A Milestone: 100 Stories On Vocal

I’m excited to announce that with my latest poem, Winter, Her Protector, I’ve officially posted 100 stories on Vocal!

If this is your first time seeing me, hi! I’m Jaye, and I’ve been a creator on Vocal for almost 6 years now! I write a little bit of everything, from creative nonfiction, to poetry, to the occasional short fiction story. And I write about a pretty wide range of things like music, food, grief and loss, and plenty of personal stories and nature poetry.

Outside of writing, I’m a classically trained musician and actor. So I’m no stranger to the arts; it’s quite literally my life! Although surprisingly, I never wrote much before joining Vocal. But my mother is a writer and an English teacher, so I learned from day one how to write well (it wasn’t even an option for me not to!).

Then one day I saw a sponsored Facebook post about Vocal, showcasing their Behind The Beats challenge, and thought to myself, “I can do that!”

So I decided to give it a shot, and ended up writing my first piece:

Looking back on it now, it’s so fitting that it was a music-related writing prompt that got me started; to me it seems too perfectly aligned to have been anything other than divine intervention. And since then it’s been a crazy beautiful journey, beyond anything I could’ve imagined.

I originally joined Vocal in 2020, right when the pandemic started. And to say it’s been a lifesaver would be an understatement. It didn’t just get me through the pandemic, giving me something to do while stuck at home. It helped pull me out of a mental health crisis, giving me a way to express myself and a new creative outlet when all my other ones had been ripped away from me.

And in my time here, I’ve grown so much as a writer, artist, and human being.

It’s funny because when I started, I thought for sure that my niche as a writer would be creative nonfiction. I thought that that was the only thing I’d be good at writing about. But I ended up surprising myself with some of the pieces I’ve written.

I’ve written 56 poems and counting. I’ve shared 5 recipes, and have plans to share many more. I’ve even written 4 short fiction stories so far, which I never thought I’d be good at.

I’ve written about subjects that I never expected to, including 9 horror themed haikus. And this one even placed in a recent challenge:

Of course, I’ve written plenty of stories about music, like this in-depth album review:

And I’ve written several stories and poems that lay bare some of my most vulnerable moments and experiences:

And through it all, I’ve learned and grown more than I thought possible, both artistically and personally.

Now I’m excited to keep building on my current body of work, and I’m already making plans and starting some first drafts. Of course there will be plenty more of my usual stuff to come in the future. But I have some ideas for other things I’d like to write about going forward:

- More recipes!

- Classical music/music history (composers, famous works, time periods, etc.)

- Book reviews/literary analyses

- Life advice/motivational stories

I’ll probably come up with even more ideas as I go. Who knows, I might even write another short fiction story here and there (if a good idea happens to come along). But whatever happens, I’m stoked to see what I end up writing next!

Thank you all for loving my work and supporting me through this journey. I’m forever grateful.

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