Starting Out On Vocal

Ever since I was young I’ve had a desire to tell stories, whether it's through images or words. At this very moment I’m able to recall my first painting. I was at my Pre-School, and with the extremely cheap paints and damaged brushes, I created the image of a bright red house underneath a lemon sun. Now it was by no means a masterpiece, but it meant a lot to me at the time and arguably it still does mean a lot as I’m able to recall the childish composition of it all.

Another ‘First’ that I can remember as clear as day is the first book I read, well, the first book which was read to me and my brother. Every night, my mother would sit down with us and read a few chapters of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. At the time there were a lot of words which really didn’t make much sense to me, but even to a six year old the Fantastical world of The Hobbit encapsulated me. His words broadened my creative thinking and inspired me to one day build a world as vast as his. From this point on I took great interest in books of all kinds and found such joy in each author’s unique perspectives. When doing comprehensive reading in school, I was always placed into the highest group as when it came to reading I was more confident with the more mature works of fiction than some of my peers who seemed to look down on literature in favour of movies and games. Fast forward to Secondary School now. English is one of my best classes as it's the one I thrived in the most. We got to cover a lot more material than a Primary School could, and as the years went one I was moved up into the ‘Grammar Stream’. Years later, when being able to choose my A-Levels, there was no doubt in my mind that English Literature would be one of them. In all honesty it was the only one of my choices which I was confident about taking as I knew I had the ability to achieve a good grade.

Fast forward to three years later, after having spent a year pursuing nothing but art and attempting to get a foothold in the industry, here I am typing away on my laptop a few short stories, both fact and fiction, and submitting them to a website I serendipitously discovered via an Instagram advert. The name of this website? ‘Vocal’. In all honesty what first drew me in wasn’t the prospect of being able to put my writing out there, it was the cash prizes for the Vocal+ Challenges. Three months ago, while still pursuing Art as my primary goal in life, I casually published my first two pieces : “The Therapeutic Nature Of Art” and “Living With The Memories”. Naturally nothing really came of it so I put my Literary aspirations on hold until I finished my Foundation Art Degree, but here I am a few months later wishing to start something more.

I love Art, and I will always be trying to pursue it, but it can be a costly hobby to always be doing. Vocal gives me the opportunity that my younger self had always dreamed about, a platform for my writing. Over the past two days I have already published two more stories, technically three if you count this article. I also signed up for Vocal+ as the most recent offer is having the first two months for free, something I found very appealing as I want to start submitting to challenges. One of the more recent stories I posted, titled “Prosperity”, was for the challenge where the only requirement is to include a pear tree somewhere in the story. I hadn’t realised this until I began to write, but it had actually been years since I wrote anything like this. In the end what I produced most likely wouldn’t win, and I’m really not expecting it too either. But with every story that I write I’ll hopefully be re-training that creative writing muscle so that when it comes to the stories in my head which mean the most to me, I can deliver to a standard which I can be fully satisfied with.

Overall, I’m looking forward to the opportunities that being a member of the Vocal Community can offer me, and if a budding writer is reading this, unsure of whether or not they should join either as a paying or a free member, just do it. Show the world what you can do and don’t hold back. Unleash your creativity, and have fun while doing it.