130 Stories and 5 Years Later

A bit over five years ago, deep into the pandemic - when we were so used to panic that it was just an underlying emotion we could ignore, and still surprising ourselves at how we could be surprised at the depth of people’s stupidity - an Instagram ad popped up on my feed for a website that paid per read. I had already been debating writing on Medium or Substack, but I found their systems and memberships convoluted. The Instagram ad for Vocal showed ease of use. I signed up. It was going to give me $0.003 per read, which was more than I was getting for posting on my own website Colochos de Flores anyways. Since signing up, I have grown my writing skills, community, pieces, into an allegedly positive digital footprint.

Intro to Challenges and My Creative Process

My creative process has been unexpectedly fueled and accelerated by Vocal challenges. Early on I came to the philosophy that if I submitted to a challenge I will likely not win it, but if I don’t submit then I definitely won’t win. I decided to bet on myself. The possibility of a reward determined my postings on Vocal. And I did end up getting rewarded early!

In January of 2021, the first challenge that intrigued me had to include an owl. My first story on this site, Plummeting into Carnations, included flowers and queer women falling in love for a night. If you look at my profile for two seconds then you can clearly see these parts of my personality. I like the piece for myself – it’s cute. I don’t know if it’s the most well-written. It’s definitely not the worst.

My second piece Death to Denim, a submission for a challenge about fashion, became a Top Story! For this to be only my second time posting on the website, I felt extremely validated that a mysterious/unknown panel of strangers read my story and deemed it “worthy“ to highlight and show other strangers “Hey! This story is interesting. Take a look.“ I took a screen recording of the front page of this website and sent it to half of my contact list.

My fifth story - A Gem, a Witch, and an 8 Foot Tall Lesbian about queer kids shows for a TV challenge - I actually did win the grand prize of $1000! I had now made more money than I ever thought I would from my writing!

Even with my early wins, I have found that my most successful stories have been the ones I started writing for a challenge but then took in a direction that no longer fit the challenge. My best examples of this have been Coracao because I wrote it for a superheroes micro fiction challenge with a maximum of 300 words. I wrote 600. I tried cutting it down but the heart (get it?) of the story could not be contained to 300 words. I decided to publish it, knowing that I no longer had a contender for the challenge. It unexpectedly became a Top Story! Every time I get a Top Story - which I have gotten a few times and I want to say it because I am proud of myself - I am grateful to the strangers behind the website.

Connection 

As for people on the website, I have made a web of connections! I started online friendships with RJ (founding member!) and C.R. Hughes. Sam Spinelli, Lighting Bolt, and Sean A. comment on my stories often and I appreciate it every time, even if I forget to actually comment back. (Sorry to those I’ve missed!) 

Even making these connections have inspired me. Most evidentally, RJ’s Instagram @awriterwhodraws encouraged me to make my own thumbnails/cover photos of my Stories. (This also led me to making my own “graphics“ for my blog at the beginning of each section.)

^You can see the timelapse of some of these digital art pieces on my art Instagram @arte.con.ariana

As for everyone else who reads or comments, I am grateful that strangers resonate with my stories. Of course my family and friends tell me they like my writing as well, but it’s also nice to get validation from people who don’t already love you. This compels me to practice writing for an audience. I always hope others will read my writing, but to actually achieve the kind of writing that others enjoy reading takes more detail than just my stream of consciousness.  

Assembling my place on the internet

Writing for vocal and betting on myself and writing for the challenges made me grow my published stories. I would share them with friends and family. One day my cousin asked if there was a way to subscribe to my writing. The single sentence (and my love of Maria Popova’s TheMarginalian.org) spawned a whole-ass newsletter, Xismosa Xit, that is turning five years old this month! I started it to feature my writing, but also to share the funny little things I was seeing in the world. It started as an email, then I posted it to Colochos de Flores as an archive. As the emails were getting too big, the email was just a link to Colochose de Flores. As I grew the newsletter, I decided it needed its own website. I found the perfect purple, pixely, 90s’-core template on Wordpress to host Xismosa Xit (pronounced Chismosa Shit).

Vocal and Xismosa Xit now work hand-in-hand. I try to get to a local coffee shop for an hour before work, a practice I have had for about three years, to be able to write and post and add to Vocal and build Xismosa Xit. Vocal has allowed me to build a backlog to share on Xismosa Xit since I write faster than I can share. I can also submit to more challenges because I just “throw“ them in. I even got Runner-Up in the Unreliable Narrator challenge for a story I had written two years previously: Deserted. I had written it for another owl challenge back then! I was a little disappointed when it originally didn’t get recognition, but it was validating to get my flowers later.

Changes and Improvements of Vocal

I know that Vocal is not perfect, and there are others who have more qualms than I do. My main one is that one of my poems - Hollow Tree Chest - was flagged as AI which infuriates me because I despise AI, so I pulled it back to my drafts and posted it on my writing blog instead. (I guess my issue is how do I argue against that besides showing my work, if I can even find the original draft?) 

They also recently changed the pay-per-read system so that only Vocal+ members get reads, so I wouldn’t join it now if I wasn’t already part of it. I can still appreciate that this is one way that they are trying to deter AI slop. 

I also worry a little that my writing is not as good as I think it is because they prioritize quality but additionally take into consideration “consistency in publishing” to publish Top Stories. However, I am still biased and think that my writing is good and deserves the highlighting.

(I wonder where they get the money from… I don’t think there’s enough of us paying monthly to be able to pay for the staff reading our writing, especially if they are not using AI (as it should be!!)?)

As for improvements, I was thrilled when they had challenges with word counts with a minimum of 50 words, so I could switch most of my poetry from my non-monetized blog to my monetized Vocal and get $0.006 per read. I do spend $9.99 on Vocal+ every month. I think I’m at a net loss monthly, unless I get two Top Stories and/or Runner-Up on a challenge.

Additionally, even though I won a $1000 prize early on, I do like that Vocal has made  their prizes less concentrated. Since Vocal has decided to switch their strategy from first, second, and third place winners to now five winners of $200 each, PLUS runner-ups and honorable mentions, I have received more recognition. So some months I make a five dollar profit!

Thus

Vocal has been life-changing for my creative life. It has given me prompts that also have the possibility of being rewarded, which encourages me to write and post my writing publically, which helped me create more writing connections, which motivated my digital art to make cover photos and improve my drawing and composition, which creates a backlog and writing pieces I can actually share with loved ones, which turned into a newsletter to share these writings, which I have added components to brick by brick, which turned into a blog that people enjoy enough to ask when the next one is coming out, which is still moving me to create even more multi-media projects, which fulfills me, which brings me here to be grateful to this website.

Thank you Vocal for pushing me further in my writing creativity than I thought possible five years ago. And thank YOU for reading!

This piece will be featured in my 5-Year anniversary newsletter on Xismosa Xit, so link coming soon!