Inspiration
The Attraction
So, how do we get more new users to engage with the Vocal page? This was the one conundrum I have thought about the most, long before it was posted as a particular question on the page. We have a unique environment here that allows us to discuss multiple subjects without many obstacles (just get the word limit right). I am working on one of her other Challenges as I type this, and I have a Vocal Challenge in mind that will all come together, at least by the deadline later next week. As I thought about this over the years, I came up with certain ideas - good and bad - that could help. But the question is very specific: new users to our page.
By Kendall Defoe 2 months ago in Writers
How Many Rejections?
This was a fun cosmic coincidence. I had just recently hit my "writing anniversary" of three years since the first time I had been published. Of course, I had been trying to get published for a while before that, and I had been entering all sorts of contests as well. All in all, submitting to publications and contests has basically been going on for the last 5 years of my life.
By Stephen Kramer Avitabile2 months ago in Writers
Projects
How many out there of heard of those sites that 'sell' college notes or even from high school and even middle school/elementary notes from courses that they have taken. What would readers think if I were to write chapter outlines from textbooks in the various fields I have studied and published them here on Vocal. The textbook and author will be mentioned. The main purpose of these outlines will be mainly just to give general introductions to the subjects for I know things change but the basics do stay the same. I still have my old textbooks from many of my years of schooling from elementary through graduate school. Chapter outlines will be from textbooks dealing with education to counseling/human services to nursing. Please let me know in the comments what you think.
By Mark Graham2 months ago in Writers
This Is What They Don't Get
They looked at me and said, "Don't you feel lonely, living in your own little world all the time?" And I didn't answer right away. Because it's not a little world to me. It's the only one where I can actually breathe. Where I don't have to explain myself or shrink just to be tolerated and where I can think without being corrected, rest without being judged, exist without always performing for someone else's comfort. So l looked back and said, "You mean the world where people pretend all day, where you say you're fine when you're not, where everything depends on being liked, accepted, approved? You think I should trade peace for that? I don't feel lonely in here. I feel safe. But maybe that's the part you don't understand, because you've spent so long adjusting yourself for everyone else, you forgot what it's like to just be."
By Annam M Gordon3 months ago in Writers
Notes At And On The End. Top Story - July 2026.
I find it to be the most utterly pretentious notion to contemplate who will be present at my funeral. After all, I’ll be dead, and you’ll be wasting your time looking at a portrait of me since, should my wishes actually be followed and not bastardized like the adaptation of The Hobbit was, my ashes will be tucked in the core of a tree somewhere. What a dreadful waste of time for all of us to assemble here, truly.
By Matthew J. Fromm3 months ago in Writers
A Writer's Spark of Inspiration
Sometimes us writers need a boost of inspiration as we click and twirl our pen, wondering what to write next. We also might need that inspiration when we are in one of our writing slumps. We want to write but at the same time, we just aren't feeling it. Maybe it's burnout, or maybe it's just one of those days.
By Jasmine Aguilar3 months ago in Writers
Goodbye to all that. Top Story - November 2025.
Being released from prison is something that ought to be celebrated. The end of a sentence, the end of captivity, the end of a regrettable time in anyone's life, should they have the misfortune and/or poor judgment, to have found themselves incarcerated. Job done, the price paid, all square with The House (to quote a line from the movie: The Green Mile).
By Raymond G Taylor3 months ago in Writers
The Vocal Situation
Introduction Thankfully I can now publish and there are some improvement in the editor although I hate the autosave feature. When it fails and says it is saved locally you don;t know whether to trust it. As yet it has worked for me, but I do save an offline copy just in case.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 3 months ago in Writers
The Architecture of Shadows: Reconstructing Sai Marie Johnson
To read Sai Marie Johnson in the wake of her passing is to enter a labyrinth where the doors are constantly shifting. In the mid-2020s, Johnson occupied a singular, almost defiant space in contemporary American letters. Working from the rain-heavy landscapes of the Pacific Northwest- a terrain that deeply saturated the atmosphere of her later prose, she was a figure who fundamentally rejected the modern boundary between the commercial and the sacred, the visceral and the esoteric.
By Sai Marie Johnson3 months ago in Writers
