3000 - How Vocal Instils Ambition In Us

I have written about some of these things before , but am going to focus on what drives a lot of creators to write for Vocal.

I think stories is not quite the right word and often use articles or pieces to describe what I have written or what I am sharing, but personally think they sound a little cold whereas stories is warmer, but what I am writing is not really a story , it is an expression of an opinion , or several opinions of mine.

I was lured into Vocal with the promises of big prizes for challenges if I subscribed to Vocal+ as were many of us, and signed up for it. It was ten dollars a month so you could write and store your writing and get it shared with others, although you would have to promote it yourself.

I am a blogger so I have done blog promotion of Seven Days In and my blog gets something like fifteen thousand visits a month even though I seldom post there now. However I think most of these are robots so no one really reads it , and now it is more like a diary for me, which was its original aim.

When I thought of writing this piece I thought a poem would be a good fit for the format , but then realised that it would not really cut the mustard , though you may get a poem at the end.

But I posted my first Vocal story which was a recent lift from Seven Days In (You can read it here) and had to expand it to hit the six hundred word minimum, but I thought that was a fair limitation. I once saw a blog where every page consisted of a single link, I assume that must have been auto generated.

But I posted and hoped that someone would read my story. I shared it on Twitter and Facebook , but found that my friends were not interested in my writing, and was wondering if I would even get ten reads. The thought that I could win a competition was still there, but if no one was reading my work made me think that the Vocal admins would never choose a story that has not many reads.

I then looked for Vocal on Facebook and found various groups and became friends with people and took advice from them. One problem was that a lot of these people are professional writers who make money from their writing , while I am not a writer at all , my inadequacies are there for all to see.

But joining these groups made me want to write more , and publish more, and then I got my first tip from Call Me Les and that made me think , “Does someone like my writing?”.

I did write more and adjusted my writing methods, and then I got a bonus for my fifth post. I didn't know about bonuses and thought, “Do I get one for every five I write?” So I kept writing and received a ten-dollar bonus for ten posts. This post contains an unofficial list of all the bonuses, but I was now bitten. Note that these bonuses are no longer given by Vocal due to abuse by certain users.

I soon had 50 reads and found there was a bonus for getting a thousand reads; well, that would never happen, would it? In actuality, by the time this has been published, I will have hit three thousand reads.

I have given up on winning a challenge but will still enter. Still, I am not a “Real Writer” so that is out of the window, but had my one Top Story (which you can read here ) which means I appear as a “Creators We Love” in Poets but I am not sure that that brings me any publicity, though not being there would mean none.

I joined the Vocal Social Society and in their articles have been a Fab 5 winner and mentioned in several articles as a “favourite poet”, which in turn has generated reads and reads mean a trickle of money, but the real thrill is the recognition I have been given.

By the time that this is published, I expect to have three thousand reads. I never ask for people to read my work explicitly, but to share it with the various groups and hope that someone will notice me. This is the ambition that Vocal and the Vocal Groups have instilled in me.

I see ambition in others on the Facebook Groups, which you cannot see on the Vocal site. People often ask for people to read to get them to hit a particular read target. A thousand or ten thousand is understandable, as that brings a Vocal Bonus, although some people are serial requesters, but they have been instilled with ambition to hit those targets by being on Vocal and being a member of these groups. Again, these read target bonuses are no longer given.

Sometimes members will ask to share your least read or most read piece , which I do, and that does benefit me; it is one way I see as getting people to read my work.

So we have all been bitten by the bug to get people to read us, but the only reason that I have a reasonable amount of reads is the 175 posts I have done in the six months on Vocal; that is almost one a day. If I didn’t keep writing, I am certain that people would not read my past writing.

Being a member of the Vocal groups and being on Vocal, I think, has improved my writing, although my laziness means I probably don’t get as many reads as I could; I have ambition to improve and maybe one day pass ten thousand reads, and every Vocal friend I have will have that in the back of their mind.

I would love to hear your Vocal or writing ambitions. I will never be a published author unless I get myself into gear and write my book, or compile my poems, but one should never say never.

These are my thoughts and opinions on the ambition instilled in us by who and where we are.

A perfect intro song is “Ambition” by The Subway Sect, so I shall leave that with you.

And a final poem,

"It Will Never Happen"

§

I want to write a poem

I want to be read

I want to be appreciated

But That Will Never Happen

§

I want to have fifty reads

I want a thousand reads

I want ten thousand reads

But That Will Never Happen

§

But What Do I Know?