Before It Becomes 100

I started writing on Vocal just last year.

A friend of my mom's had sent me a challenge- Christopher Paolini's Fantasy Fiction Challenge (I memorized the name, I was so excited about it)- in early September. At the time, I was sick, but the moment I saw that I could enter a writing challenge, my heart started beating like a horse's hooves.

Not the best comparison, but still.

I joined Vocal on October something-or-another and have been writing since. My first story, Magnus Dracones Numquam Mori, which is Latin for "big dragons never die," was my entry into the challenge. I waited in pure anticipation for the announcement on November 23rd, even waking up at 4 and having to wait a painstaking hour until my phone charged enough to look at Vocal.

...And... there was nothing there.

I ended up having to wait until 1 in the afternoon to see the results. They made my head hurt for days. No honorable mention, no first, second or third place... no nothing. Not even a read.

Perhaps I expected too much. I was, after all, a teenager in an adult's writing contest. I have been ever since.

But I still strive. I strive to be mentioned, to be looked at, to have the Vocal judges wowed by my apparent creativity. It is Vocal, after all, a word that means "expressing opinions or feelings freely." I strive to be vocal on Vocal, heh.

Even though I strive, I definitely have had some moments where Vocal feels like a "stinky" platform. A clear example of this would be my reaction to the results of the Christopher Paolini's Fantasy Fiction Challenge (that's a mouthful, Vocal), which was, admittedly, a bit dramatic. I've learned to "deal with it" over time. And not "deal with it" as in be pouty and upset, but "deal with it" as in congratulate the other people who've won and done so incredibly well!

I am writing this little snippet as a break from posting fiction on here. It's momentary, trust me. But I only do this because of one thing: reads.

I have 95 reads as of right now, January 19th. This is mostly because my mom posted a link to my Vocal account on Facebook and everyone's been randomly clicking on it and taking a look at my quadru-haiku, Across, for the Quadru-Haiku challenge. She also posted a link to Edges, another haiku of mine.

If you've paid attention, you'll notice that most of my haikus are about sailing and the ocean. Truth be told, I adore lighthouses and similarly adore little sailboats, so... sailing is the one thing I like to make haikus about.

But anyway, as I was saying, I have 95 reads because 59 people have read Across and 17 have read Edges and I'm nearly to 100. Reaching 100 reads is something I never dreamed would happen in my first 5 months at Vocal. I can't believe it's almost here.

Thank you to Addison Horner (and also congratulations on your win!) for reading my story Follow, which was my last-minute, oh-no-it's-closing submission for the Behind the Last Window challenge. Your feedback was so encouraging, it inspires me to keep writing every time I look at it.

Thank you also to Gigi Gibson, who was the first person ever to comment on any of my stories, the lucky picks being Failure and Edges. Failure I wrote on my own and Edges was my submission to the Blue Haiku challenge.

And thank you to my mom, who first introduced me to this platform. I was so excited (and still am) that I can finally write publicly and people can finally read.

So anyways, before I reach 100, I just wanted to say thank you, really. Thank you, Vocal, for perusing my works, and thank you, Mom, for inspiring me with your own writing skills, and thank you, Addison Horner and Gigi Gibson for being there with encouragement and energy to cheer me up.

Thanks, Vocal, for being a thing.