200

I am unrecognizable to all but those who know me deeply and those who knew me as a child. My life has changed immensely in the last year; my productivity has been outrageous in comparison to past years. I have done so much healing and changing and growing that my feeling is to do what I can to stay in the present. I am not good with goals, I never have been, I am not good with demands and goals are demands. I have learned a million ways to hack my brain so I can start accomplishing the things I really like. Vocal helped me with that, it helped me learn how to just go for it. It planted the seed and in the next year I will grow, probably beyond here, but I think before that I will sow as much love as possible.

I like many love Vocal for it's community, and I like most am pulling my hair out wondering why they aren't taking the literal hundreds of good FREE ideas being thrown at them from their most valuable asset. Their creators. The people who write on this platform are kind and honest and uplifting and TALENTED. Vocal you did a whole advertising campaign for investors without I don't know, maybe having a creator write about Vocal. Or take over your pitiful social media presence for a day.

So this year I'm with many who have voiced their opinions and concerns, I'm not sure about Vocal for the advancement of my writing. I've been uninspired by the challenges, but I have been so inspired by my fellow creators. The sense of community has very little to do with the platform, in fact I think Vocal should be counting its lucky stars that it has attracted the talent it has.

I do want to fight for this community though, because I love it. I love the interactions I have on discord and in the Facebook groups. I love to see my favorite authors pop up on my notifications, I get excited when people comment and interact with my stuff.

There's something missing though Vocal, and you can see some of my other comments in this article. I think some of these things can benefit both of us.

This year I'm going to write a memoir about working in retail, I'm going to work on my fiction novel, I'm going to make an art book of poetry. None of those things are going to happen on vocal, but all of those things are happening because of vocal.

I'm going to keep prompting people most days on the Vocal+Assist discord to share their backlog pieces. I'm going to keep cheering on artists new and old, I'm going to read and interact with as many pieces as my very small number of spoons will allow me to.

I'm going to keep acting like this is the platform I fell in love with until it becomes that again. I'm going to keep pointing out things that are unfair or off because that is who I am.

I am unrecognizable because this platform gave me confidence in a time that was a crisis of that confidence. It gave me a community of writers that change and challenge me with every interaction. I want to keep that, I want to help give that to other people.

Criticism from love is some of the most valuable kind of criticism you can get in art, in life. All of this criticism is free and full of passion. Vocal if you've noticed that a lot of these 200 entries are those of frustration it's because at some point you created a platform for which people wanted to fight.

I love this community, I have been feeling less inclined to post recently, but I think I will push through that; because I know that people are invested in me here. The friends and writers I've met on here are so valuable to me. It's not because of you Vocal, it's because you somehow managed to pull the most incredible, supportive group of authors on the internet.

Don't waste them.

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