Late August 2026: 11 Goals Accomplished

I was so excited about some recent accomplishments, that I had completely forgotten that one of them was a goal on my list! I finally went back and checked off the box for the goal I had accomplished in late August. I had won a competition!

I was one of the winners in Vocal’s “Too Hot for This” competition, and I was so excited. I had never won a competition on Vocal before. Once, a while back, there was a huge contest with thousands and thousands of people, and I had moved on to the second round, but that was it. And it wasn’t something that earned me a badge on my profile, but this one did! My story “Hot Soup for Brains” was a winner.

When I read the prompt, seeing that the story needed to be humorous, I felt like that was a call to me. I wanted to attempt some more Vocal challenges as it had been quite some time, and this one really spoke to me. Winning this also reminded me, and solidified in me, something that I had been going over in my head. I am naturally inclined to write comedy, or to incorporate comedy into my stories and scripts. So many of my scripts naturally are comedies, but a lot of my short stories will be more in the sci-fi, fantasy arena. Some of the stories I’ll incorporate comedy into them, but sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t. There are some stories where it doesn’t fit. But I had been doing something where even if humor would fit into the story, I’d opt not to do that.

My recent thoughts were, “But why? Shouldn’t I incorporate it more. Isn’t that kind of my thing?” I don’t want to pigeonhole myself into one type of writing, but I want to show I am a master at something. My scripts all live in that humorous arena for the most part, but there is a bit of a disconnect with my scripts and my stories, where maybe only half of them have a noticeable amount of humor. And I thought, shouldn’t I make it so that more of my stories have varying levels of humor? It comes naturally to me, so why fight it?

And then I won this contest. And it solidified it for me. Yeah, that’s my thing. Humor. Whether it’s an R-Rated comedy, a PG-13 comedy, a story taking place in real life, a story with a tiny unrealistic piece to it, a story that is so bonkers in the fantasy realm, a story that is a sci-fi/fantasy blend, my thing is to be funny when I write them. I was happy to be one of the winners of the competition for obvious reasons, but it was also a sign that I had been needing to allow myself to dive into what my voice truly is.

And just before I had found out that I won this contest, I had also found out about a short story of mine that would be published! In fact, if you’re interested, you can pre-order now! My story “A New Adult” is a horror-thriller (yes, with a wee bit of humor) that is going to be in Slash Magazine’s “Feast” | Vol. 01 Issue 04. It will be out soon, both in print, and online.

Slash Magazine is also going to have a booth at the Little Ghosts Festival in Toronto in late September, and so they’ll have issues of “Feast” on hand for everyone in attendance for the cinema-literary-combo festival. I’m a little far from Toronto, so I won’t be able to make it. But I’m excited that it will be happening!

And just after that, and just before finding out that I had won this competition, I had found out that I moved on to the Quarterfinalist round in The Golden Script Competition! My script “Pumpkin Festival” was among 1,880 initial scripts, and moved on to the next round with only the top 13%. As you can see, I had so much great news, that was why it had slipped my mind to go check off my goal on my list.

But before I let you think my head had gotten too big, they did then announce the Semifinalists for this competition, and I did not advance. I’m still excited to have moved on to the Quarterfinalist round (and I had moved on to a second round in a past competition from this year so I had already checked off that goal) because that’s a huge accomplishment. Of course, I can’t help but to be bummed out that I didn’t go any further.

Furthermore, I had submitted my script to a producer for feedback… different script… and even though that script last year was an Official Selection in two competitions, won another competition, and was a Semifinalist in another… this producer did not really like the script. It was a situation where, through this particular site, if he liked the script and liked my writing, he could recommend the script and/or me… and that would be big for my status People who get recommended on this site will get put on lists, they’ll get noticed, and whether that producer is interested in their work or not, others may come flocking. 

But that didn’t happen. He was not a fan of this script. It wasn’t for him, and in reading much of his feedback, I think I determined he wasn’t the perfect audience for it. However, some of his feedback was valuable, and I am going to keep some of it in mind while I do another edit.

It’s a good reminder, everyone has different tastes. Some people could love a script while others truly dislike it. You have wins and losses happening all the time… but you’re a writer, right? You’re going to have far more losses. You just got to keep your chin up and keep on. You’ll want to be looking up when those wins come along so that you can fully see and appreciate them. Like I’ve got going on with this win!