I hit 20,000!

When I started Vocal, I never thought I'd pour so much of my heart and soul into this online writing portfolio. I am so utterly shocked now that I put over 1,000 of my stories, poems and personal essays on Vocal, I finally hit my goal of reaching 20,000 reads!

I really wanted to take the time to thank and appreciate all of you here on Vocal for always being such a supportive, kind and great resource for writing tips, sharing writing goals and objectives and of course sharing our writing with each other.

I find a lot of us consider our writing personal and private. It takes a mixture of audacity, bravery, a healthy dose of fear and humbling ourselves to subject ourselves to the court of public opinion to finally take that leap of faith. I truly believe that once we allow ourselves to get our raw and unique perspective outside of our own brain, we will start to see that we aren't so alone in our struggles, pain and troubles. Some of us have different looking struggles than others, but the feelings of hopelessness, stress, listlessness, financial burden, loss and pain of rejection, (rejection of any form), definitely feel similar. We, as starving artists, work for peanuts and a hopeful stand out review to get us noticed!

I really love the community here and I would never trade it for anything! So, I would love to give out three commissions to the first three comments about their own writing goals! The first three to comment on their writing goals gets a free commission: whether its a fan-fic, poem or short story, I can write you anything you like. The only thing I don't write is anything that is about hurting children or splatterpunk. Basically, any sort of abuse or violence against kids, that's a no. But, other than that, I'm a free-range chicken! No kink shaming here. 👌💅👏😄

As for me, my first publisher, Resurgence Novels, is closing their metaphorical doors by the end of the year. My horror/fantasy novel series, I am Bexley, is needing a new home. So, I've been working tirelessly to find Bexley a more permanent home. Bexley got a bit of a small postive following on the Resurgence app, so I'm hoping to gain more followers of my undead protege soon. I am also looking for a new home for my asexual mystery novel, The Half Paper Moon. Barbara, the missing young college woman (who is ace!) who never really was interested in sex but only intimacy in other ways, also deserves to be in a more niche and happy home.

My current situation is I have JMS Books, a wonderful small press with several of my stories already published and a couple in tow to be released soon. My mixture of crime dramas and romance books on JMS Books are listed here: The Job, The Space Between Us, The Unlikely Bounty and Atonement.

I also have my crime drama, Carnivorous due to ge published by Eukalypto next year. I'm so excited to share this one in particular because I have done huge editorial and writing changes to this story that I know will be an unquestionably unique reading experience to you all!

Also, I have two books on Amazon: a poem collection and a short story collection.

So, I hope you all have a good list of goals for your writing either personally or professionally. I definitely have a goal to have a Barnes and Noble book signing by next year and a local library signing too. It's something I always wished I could do! I really hope your goals and dreams also come true.

Again, as one starving artist to another, reviews are one free way to show support to a local author. I wish you all good writing and good health to start this new year!