My Vocal Awards Submissions

I finally caved and entered the Vocal Awards.

(pause for applause)

thank you, thank you.

Initially, I had not planned on entering them. For whatever reason, my muses weren’t channeling into the rabbit holes in ways I felt like pursuing, so I kept my head down and focused on my other current WIPs.

Then I got the discount codes and thought, “Well, it’s $10, and I think I have some good stuff. Why not submit some stuff already in the portfolio?”

I’m going to assume and project this as a universal thought. I’m also going to project and assume that everyone else also then got hit, near the same time, with the crippling imposter syndrome that always hangs out around the corner from where you type.

If you pick that one, why didn’t it win the challenge you wrote it for? Clearly, it’s not good enough.

That one wasn’t even a top story. Why pick that one?

I’m unsure if there is an established personification of imposter syndrome, but honestly, I’d rather face the Grim Reaper than the Insecurity Harvester (™).

Anyway, I went ahead and hit submit on three of my already published works, one that was for a challenge and two that weren’t and happened to fit into the criteria. Maybe that was the muses sending me inspiration while they hid from the Insecurity Harvest (™, who I’m now imagining as the Shrike from Hyperion for you fellow deep nerds out there).

To keep my now-incarnated enemy at bay, I wanted to dive into the qualities behind my chosen submissions. With any luck, I’ll shed some light on the process and let you, dear reader, revisit them with new eyes. Or you can laugh at me and call me an idiot behind your laptop or phone screen. I can take it. I’m a big boy.

Without further adieu….I present with my self-made positive critiques of each piece!

I’m going to start with my submission to the Microfiction challenge:

I love this little story, dark bits and all. Microfiction stories are great because they force us to cut away the irrelevant bits and focus on the story. Let’s start before we even get into the story and check out the prompt. The Vocal Awards prompt allows for 250 words. Instead, I decided to stick with the 100 that I published. Why? Is it because I’m a genius? Obviously not, but I felt that the original submission was a complete story, and if it could be done in 100 words, any more would just obscure the story.

Let’s look at the story then. First, I had to utilize the title and subtitle to set the stage. Another thing I love about microfiction is that everything matters.

So the title itself, Hallowed Lands. I went with Hallowed as I felt that it combined all the elements I wanted succinctly: a place unholy, shadowed, and mysterious.

The subtitle then continues this motif. Fort D’Exilles is where the mysterious Man in the Iron Mask served time, a captivating story in and of itself. Finally, I capped it with “Date Unknown.” For whatever reason, I find those two simple words unsettling.

Now, what makes this story stand out to me, as its absolutely infallible author, is its promise and payoff. We are promised that the hallowed lands will turn one insane, verified by the informant being locked away. We then experience these strange, hallowed lands, and then are returned with our main character to the priests and a locked cell, and are forced to contemplate the main character's madness as well as our own understanding of the tale and answer the question, if he’s not mad, what happened?

Personally, I find the answers to both to be unsettling.

Most importantly, this was the piece that really brought me back to Vocal after a long break. Since then, I’ve found enough success and made many friends here. If my calculations are correct, by the end of the day after this is published, I’ll have hit the one-thousand-read mark.

And that, my friends, is the real bane of the Insecurity Harvester, The Power of Friendship!

Moving on, I entered the following into the Haiku challenge:

This was the hardest one for me to pick, if I’m being honest. I find Haiku absolutely fascinating since, in many ways, it’s the antithesis of my favorite genre, fantasy. It focuses on simple in principle but complex execution criteria to deliver a fully-rounded scene. It’s the opposite of a six-hundred-page tome that spells out lineage and history and magic and politics, all the things I love. I also hate how it’s taught since true Haiku involves much more than a 5-7-5 syllable scheme. This is a common theme in my ramblings for those who haven’t picked up on it yet.

(stares violently at the Great Gatsby)

(A/N: I'm not an expert, and there are haiku experts on Vocal; go listen to them).

But I went with this one because I liked how I twisted the Kigo from a traditional Kigo for spring in blossoms into a more conventional Kigo for autumn, a diminished blossom or falling leaf. The kireji, to me, in the third line transitions us back to a different stream of consciousness, thus creating a complete haiku. I gave myself a pass on the first two lines rhyming because, truly, most of my education on Haiku comes from James Clavell’s Shogun. Sue me.

Finally, my pièce de résistance, my entry into the fantasy category.

I wrote this piece as a part of my own fantasy challenge (bumper!), but I loved how it turned out:

If you can’t tell, I’m a sucker for a high noon showdown (other examples here, here, and here). It’s a staple scene for a reason. Epicness plays, and a mono a mono struggle is always epic.

I’ll let you progress through the story, dear reader.

There are a few things I was able to fit into this piece that felt like I had made it. First, I felt as if it encompassed the world I hoped to create within the confines of my self-imposed prompt. Thank you to all the comments that helped validate the visceralness I was going for.

Secondly, I sneak in some thematic commentary on the futility of the struggle. Despite our heroic emperor’s perceived success, the war rages on in the background, the antithesis to the initial promise. In this case, there’s personification in the lust for power that drives us, or our antagonist, to do unnatural and illogical things in the name of conquest.

Therefore, it checks all my boxes when it comes to plot, conflict, characters, and themes.

Finally, most importantly, I think it’s a cool story. It’s a great honor for me to walk in the footsteps of the authors who inspire me and come up with something in that same vein. It makes me want to explore that world more, which I am doing now in my two WIP novels, with the hope that one day maybe those same authors will explore it with me on the other side of the page. I don't think I'll win any of these, I hardly think I'm good enough to be more than a gnat on some of the writing giants on Vocal, but I'm proud of them anyway.

Now, there’s some motivation to keep the Insecurity Harvester away!

Anyway, thank you for indulging my ramblings, and I hope you took something away from this, even if it’s just that I’m insane. I would love to see what y'all submit.