where I'm going to whine, the Vocal Challenges have been exceedingly boring lately.

"Write a pitch for the pilot of a comedy TV show." I know, I know. A lot of people loved this idea since a lot of people love comedy. And I like comedy, but I'm not particularly good with it, and this seemed boring to me as soon as I saw the first three words: "Write a pitch." No thanks. It wasn't very inspiring.

"Write a love poem-" Wait a minute! I do not write love! And I do not write poems! This is definitely not the match for me. (Maybe I should remove "poetry" from the list of genres that I write in my bio...)

The recent Challenges have not sparked anything in me. Challenges like Christopher Paolini's Fantasy Fiction Challenge did, but Challenges like those have many people involved in them, making my chances of winning less and less. Truth be told, I actually cried when I found out I didn't win the Challenge. But then I was introduced to Vocal, and now I know why.

Vocal, you're just a real funny place.

Sometimes I think you're nice, because once in a while you get those Challenges that let me explore the yet-to-be-told storylines I have in mind. Sometimes I think you're weird, because every day there are odd, contemporary stories in the Top Story section that make me less and less fond of you. Sometimes (and this is most of the time) you're just downright boring.

But I'm staying here anyway. I'll try to look for Challenges. I'll try to participate in the community here. I'll try to liven up a bit. Because this is Vocal, and I know y'all are trying real hard to make this a nice place for everyone to come to. And also because this is the only writing platform I have ever been on in my life that is capable of sharing my stories with someone else, although... that's a problem. It isn't as fun as I thought it would be.

See, I thought, when I thought about Vocal, that everyone would get reads. Everyone's stories would get read by everyone else. So that automatically translated to me getting feedback on my stories and ideas like everyone else hypothetically does. But it doesn't work that way, and that's what disappointed me: the lack of equal popularity, I suppose. The fact that when I write something like this, nobody ever reads it. It gets lame eventually. It feels like I'm talking to an oil painting.

But at least this audience isn't as stiff as the audience of my Friday night show of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. That was a real still-life painting. You should've seen how inactive the crowd was.

Vocal is a nice place, don't get me wrong. But I see now that it's only a nice place if you put in the work, if you put in what it takes to be a member and try your best to communicate with the community and participate in Challenges. (Although it would be nice to have a Challenge about something interesting again, like dragons or wolves or such-and-so... Y'know, something that I'm actually good at writing...)

Just kidding. Vocal's fine. Real funny, but mostly fine. Y'all keep up the good work! And also keep in mind that I won't read your Top Story if it's all secular- no offense to ya if you like that kinda stuff.

To Vocal (and everybody else).