Why My Haiku Took So Long

Funny Problems Trying To Publish On Vocal

By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred Published about a year ago • 2 min read

The Two Haiku

Introduction

This morning. I decided to submit a haiku for the Vocal "Haunted Echoes" Challenge.

The music is "How Long" by Ace, by the way.

It didn't go as I thought it would.

This is Why.

Why My Haiku Took So Long

When I saw the criteria for the Vocal "Haunted Echoes" challenge, the words came into my head immediately. I don't know what that says about me, but the words were there.

I thought I would tart the text up a bit to make it a littel more frightening, like this:

We are accustomed to almost instant publication on Vocal, but sometimes things take a little longer. However, this was going to be a ten-minute job at the outside.

I waited and waited. If the story is rejected, it normally appears in drafts, but it was not there, or in submitted, or in published.

Vocal's Stories tab is still very slow in updating, so I found the story in my browser history, and it looked fine to me.

Then I checked my email and found this:

It seems my text treatment had caused it to be rejected as "not English". This has happened before, so I should have remembered.

I could have also used the "Update Story" button to retexture it, which would have been easier than searching through my browser history.

When I resubmitted the fixed story, it would accept the resubmission; it may have had the initial rejection still in memory or cache.

So I made a new copy and published that, and then both copies were published.

I could not delete the rogue copy because, as I said, the Vocal Stories tab is very slow at updating, so I went into the rogue one, renamed it "X" and put "Delete" in the subheading and text to let readers know that they shouldn't read it.

Eventually, it did appear in my Vocal Stories, so I could delete it, so it is now gone.

Conclusion

So that is why it took me an hour to publish my haiku. It made me remember a few things and learn a few new ones, which is why I have shared this with you, in case it happens to you.

Thank you so much for reading, and hope this has been a little help to you.