Being Vocal

What is being vocal?

Finding your voice on a page.

Sharing, brave, intimate stories with strangers? Growing in confidence?

Expressing yourself?

Healing?

Sharing with an audience?

Reading other's work?

All the above helps to make us grow as writers.

Be Bold, write your truths! “We are confined by the walls we build ourselves”

Vocal is a fantastic platform in which to share our stories. It pushes you to write that 600 words, or perhaps try poetry for the first time 100 words or more. It offers up great challenges with brilliant writing prompts you may not have thought of, giving you a chance to try something new, step out of your comfort zone!

Don’t be afraid to try. Trying different genres can trigger memories you’ve long since forgotten about.

Out of that can emerge many other fabulous stories. Things you never thought you would write about.

The fact is if you want to be a writer then you must simply continue to write. Everything you write matters, even when you don’t think it does. Keep everything!

You’ve been actively writing and that’s what counts.

Reading other people’s work.

Don’t just click on and skim through the stories, (I know you have at least once) it might not be a piece that interests you, but hey! Your piece might not be something that interests others.

Vocal is a platform to support all writers, so let’s make sure we do just that, try and read as many other stories as you can.

Support your fellow vocals. You never, know when someone else’s story might just inspire you to write your own.

Triggers for writing can be found anywhere. Try an old photo, look deep into that photo, who is it? What were they doing? Do some research on your family tree. What era was the photo taken? And what sort of world was it in that era.

You might find a story whilst you travel to work, look around you, you can learn a lot about people and develop great characters from watching the world go by.

Everyone’s got a story, that much we do know.

Got a story? Great! Just write it down, worry about the edits later, just get the story out first.

I hear so many people say, I want to write, but I haven’t got time, or I don’t know what to write about.

If you really want to write, then you need to set yourself time. Even if it’s to write notes and ideas in your journal for you to come back to and add to later, notes in a journal can make a much bigger picture later.

If you only find time to email yourself from your phone whilst shutting yourself in a bathroom for 10 minutes, do that. Write that I’m currently sitting in the bathroom for escape and 10 mins peace. Why? Who are you escaping from? What’s happening outside the door? Hey! You have another story.

People love to read real stories. Writing at that moment can give it so much more truth. Worth a try, right?

My final note. As a vocal member, I will vow to read as many of my vocal colleague's pieces, I want you to do well and succeed. Writing for you may be a hobby and lifelong ambition, or something you’d love to do but never thought you could. You have nothing to lose by trying and everything to gain by giving it ago.

Writing cannot only bring meaning to your life, but your stories can make someone’s day.

Happy writing to all on vocal. Keep sharing.

PS. My inspiration for this piece was other vocals sharing stories on socials and supporting each other.

Be Vocal

Believe, Achieve, succeed.

I can’t wait to hear your voice on the page.