~What are my plans for Vocal and this 2024 Year?~

January 25th, 2024

~What are my plans for Vocal and this 2024 year?~

My life with Vocal began somewhere back in late 2018 or so, and since then it’s been a wonderful slow and steady pace on an inward and upward path!

I write when I can, write what I can, what I’m inspired to write, what needs to be written and perhaps ultimately even needs to be said! I take the time that’s needed to learn from others and what I see around me or myself in areas of things that may be personal that I’ve been through, whether good or bad! And when I’m ready and the emotions have had time to settle and the body and mind have had time to absorb it, I will check back in with myself, with a pen and paper in hand, and when I put that pen to the paper I just let the words flow, like a love song or sonnet from my head, heart and soul! This method has never failed me or let me down yet!

There is a book titled The Body Keeps the Score and well I can tell you from my life of writing and what I’ve lived through whether inside in the places where people on the outside cannot see or whether physically through injury that this statement is so very true! And the only place I ever have to look for the evidence of my body keeping track of the Score is just by looking to my words!

And I can never imagine my life and the way it would be if I had not been born with the gift to get it out all from inside of me, and put it all where it needs to be so my body and mind can find peace and rest and heal as best as it can and be able to move on from there. And of course all that my work can and does do for others who find their way to it during a time in their life where something they read of mine resonates within them that helps them feel better for knowing that they are not alone, that others before them have been there and to be rest assured that there will very likely be others after them to reach that same ‘growing pains’ place and time in their lives too!

But above all it’s the entertainment and joy and all the wonderful feelings of love, adventure, laughter, tears, romance and more that I cherish most in what this wonderful world of writing can do for readers everywhere, I can think of nothing else more rewarding for me to be doing with my time, then bringing all these glorious moments and memories to others, while keeping a healing record of my own!

So fast forward to today in the year 2024, I can see where that slow and steady progress (in my available time in those few years) has led me to, which is to right here and right now in this place and time where I am writing this very story for the Vocal check in contest, and how this will be my 241st uploaded item! It’s amazing how much can be done when one keeps on keeping on, maintaining an available time and devoted space to keep the work coming and the ability to be able to share it all here on Vocal with everyone too!

Now I may not have the most amount of material up on my profile for people to read, but it is also most certainly not nothing either, it is still enough work to be proud of for what I’ve done with my available time through the years I’ve been Vocal dedicated since discovering this wonderful space where all of this can be made possible. In short I am happy to share and present all that I now have, and all that there is still yet to come, it just leaves me with anticipation and excitement for what’s ahead and what that all means!

And the blessing of these challenges is part of what makes it all work, by way of challenging ourselves as writers to constantly be thinking and looking inside ourselves for things we may not have known was lurking there in the shadows, or to challenge us to find new things to write about that without those contests and prompts and specific instructions we would not otherwise ourselves even think to do! Many of these ideas created into challenges are things that are outside the norms of what regular writing pursuits are most often all about, or that of the interests or needs within us that we must remain on a steady path of writing in so that we can meet our life dreams and goals as writers!

So it leaves me pretty pleased with myself when I come back to the challenges page after taking a break from them to let my world of words fester and build up inside, or when I’m just busy in life getting other missions and goals done, that when I read through the challenges, how I more often than not find more then 1 contest that my pen tells me I can meet this challenge so please let me try! And of course if there is paper or a blank word document in front of me on the screen I can only say yes to my left hand and right brain… and poof just like that I’m off into another world that I don’t have to leave my chair or home to get to!

It’s great when you don’t come online to Vocal to peak at the challenges with an intention to write, but just want to know what’s up there out of curiosity just do to the time that’s past with all the other things around writing one’s done and find yourself captivated and sucked in with all this motivation to meet the deadlines on the challenges that you read through that hit you hardest in all those great ways that these things do!

And when you are done you look at all the NEW CREATIONS you just gave from yourself to this Blessed and beloved Vocal Community, and of course add them next to those other items you came online to share in the first place, that you had also recently written! It’s then when you know you’ve earned that well deserved pat on the back! For that simply is what it’s all about and it doesn’t get any better than this! Each time you come on here and you see that magic that lives here works; it only gives us more desire to want to come on more often and do it all over again and again, because it works, and when something works, well baby ya know what they say and how it goes, we all just want to keep on working it!

I may not have known in the beginning what I was going to use Vocal for or how to go about doing it? But what I did know is that it was such a very good thing that I discovered Vocal and together since the infancy of the creation of Vocal, I have grown with you side by side and that is where the answer to its purpose and plans as part of my life did come from to fall into place what it is now for me today! But here I am on the other side of those feelings and that process of doubt and being overwhelmed with all the work there was to do, I’ve MADE IT!

I’ve posted enough material to feel clear and uncluttered and less exhausted with all the work I wanted to share and keep sharing, which brings me to where 2024 is going to from here? To which I will start with saying this… that I want a whole lot more of just the very same things as what has now already been achieved! This year my goal is to FINISH started short stories, novella’s, movie scripts and novels that I have on my Vocal profile. If I know one thing about my love affair with words, it is that I’m A FINISHER, I don’t like to leave loose ends, I dislike things being started stories being left out there blowing in the wind or silence of time and space without closure. So I look forward to the work I will accomplish completing this year and posting those updated FINISHED works right where they are now already having been started and available to read on Vocal!

What else am I going to do? Well I am definitely not going to stop at posting 250 items, I am going to keep going and aim for uploading 300 items, and I will give myself a deadline of the first half of the year to see if I can reach it and re-evaluate then? If I have reached that 300 postings goal then of course I will pick a new number to reach again! But for now I think I’ve set my marks for this year just right! Because I have won grants 2 yrs in a row, I have been busy performing at shows dedicated to writers who have won the grant and participating in other writer’s events, even hosting paid workshops.

And well this year the reason I’ve won the money is so I can go one step further then all I achieved last year, it is to put on a full production of my own work, it will have poetry, and connecting short story type work and music, like flute pieces I play and some singing to round it all in together for a perfect show! And along with that of course comes new publications of my work, additional self-published books to go with my current completed works, so people have material to purchase at the shows I put on, and have the availability of owning the material I perform that they love so much that they want to cherish and remember it for themselves!

And last but not least I want to continue to invest in Vocal, (I’m very happy and looking forward to receiving my badge and multiple years of Vocal Plus for showing you proudly all of my support) I’m very excited to grow and expand my business and careers’ side right alongside with the changes and growth that Vocal will also be continuing to do! You can be certain I will be in there like a kid in mud boots, happily playing outside after the rain adding more and more funds, purchasing my goal of shares until I get to where I want to be STUCK IN PLACE in that Wet and Fresh Fertile Ground! I will be in it for the long haul, to see what each New Spring and Fresh Blooming Growth after that First Spring rain of Sun Showers brings!

And I will of course continue to keep doing my part in sharing much more of my work as I have the time to do (and of course continue to find contests and the time I need to write and meet those challenges and their deadlines too) throughout the course of life being lived in the rest of the year ahead and what it is we are all here on Vocal striving to do!

And that’s me and my plans for Vocal and the rest of my 2024 year ahead! Thanks for reading my story!

The End!

Written by,

Jennifer Cooley!