Growth On Vocal

In 2020 I found Vocal on Instagram through an ads campaign. I don't know what I was necessarily expecting but I found it intriguing to be apart of a platform where people could openly write content.

I didn't know what to really expect but I thought it was a solid concept. The closest thing I had found to this prior was Deviant Art. I had a long distance friend of mine who would contribute content on the site. It feels so long ago but this is when Myspace was dying and Facebook began to peak. It was a creator platform, where you could upload photography and digital art for people to buy. But my favorite by far was the creative writing section.

Being in 9th grade and having no real concept of strangers on the internet back in 2009, getting real time feed back on my pieces helped me grow as a writer. I sort of used it as a coping mechanism for when I was experiencing childhood abuse. I didn't have internet at my house, so once a day I would walk over to my local library across town. Mind you it was dusty and old and there was a lot of drug usage going on. So booting up the library computer and just seeing that sweet home screen felt like a nice escape.

DeviantArt.com

(For context here's my actual profile in case you were curious)

I realized after I pulled up the site, not only did I see I had over 10k in page views, but I remembered how old I've become. Our currency was gifting llamas, and they had different ones for different levels or tiers as a creator. You could write a section blog, and let your followers know what you were reading or listening to. Literally it's a gem in the rough of old school social media.

Growth is a part of the writing process. It's interesting seeing how much has changed, because it's like a capsule frozen in time. Many of these works were from that Freshman year in high school, writing at my kitchen table in front of the AC unit because I didn't have central air. I would then run to the library and transcribe it to the website. I remember my creativity was at a literal peak at that time.

I remember vividly calling my friend Taylor on a landline phone, because my family was poor and I couldn't afford a cellphone until 2012 when I graduated high school. We would share our writings, and talk about random things for hours on end. You know teenage stuff. I had a crush on this guy, and while it never fully panned into anything- he unknowingly unlocked a huge part of me becoming a writer.

I focus mostly now on the creative writing short story fiction based stuff or blogish type posts. I love the prompts here on Vocal and the opportunities it gives people to get their voices heard, but also create a side hustle so to speak with writing! This is now my adult time capsule. That being said- I think there's somethings that I wish Vocal would add or contribute that could make the site even better.

Photography & Digital Art

I think even though Vocal is solely a writing platform currently I think it would do really successful with introducing the ability to upload our own photography and digital art content that creators make. This was a huge point for me. Sometimes I didn't have 100 word story to go along with it, I just wanted the world to see what I was looking at through my perspective. Even this photo below was taken on a day after church, on my family's first digital camera, and it is now featured in a cancer ward at the local hospital in that town I previously mentioned.

What would be cool is if Vocal set up categories just like it did with writing. Food, Music, etc. Then had photography contests for people to enter for the chance to win prizes for themes that month. Sort of like doing nature, travel scapes, weather etc. It would challenge a whole other type of art form.

As for digital art or creative art in general it would be cool to post projects you are working on. Here's some of the art I did my Sophmore year just so you have an idea. It's not perfect, but truthfully with the tools that I had I think I did a pretty damn good job. It would be cool to use Vocal as more of a portfolio of sorts for the art that we create both writing and digital.

Imagine how cool would it be to be able to apply for a job, where all your work was centrally located on one site, and potential clients can go in and see you posting or contributing content. There are so many companies who are looking to hire digital media creators, and hire people regularly to write content for them as ghost writers due to the lack of time they have in their personal lives.

They are looking for people like us, who have the mindset of a writer, and not everyone can do this. There's a thing about left side versus the right side of the brain. The left side is analytical- meaning like really good at math, science, etc. While the right side of the brain is all creativity! You'll see people who are artists, deep emotional thinkers, musicians.

I don't know how logistically you could swing it. I'm not techy, but I see there's an element where I build my writings like a portfolio. I am creating meaningful work, that's a great hobby. But there's so much I feel like Vocal could do to expand the user base within the site. I think also adding the photography category alone would help boost the space. Artists could have a 200 word caption and explain their piece, keep in mind however it's not meant to be instagram for selfies. This is real photography.

Feedback

Something I noticed in the feedback or comments section is the lack of criticism. I'm not saying tear the work apart, but rather add actual input. The only way to grow as a writer is to get feedback that is constructive. Instead of saying "Good Job" or "Congrats On Top Story" actually comment something you liked about it.

It's okay to be vulnerable and share what you liked. I don't leave a long comment typically, but I will type in things I thought were cool about the story like "I liked the way you worded things here, I felt like I could envision myself on the plane." or "I like how you took the prompt and did it from this perspective."

Taking the time to write feed back is important I feel like as a writer, but when I do get the validation that it's as good as it sounds in my head when it goes into my key board! I get pride knowing others enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Editing

Vocal, is there a possibility of getting better editing software on the platform? It's not totally necessary, but it's something I would LOVE as a writer. For grammar and spell check. I notice that when I type something up, and then I transfer it to a physical word document I notice a lot of mistakes that were not caught. I would love to have editing capabilities in site to have my content be better quality.

Writing Workshops?

I would LOVE a potential town hall with famous authors or writers in general, like once a quarter talking about the book writing process! Like taking short stories and expanding them into full blown books. How to work with an editor and publisher. Like real talk, it would be really stellar. I see the podcast format there is going here, so maybe add that on there potentially? Just a thought.

Your Why

I will leave this here, but it's something Vocal may consider here adding to the piece is the inspiration behind it. I take a lot of what I write about and base it off of bits and pieces in my real life. Something I think would be cool would be if there was a section in the writing portion where I could leave an insight to the reader about my thought process or for us to convey like fun facts etc.

Vocal you seriously don't have to do any of the suggestions I am leaving here, but these are thoughts I have had recently and I felt like the only way for someone to see this was to do what I do best and write! I think this platform is going super far from a creator stand point and I can't wait to see what comes out in the future with you all! Cheers!

-Kayla