The Art of Becoming My Father

My father gifted me my russet eyes and my olive Ashkenazi skin. He cursed me with idiopathic kidney disease and curved optic nerves. We share the same personality traits, the same likes, the same dislikes. I mirror his idiosyncrasies in everything I do…for the most part. Unfortunately, I did not manage to inherit the trait that I admire most in my father.

My father is a writer; a published playwright, to be precise, taking after his father. He has made a living off creating works of art. He can weave creative tales with his words and make people feel a wide range of emotions with just one scene. I have always been envious of his writing skills.

From early childhood, my father instilled his love of writing in me. One of my earliest memories, dating back to my toddler years, is sitting on his lap in his office, telling him stories that he would then type on whatever program called itself a word processor in the early ‘90s. In second grade, our class was instructed to handwrite stories that we would then later type up; in a precursor to the verbose writing style that would plague me for the rest of my life, my story was overwhelmingly long for a second grader (or anyone, really) to type up in a reasonable amount of time. My father called out of work on several occasions to come into my classroom and help me type it. My fourth-grade curriculum focused heavily on writing, and my father was there volunteering every single week. I wanted to be a fictional author when I grew up; while I yearned to write books and not plays, I still dreamed of being a writer, just like my father.

Unfortunately, both my career choices and my personality soon put an end to that dream. Disillusioned with the overly metaphoric interpretation of literature, I dropped out of honors English in high school and managed to avoid taking any English classes in college. Though I still loved writing, my perfectionism prevented me from ever completing a piece if I had no deadline, and my lack of confidence stopped me from ever sharing my writing with anyone outside my family. I chose an extremely science-oriented career, and while writing is of course involved, it is entirely non-fiction and evokes minimum creativity.

I joined Vocal in June 2021. I have no recollection of how I found it or why I joined. As anyone can plainly see, I have done little with it, having submitted only five stories over the two and a half years I have been a member. Only recently did I rediscover Vocal and get drawn in to the Vocal challenges aspect of the platform. In 2024, I plan to use these challenges to delve into the world of fictional writing and revisit my dream of being a writer like my father.

Bring Back the Fun

I do have the privilege of calling myself an author, having been published twice in academic journals in 2023. One article was the culmination of eleven years’ worth of research and data analysis, while the other was an individual project on a previously unexplored topic that also proved to be a wonderful “I told you so” to the surprising number of colleagues who told me that I would not succeed at getting this research published. These two publications marked the high point of my career, and I do intend to continue academic writing in the future.

But academic writing is in a different class from the kind of writing that Vocal challenges encourage. Academic writing is not fun. During my writing process, I spent most of the time fighting with the R software about whether my data was non-parametric, or complaining about how 2011 Rachel did not have her life together and has completely messed up everything 2020 Rachel was trying to do. This stood in direct contrast to my father’s writing process, during which he would tell us all about the silly character names and ridiculous puns he was able to come up with for his play. Writing was his job, but he was also able to enjoy himself and to have fun.

Vocal challenges are fun. There is no pressure to participate, and while the loose, vague curriculums often annoy me, they do allow for incredibly open interpretation and creativity. The short word count required means that if a piece of work must be abandoned or is not submitted, one only has lost several hours of effort as opposed to several years. There are several styles of writing, mostly in the poetry category, that I had never heard of before the challenge was announced. My father instilled his love of writing in me, but over time, I seem to have lost it; I hope to use Vocal challenges to renew that passion.

Put Myself Out There

My father’s plays are available to the world. Anybody anywhere can request a script to peruse from the publishing company. Some of his works have been translated into other languages. By doing this, he has allowed strangers to see the inner workings of his mind and soul, and in doing so he opens himself up to critique, to ridicule, to criticism. He has done this, seemingly with ease, time and time again. To me, this is an enormous hurdle that I have yet to overcome.

I will give myself credit for allowing myself to be vulnerable with the publications of my two academic papers. Any flaw or provably false information in these papers has the potential to derail my career. Yet academic journal articles cater to a rather niche audience. Very few people in the world are interested in reading about the home ranges of neonate ornate box turtles or urinary crystals in chimpanzees. These articles may be available to the world, but that does not mean that the world wants to read them.

From the minimal interaction I have had with the Vocal community, I have been impressed with how friendly it is. Comments are nearly always positive, and everyone is incredibly supportive of one another. Vocal will allow me to share my writing with people who are far more intelligent and experienced than me but will add to my level of confidence rather than deplete it. It also helps, from a psychological perspective, that I do not personally know any writers on Vocal; while I care about their opinions as human beings and as fellow writers, I do not feel as exposed as I do with people who I know outside of an online forum. Will I ever get to the point where I can comfortably share my work with the world like my father has? I cannot say. But Vocal provides a good steppingstone to work towards that goal.

Stop Being a Perfectionist

I do not believe that I will ever be entirely satisfied with a written work of mine. I feel like there will always be some nagging feeling that a phrase could have been reworded, or a little more detail would have really improved a chapter, or that there was a grammatical error that slipped past both the editors and me. When a piece gets published, that piece is immortalized exactly as it is in that moment.

This concept of finality and acceptance is one I have always struggled with. It is something I stress over immensely. I have never written drafts; rather, I will spend hours focusing on one paragraph until it is perfect (and I will still likely be unhappy with it even if I cannot suggest any further worthwhile changes). As a result, it takes me significantly longer to write a piece than it should, and I imagine I would be rather hesitant to submit a written work for publication knowing that there will still be changes I want made. In fact, there are several major things I would change in each of my academic publications were I given the opportunity. I do not know if this is something my father struggles with in his writing; I doubt it, as he does not seem to be a perfectionist in other areas of his life. But if it is a concern of his, it is clear he has overcome it; he has over a dozen published works that he will never be able to change, and it does not seem to bother him one bit.

Again, Vocal challenges provide a good steppingstone for me in trying to break this habit. The deadlines on the challenge provide plenty of time to work on a piece but prevent me from spending eternity trying to perfect it. Knowing that I have the ability, as a Vocal+ member, to make slight changes even after publication eases my anxiety about submitting a piece. Hopefully one day, like my father, I will be able to submit pieces for publication with ease of mind and satisfaction.

Maybe Win Some Money?

The royalties from my father’s plays not only provided for us but enabled us to live a comfortable, upper middle-class lifestyle. When I decided to pursue a career in veterinary technology, with the goal of working for a non-profit organization, I knew that I was going to be giving up the lifestyle I grew up in. Sure enough, my salary forces me to live much more modestly than I did as a child; the three-story house has been traded in for a one-bedroom apartment, the new car for a used model, charitable donations drastically reduced. I have accepted this and am content. I love my job. I do not need a house nor a fancy car to be happy. I also enjoy writing for the sake of writing; it is not a chore or a job, but rather a hobby. Nevertheless, the lure of award money does have a certain appeal. $500 would pay off my car insurance for six months. $2024 is nearly two months’ rent.

I do not quite understand how Vocal works. I do not understand how “Top Stories” are chosen. I am still too shy to share my writing among my friends and family to attract more readers. The curriculums for the challenges are a little too vague for my personal preference and I cannot discern who my target audience is supposed to be. On the one hand, this all seems like a futile exercise. But what I do know is this: I cannot win the challenges if I do not participate in them. I cannot make writing a secondary source of income if I refuse to do the work. I want to be able to support myself financially, at least to some extent, using my writing skills, just as my father has successfully done. If participating in more challenges will increase my chances of winning some money, then that is what I intend to do.

The Ultimate 2024 Goal

My father does not know about my Vocal writing. So far there has been nothing worthy of mentioning. Hopefully, that will change in the coming year. I long to be able to tell him that I have been awarded for words that have been channeled from my thoughts and imagination to paper. I know how proud he will be, and how honored he will feel as I follow in his footsteps while still forging my own path. May 2024 be the year in which it happens.