300 Published Stories

I've done it! I had a goal of publishing 300 stories before the whirlpool of the new semester sucks me in completely, and this is it, my 300th story. Yay to me!

I joined Vocal in June 2021 and published a total of 300 stories in three years. Not a bad result, I think, especially given my demanding day job of a college professor resulting in the fact that I write a lot more during the breaks than during my regular semester. So those of you who got tired of me churning out 2-3 stories a day in the recent weeks will get a break from me now that I will go back to publishing once a week, if I can achieve that.

300 in three years is also a good point to reflect on my journey on this platform and do an inventory of some achievements.

When I joined Vocal, I didn't have high hopes of making a lot of money. Before that, I tried self-publishing for my political writing and Facebook as an outlet for my writing on other topics. On Vocal, I quickly realized that in this media saturated environment, when there are more writers than readers, it is virtually impossible to become a self-sustaining writer. Besides, I like my day job and it informs at least some of my writing.

So, basically my goal here on Vocal is to share my knowledge and wisdom with whoever is interested in them and to polish my writing skills. I'm also grateful for the opportunity to read works of other excellent writers.

Several months after I joined Vocal, I published Mirror, a story that won me a free one-year Vocal+ subscription. Horror is not really my genre so the Mirror win gave me a good confidence boost and hope of getting some readership on Vocal.

As of today, my most read story with 515 reads is this one. I'm quite proud of it as it is an unusual review, from the point of view of interpersonal communication, of one of my favorite Apple TV shows. It must have been shared somewhere on social media because it still collects 5-10 reads per month, but no likes or comments.

Currently, I have 179 subscribers, of whom only about 15-20 read my stories at least occasionally and 5-10 - regularly, engaging with likes and comments as well. Those 5-10 fellow writers (you know who you are) are a big reason I'm still here as we are basically cheer-leading for each other. When I don't see likes or comments from you, I feel like a failure, that my story was not good enough. I am immensely grateful for all of you but I hope no one will get offended if I single out Dharrsheena - I think Vocal as a platform will fail miserably without her.

I also have one paid subscriber - a dear virtual friend I met on Twitter. I still don't know how I feel about Vocal converting pledges into paid subscriptions. Having someone who believes in my writing so much that they are ready to support me financially gave me another reason to continue at least with my political stories that I know Brian likes. There was a time when I carelessly lapsed my Vocal+ subscription, losing my pledge as well. Brian immediately re-pledged to me and his unwavering support helps me overcome the drudge and find motivation to write. I know for sure that I will continue writing for everyone for free but perhaps once in awhile write an exclusive story for Brian and other subscribers I might gain.

In terms of the content, a lot of my stories are satire and political commentary for The Swamp community. I have churned out over 60 Trump-Putin phone call convos (Moscow's Calling and Calling Moscow series), and my second and third most popular stories are going neck-to-neck in terms of the read count - "Is Putin Dead?" and the haiku series "Twitter, Musk, and Trump." As I keep telling myself, I will be happy to stop writing the phone call series after the 2024 election, even though I still like writing political commentary.

The next popular category for me is movie and TV shows reviews: "Don't Look Up!", "Ripley" and "Inventing Anna" are my 4th, 5th, and 6th most popular stories. Starting with Ripley, I am doing the reviews from the media literacy perspective, which seems like a format people like. So I will continue doing that in the future. I've also reviewed Kristen Bell's Netflix comedy-parody show with a long title, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Murderville," and one of my most favorite movies of all times - "Violent Night."

Since I travel regularly and a lot of times with my best travel buddy - my son, I've published my travel notes from Brazil, Peru, Paris, and Rome here as well. My absolute favorite in these series is our Christmas trip to Rome just because it is so personal and almost magical to me.

Another type of content I produce quite regularly is based in my teaching. As I am teaching a variety of communication and media courses, I muse on the issues of ethics, relationships, gender, and art from the communication perspective and get good feedback on them as well. My personal favorite in this category is "Who is Eve 1.0?" but there are lots of pieces there that I'm proud of, in particular the Charging Bull Vs Fearless Girl stories.

I also write pure fiction. My favorite one in that category - "The Vending Machine" earned me a Top Story and a lot of encouraging feedback. I hope to return to the Diva's Diary one day and a novel I started a couple of years ago - Boomerang of Happiness. The two recent pieces in this category that I am particularly proud of are "Sisyphus' Quiet Quitting" and "Sisyphus' Quiet Firing" and I still can't understand how they have not earned me a TS instead of, let's say "The RunPee App" or even the Housey story.

My Russian heritage comes through in my absurdist fantasy and dystopian series. "Remove that Hex!" novella took so much joy, time and effort to write that I still keep it as a pinned story. I have also written a connected story, "Mermaid Riding Motorcycle," and have two more from that universe in the drafts. Maybe one day I will have time to stitch them all into a coherent novel. The most recent story with a Russian folklore hero - Housey - earned me a Top Story just this week.

Speaking of Top Stories: starting in June 2023, I get at least one a month, sometime two or even three. I have yet to win any challenges (mostly because I rarely enter them, due to lack of time and/or confidence in the quality of pieces), but getting a TS is enough to feed my ambition for now.

With all of that, I have earned whopping $40 from almost 6,800 reads in three years. So I'll keep my day job for awhile and now that my semester started will try to keep publishing at least one story a week.

Happy reading and writing, y'all!

P.S. I think my next goal will be either 500 stories or 10,000 reads, whichever comes first.