Vocal Has Given New Life to Words I Wrote Years Ago

No kid grows up thinking, "I want to be a greeter at Walmart when I'm big." Or "When I grow up, I'm going to hand out samples at Costco."

When I was in elementary school, I thought I was going to grow up to be famous. At first, I thought that I would be an actor when I grew up. I used to watch a lot of TV. Mostly comedy. When I would play, I almost always pretended to be a guest star on a TV show or a character in a movie.

I started playing the guitar when I was 14 and thought I was going to be a rockstar when I became an adult. I wrote songs I was sure were good enough to top the Billboard charts. I tried forming bands with my buddies but none of them ever lasted.

After I graduated high school, I was still writing songs, but I also started writing poetry. I thought I was going to be the next Jim Morrison. The Doors are my all-time favorite band. Jim Morrison is my all-time favorite celebrity. I tried to be like him, but I was (still am) nothing like him. I don't have his looks or his charisma.

Anyway, I wrote quite a bit of lyrics and poems from age 14 up until around the time I got out of the Army. Some of my lyrics actually have guitar arrangements for them, but most don't. When I got out of the Army, I was a single dad with a 2-year-old baby girl. (Maybe one day I'll share that story here on Vocal.) At that point, I didn't think I would ever share my lyrics and poems with anyone. But Vocal (and Medium) have allowed me to share them. I've lost many notebooks full of my writings from that time period, but I know some by memory and found at least one of my writing books.

I believe I first came across Vocal on Instagram. It was an ad that mentioned a writing challenge worth $10,000. I don’t remember the challenge, but I do remember thinking, “I know exactly what I’m going to write.” Unfortunately, the challenge was for Vocal+ members only, so I ended up not writing anything. About a week later, I recorded an episode of my YouTube podcast, “Keggercast”. I don’t have enough followers and views to monetize Keggercast. I remember thinking, “I wish I could get more views for my show.” That’s when it occurred to me to post my video on Vocal and write a summary of what I say on the episode. I recorded another show the following week, but was unable to edit and type something up within the timeframe I hoped for so that never happened.

I’ve been in a huge depression since February 24, 2020, so I wasn’t recording Keggercast as much as I would’ve liked. Almost 4 months after I submitted my first story to Vocal I received an email offering me the first month of Vocal+ for only $1. I logged into Vocal again for the first time since my first story was published and saw that there were two challenges open: “Create Your Happiness” and “Members Only”. I knew that I could write stories for both of those challenges, so I got Vocal+.

After writing those two stories, the “Doomsday Diary” challenge opened up. I wrote what I still think is my best story on Vocal for that challenge. That story, “Mialca”, gave me the writing bug. Seeing that there are people that enjoy my writing gives me the motivation to keep going.

I want to thank Vocal for allowing me to share the words and thoughts from my youth and for giving me back the motivation to write again. I'm glad to have found and become a member of, the Vocal community. Thank you to everyone that has read my writings here. And a big thank you to anyone that has subscribed to me; I feel privileged to have subscribers have the faith to believe that I will write stories and/or poems they find entertaining.