literature

Best corporate culture and workplace literature to better your workplace experience. Journal's favorite stories.

How to Start Worldbuilding Like a Pro
What is Worldbuilding? In reality, our world is jock full of rich history, millions of beautiful sights, many genres of music, countless species of animals, multiple religions, and a variety of cultures and ideals. Can you imagine a world without any of the mentioned things? I can - BORING!
By David Whaley4 years ago in Journal
Transported Home
Isn’t it beautiful the way a mere four letter word has the ability to immediately transport you directly into a memory of you visiting your families home country for the first time. Just like that, you’re walking in another universe. The smell of fresh bread filling the air. The excitement in your bones as you get up to head to the market to gather things for your morning tea. Home seems to resonate differently in everyone’s soul, yet the word brings about a universal understanding. It isn’t only the place you rest your head. It can sometimes be the nothingness that feels you when you meditate. For some, it’s a location the strikes fear into your spine when anyone dares to remind you of a past you had thought was long since buried and forgotten. For others, it’s a person that loves you so deeply that a location doesn’t matter at all. Home can be in a motel, lying on a worn and beaten mat, waking up with nothing but pure happiness because you are entangled in the sheets with your lover- so you feel you are home anywhere you go. Home can be the feeling of divine love filling you up..the medicine that is endlessly fueling you. Home can be, the laughter from children as you push each other on the swings, on yet another sunny Sunday afternoon. Home can be your first kiss, your first pair of rollerblades, your first scar, your first tears over that boy who broke your heart. Home can be found everywhere and anywhere in the air particles surrounding you; because you just can’t seem to unpack your boxes and settle in one place for long. Home might be found in the movement. The flights to be had, the adventures you’ve yet to know. Home can smell just like vanilla extract, gingerbread, and pumpkin on a cool fall evening baking with those you love. Home might be something you had to create the meaning of within yourself, because you didn’t receive the stable foundation you should have. Home can be the love you hold in your heart, the energy you carry within you, always embracing others and creating space so they feel safe to find a home in you. Home might be the place some go only on Sunday’s for worship, but to you it holds the key to the world. Home is falling in love with your best friend and getting to be wrapped in their essence daily until eternity. Home might be the garden you spent every day after work tending to, because maybe it was easier to live in planting new seeds in soil, than to face what demons were lurking inside. Home for some, stereotypically could be a house built to ground your roots for decades to come. Generations of love, and first birthdays, and celebrations. Home for some might feel like destruction. Bad habits. Fear. And loss. Making a home out of the pain, and staying there thinking that is truly what home is. Finding this home in everyone you meet, only to later realize it wasn’t home at all. Home is the next foster place, and the next, and the next, not knowing when you will get your next meal or get to truly rest. Home for some is being born in a country where you’ve had to create the illusion for your children that the gunshots they hear are fireworks and that’s all you know it to be. Anything to take their fears away. Home is in your heart. Home is in the bonfires, wearing your favorite sweater on a chilly winter night. Home is in the October hay rides, and evenings better spent with belly laughs and slightly burnt marshmallows. Home is in the joy of carving pumpkins with your Dad, and baking the seeds, covering them in salt for a late night snack. Home is your grandmothers arms when you’ve got a heart that’s shattered. Home is your daughters strawberry blonde curls leading the way toward the gates. Home is found in the conversations you have with the moon. Home is the mirage you’ve had to create so that you could get up the next day. It’s okay. You did what you needed to to survive. Home is the scent of cinnamon rolls swirling and dancing around your nostrils, as your lover feeds you breakfast in bed. Home is your lips, the way you taste, your hand in mine. Home may be in the arms of an abusive lover, that you once saw the world in and lost it all. You kept looking for home in the hands of the wrong places and people, wondering where things went awry and what led you here. So you decide to take your power back and create your own. Home is an escape from all of the terror and chaos going on around you. The way you can so easily slip away from it all with the slam of a door. Home is something you may have to redefine and recreate to make sense of; so I decided that home is wherever I feel safe. Home is the way the sun beams across the trees just right, you take photographs in your mind. I define home as a feeling, as a taste, as a memory, moment in time, as the place you’re transported to; whatever you decide to create it to be in your mind. Home is the beauty in everything, in all of its endless forms. Isn’t it so inspiring the way you can make a home in anything? The way that even just her smile reminds me that I’m finally home.
By Al D4 years ago in Journal
Why I Love Vocal's Challenges
Vocal challenges have been a major boon to my writing. I haven’t won a single one I’ve entered. I can’t even say that I’ve produced my best writing for them. Honestly, most, if not all, of my entries have been mediocre - and that’s okay. No, I’m thankful to Vocal’s Challenges for four reasons that have nothing to do with winning them.
By Farah Thompson4 years ago in Journal
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
The greatest fantasy world is undoubtedly Lord of The Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien created a masterpiece, out of a language and a children’s story. He wrote at a time when the world was changing faster than anyone could measure and created a timeless epic. Our understanding of modern fantasy is all based on the foundation he laid, line by line. To his credit, that foundation was a mix of a great many old legends, along with fresh inspiration. He created new languages for his story and a cosmology that is more complete than some world religions. Shadows of his influence permeate every nook and cranny of fantasy.
By Farah Thompson4 years ago in Journal
Series I'm Loving by Vocal Creators - Vol. 3
I started this series because I enjoy reading. Reading led me to writing. And I know very much what it is like to desire people to read and appreciate your works. And to love them enough to share them.
By Pam Reeder4 years ago in Journal
The Best Fantasy Series Out There
The best fantasy series out there isn’t fantasy at all; it just looks like it. The best fantasy series out there is Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern. Sounds like fantasy, right? I mean, there are dragons in the title; how much more fantastical can you get? But it’s not. What is it really? It’s science fiction masquerading as fantasy.
By Darcy A. S. Thornburg4 years ago in Journal
4 Lessons I Learned From Trying The Same Poetry Prompt Five Times
A few weeks back, I completed a five-day challenge to write poems based on one single prompt: Write a 10-line poem where all the words of your poem must include a certain vowel.
By Lucy Dan (she/her/她)4 years ago in Journal
Benefits of Joining Vocal Media Readers and Writers Pages or Groups on Facebook
On Vocal Media, writers publish their stories which readers find on his newsfeed if the author is subscribed. Otherwise, the story gets available on the usual thread on the platform after it gets published. But for further interactions among writers, readers, and constructive reviewers, one can join on some Facebook pages which are really awesome. This article is going to describe some of the many benefits which these digital places are offering.
By Moshiur Rahman4 years ago in Journal
Vocal Creators Chronicle. Top Story - September 2021.
Hello all, and welcome to the inaugural edition of The Vocal Creators Chronicle. About the Founders Your editors, Les, James & Caroline, are firm believers in the idea that if you only look at your own work, you are missing the forest for the sake of the trees. Thousands of stories get published on Vocal each day by incredibly talented writers spanning a kaleidoscope of topics and genres. The heads of The Chronicle were inspired to create a free, online magazine out of our desire to open the eyes, minds, and hearts of the world to the brilliant creations we read daily on Vocal—whether it be through browsing or subscribing. We recognized the value good-quality reading material brings into our lives, and we value the creativity of what you, our fellow creators, have written.
By The Vocal Creators Chronicle4 years ago in Journal
Know When It’s Time to Query Your Book
If you want to pursue traditional publication, there’s something you need to remember. The competition in the publishing sphere is absolutely steep, but you’ll never get published if you keep putting off the querying process.
By Leigh Victoria Phan, MS, MFA4 years ago in Journal
How Long Does It Take to Make Money Blogging?
It can seem to outsiders like bloggers are all overnight successes. But that's usually not the case, though there are exceptions.
By Hannah Haefele4 years ago in Journal
Featured Creator: Rebecca Ivey
To return to the magazine main body: CLICK HERE. This week with Photography coming up on the Vocal Social Society Fab 5 rotation, I have become a little obsessed with all things visual: Artwork, Gifs, Memes, Illustrations and yes... you guessed it... Photography!
By The Vocal Creators Chronicle4 years ago in Journal