Vocal 2024

Once upon a time, in a small suburban New York town a middle aged mom sat in a soft posh arm chair looking out her living room window at the afternoon rain. She found herself stuck in a trance of boredom she hadn’t experienced in a very long time. Nestled in her favorite bathrobe which had become her daily pandemic attire she took a sip from her second cup of tea when a peculiar character strolled through her mind.

A young man clutching something tightly in his fist ran frantically across the puddle filled street. He stopped under a large tree taking shelter from the rain and hiding in its shadow. He wore a dark blue baseball cap that was pulled down over his eyes and a soiled trench coat. After looking left then right to assure he was alone he slowly opened his palm revealing a shiny piece of metal that floated up out of his hands. He quickly grabbed the object out of mid air and put it deep in his jacket pocket. A small smirk crept up one corner of his mouth and he glanced over his shoulder once more before he walked off. As he looked up he caught a glimpse of a young woman watching him from an apartment window. The woman nervously pulled back the curtain and peeked through a tiny opening. The man shook his head, turned around in the opposite direction and ran off victoriously down the road. The woman let out a sigh of relief and then to her astonishment saw a bright light shining in the gray sky above the man’s head. He froze and in but a moment he was gone. And so was her daydream, the middle aged mom that is. She thought to herself, “I haven’t done that in a long time.” She placed her cup of tea on the glass end table and rose from her seat walking towards a bureau across the room. She opened one of it’s drawers and pulled out a an old leather journal and began to write, to chase down the man in the rain.

Yes, the bored lady in the bathrobe is me. A forty something mother of four who has now embarked upon a rediscovery of a long forgotten passion of storytelling. That day peering into the rain during the COVID pandemic shutdown sparked a new flame for my desire to write. Opening up my journal and continuing that story of the mysterious man with the shiny metal object led me to taking two online creative writing classes which unleashed an unending flow of creativity I didn’t know I possessed. Upon the completion of those courses I began to seek out new ways to sharpen my skills and share my work which eventually led me to Vocal Media. I have been a member of Vocal since 2021 and it has been one of the best discoveries of my life. I haven’t utilized it nearly as much as I’d like but I do have a plan and a purpose for my Vocal platform for the year 2024.

I have three main goals that I’d like to achieve this year on the Vocal website. One is to simply share more of my work. I plan to enter more contest this year. The contests are a great tool of motivation and inspiration for me. The contests also keep me in a creative mindset and constantly searching for ideas. Vocal will be a great avenue for others to have access to my work and get familiar with work. Publishing more work on the site is also a way for me to gain a followin. This will be important when I publish my first book. I’ll already have an audience of interes. Well at least that’s the goal. My second goal is to meet and connect with other writers. This is currently my most exciting goal. I‘m looking forward to networkping and becoming a part of a community of writers in which I can learn from, share ideas with and give and receive support. I’m eager to receive more feedback and critiques from other writers and readers this year as well. I also want to take more time reading other writers stories for the purpose of learning from them and spending more time as a reader so I don’t forget what the feeling of experiencing the journey is. That’s important to me as writer. Just as much as I enjoy entertaining others, I also love to be entertained and wowed by a good story. I feel I better connect with my readers when I’m closely tapped into the excitement of being intrigued by an unfolding story. Finally, my third and final goal for the Vocal website is to use the platform as a way for me to maintain discipline and consistency as a writer which is something I struggle with. I’ve created a schedule for myself where I plan to submit at least one short story to the Vocal website a month and read and give feedback to at least one other Vocal writer every week.

I have great expectations for the year 2024. Outside of Vocal I plan to publish my first novel by the end of the year and sell at least one of my screenplays. The Vocal Media platform will be an integral tool in me achieving these goals because of the support, discipline and inspiration I gain from using the site. Vocal is a means of me affirming myself as a writer. Before joining Vocal I was quite shy and unsure about labeling or introducing myself as a writer. Vocal was really my first public introduction as a writer. Sharing my work on Vocal has helped boost my confidence and step out of my comfort zone and I’m extremely excited about what will unfold this upcoming year. I anticipate great things and I’m truly grateful for the creative minds behind Vocal for creating a platform for storytellers.