My 2025 Vocal Community Stories

Following Rachel Deeming's suggestion at the beginning of the year, I challenged myself to write at least one story for each of the Vocal Communities throughout 2025. There are 48 Communities now, and I have written for 30 of them in over four years on Vocal, before 2025. In this earlier story, I made an inventory of my best stories (often earning a Top Story badge) in these communities, but I cannot edit it anymore so I'm creating this one.

I've been adding to this index as I published the stories, and linked them through a hyperlink rather than an embedded link. That allowed me to list them all. I have organized them in the alphabetical order, just like they are listed on the Vocal Communities page.

The communities that I still have to write a story for are not in bold and I've left a line there to add the story when it's published. I really wanted to make this index my 500th story and was hoping to cover all the communities by Nov.17, when this was published. But alas ten were still remaining. I will do my best to finish them all by the end of the year.

On December 31, I published the last story for this challenge in the Interview community. Challenge completed. Phew.

1. 01

January 17, 2025 - Practical tips on how to Run a GoFundMe campaign.

2. Art

August 31 - Sao Paulo street art story

3. Beat

November 20 - A collection of Ukrainian anti-war songs in my personal playlist.

4. Blush

November 17 - My hair care tips for hair in trouble.

5. BookClub

June 28 - impressions from Liz Nugent's book "Strange Sally Diamond." Earned me a TS on the same day.

6. Chapters

October 28 - All chapters of the Ditched series, with request for feedback.

7. Cleats

September 29 - My very first 1996 story about a college football game I attended live.

8. Confessions

February 17 - a story of an accidental confession on a live radio show.

9. Criminal

November 13 - Putin Is a Known Killer who will probably never face justice.

10. Critique

August 14 - a fantasy story What If Great Dead Writers Were on Facebook - 1. Earned me a Top Story badge less than two hours from the publication. Also put me on Leaderboard for the first time.

11. Earth

December 30 - Majestic Mountains, my ode of love to the high places on Earth I've been too.

12. Education

June 30 - an analysis of media effects from specific forms of content, illustrated by August Wilson's Fences.

13. Families

July 11 - a story of righting a bad dream about my family.

14. Feast

February 9 - a new recipe I tried, Creamy Mushroom and Spinach Salmon, with tips on how to variate it and make it more versatile.

February 20 - A Taste of Home challenge entry that got me a Runner-Up badge, titled "My Grandmother's Kulchatay".

15. Fiction

January 5 - a humorous Drabble that earned me a Top Story.

16. Filthy

September 20 - a romantic dinner story, a part of my Ditched series.

17. Futurism

January 20 - a dream story about a train ride I want to manifest. It did manifest alright: I won $100 in a scratch-off lottery!

18. FYI

April 2 - an extremely practical guide on How to Survive Trump Tariffs.

19. Gamers

December 23 - Tetris and me, my history with the game.

20. Geeks

January 16 - a 2015 movie review about David Foster Wallace, honored as a Top Story.

21. History

April 4 - "Beyond Vietnam," in remembrance of MLK's 1957 sermon.

June 13 - "Divorce by Combat" for the History Would've Burnt This Page challenge.

22. Horror

September 27 - a nightmare story from the Ditched series.

23. Humans

July 27 - Mishka The Bear, a dream interpretation story. Earned me a TS badge.

24. Humor

March 2 - a story about my failed attempt to smuggle eggs from Canada, three days later honored as a top story.

March 18 - another version of the Canadian eggs, rewritten for the Absurdist Challenge (got the Runner-Up status), titled Egg-stra-sized.

25. Interview

December 31 - My Signalman Grandpa, a story of my WW2 vet grandfather.

26. Journal

April 22 - a faux journal entry that might give you unexpected insights into a narcissistic personality.

27. Lifehack

March 27 - a story about Stevie, my pineapple plant, finally fruiting.

28. Longevity

April 12 - a story of an accidental cosmetic discovery. I missed the deadline to submit it to the challenge.

29. Marriage

October 27 - A story about DIYing a wedding dress, to publish something happy and uplifting in the spooky month.

30. Men

November 6 - "I Don't Need Another Daughter!" a story of botched adoption.

31. Motivation

April 20 - A story about Ted Lasso's leadership that earned me a TS.

32. Petlife

December 15 - a story about stray dogs in Tbilisi and how the government of Georgia is trying to control their overpopulation.

33. Photography

August 28 - a photo report of a night walk in Tbilisi.

34. Poets

October 27 - a series of haiku inspired by a creepy painting "Jorogumo."

35. Potent

November 11 - My only potent experience of consuming gummies.

36. Pride

December 3 - Love and Marriage with Pride, a story of a consequential letter

37. Proof

October 11 - A story about a Kakheti wine tour I went to with a group of new friends in early October.

38. Psyche

February 12 - the story of my Birthday Blues, was awarded Top Story two days later.

39. Serve

December 22 - Stolen Bike, Not Valor, a story of an incident involving a marine.

40. Styled

December 18 - Silk! - a story about the history, production and versatility of silk. Includes styling tips for silk scarves.

41. Chain

December 2 - New Writing Crypto Coin, a story about AVC-launched coin to help digital creators.

42. The Swamp

January 29 - Putin-Trump conversation that changed the world, for The Moment That Changed Everything challenge.

March 1 - my reaction to Trump's bullying of Zelenskyy in the White House

March 16 - a new story branching out of Calling Moscow series, titled Calling Elon

June 2 - Trump-Putin conversations, reformatted as TACO-PACO phone calls. There are many more in this series, but this one earned a Top Story.

43. Trader

July 25 - musings about my stock investments in renewable energy and electric vehicles.

44. Unbalanced

December 28 - a story about the legendary Soviet mountain climber Mikheil Khergiani who tragically died in a climbing accident.

45. Viva

June 17 - a story about my colonoscopy adventure.

46. Wander

January 15 - a story of coming home from a trip to Germany.

47. Wheel

October 23 - A story of Firefly, my favorite Nissan Juke car.

48. Writers

March 20 - some ideas on how to write a Drabble. Earned me a TS badge on March 25.

November 4 - the results of my unofficial challenge "He Always Wants to Go Home" where Elon Musk is an alien stuck on Earth, desperately wanting to go home. All wonderful stories by Vocal authors who participated in the challenge are linked here.