A Year Well-Written: Vocal

If you think this will be a long list of brags, fear not. I will also acknowledge misses, challenge losses, and more. Celebrating defeat may sound counterintuitive, but it both keeps this reflection grounded and pays homage to one core fact: to fall short means that you leaped. And leaping, in real life and in writing, takes courage.

Also stay tuned for “A Year Well-Written: Not Vocal” where I celebrate the wins and losses that happened off platform.

The Flashy: Accolades

It’s Vocal. Of course we’ve got to talk about the challenges. Here’s a quick, by the numbers run down of the badges earned over the past year:

1. Winner in Poetry of the Hunt Challenge for “Hunt” (I know, I know, but I titled that poem a decade before the challenge came out. It may even predate Vocal 👀)
2. Runner Up in New Year, New Projects Challenge for “Ezok and the Whispering Woods”
3. Runner Up in The Moment That Changed Everything Challenge for “Everything in my Wallet”
4. Honorable Mention in Through the Keyhole Challenge for “Rebirth”
5. Honorable Mention in Self-Editing Epiphany Challenge for “Picking the Right Moment to Start”

The Biggest Win: “Hunt” finally gets its due

Shocking pick, I know. But stick with me here, because there’s a bit more to why I picked this one than simply $200 and a gold badge on my profile.

In college, I took Intro to Fiction and Intro to Poetry courses. “Hunt” was my capstone project for the Poetry 101 course. Take all that you’ve learned over the past three months, all the feedback you’ve received on your other poems and all you’ve studied about the genre, and write one more poem.

I passed the course, graduated college, started submitting other poems from the course to magazines, a few of which made the cut. But “Hunt” stayed in the archive, because I knew a poem from the POV of a wolf would stretch a lot of creative tolerances for the literary publications and their editors.

Not that I didn’t like it. I did. But part of the submissions game is being strategic and submitting those pieces with a genre, length, form, or overall “feel” better match the submissions guidelines and/or vibe of the desired destination.

Then the Poetry of the Hunt Challenge appeared. And I thought “If not now, when?” First publish rights be damned.

All to say, you never know when a poem, short story, and whatever else will find its moment. Even near a decade after creating it. Never give up.

Honorable Mention: “Everything in my Wallet” gets its own comeuppance story

Case in point, “Everything in my Wallet” washed on the challenge it was originally written for: Small Kindness. And yet it had such synergy with the prompt of The Moment That Changed Everything Challenge that I had to submit it.

And Runner Up is a nice consolation for a story I drafted in one session in one of the most powerful flow states I’ve yet experienced. When inspiration hits and you have the time to let it run its course, magical things happen. It is not a luxury I take for granted, and I still think the character work in “Everything in my Wallet” is one of my finer technical achievements on Vocal.

The Biggest Miss: When Lightning Struck Twice—and then struck out

Speaking of technical achievements, “When Lightning Struck Twice: Eastern Air Lines Flight 301 and 304” was the hardest article I’ve ever written for this platform. Because, unlike most other pieces I have put out, it is non-fiction. About the early Jet Age. From the perspective of the pilots in the cockpit.

It was damn hard, and without the constant referencing of the book that inspired it (Deadly Turbulence), I don’t think I would have pulled it off. Instead, we get a gripping story of a DC-8 in freefall over Texas and the pilots who fought successfully with measures equally daring and dangerous to wrest back control. A recovery so violent that it ripped one of the turboprop engines clean off the wing that then smacks the vertical stabilizer.

For all that, Captain Mel French and First Officer Grant Newby land their stricken bird without a single fatality.

Vocal wanted non-fiction about historical moments that were overlooked for their History Would’ve Burned This Page Challenge, and here was a moment of remarkable airmanship during the Early Jet Age that you can’t even read about on Wikipedia.

Making the challenge loss all the more painful for the fact that, once again, the close save of Eastern Air Lines 301 is condemned to obscurity.

That hurts.

The Not-so-Flashy: Stories of Note

The Biggest Win: “A Patrol in the Woods” and the birth of Jason Nightingale

I don’t know if witty, irreverent comedies are my mainstay, but they certainly are the niche I’ve eked out for myself. So of course I see it as a big win each time I create a new character that captures my imagination. From Martin Williams to Dick Winchester, we now have Jason Nightingale, an orphan-turned-child-soldier for a fairytale kingdom’s leading private security firm, the Nightingale Agency.

Vocal wanted a classic fairytale retold with one element changed. I decided to retell Snow White, but now she has a private security consultant. Who has a gun.

What transpired was some of the highest joke per capita writing I’ve done in 2,500 words. And Jason Nightingale will be the protagonist of a future book, whether independent or traditionally published.

Honorable Mention: “The Stars Aren't Alright: The Peak of the Elusive Horror-Comedy Genre in Audio Form”

Who doesn’t love supporting a fellow independent creator? And if this long-form review of my favorite Call of Cthulhu actual playcast The Stars Aren’t Alright drove some new listens, ingratiated me with their community of supporters, and increased my standing with that creator for future collaborations (written or narrated), so much the better.

The Biggest Miss: “Rebirth”

Sharing non-fiction roots with “When Lightning Struck Twice,” this story is a fictionalized version of what could be any number of real-life incidents occurring across Russia as hardened criminals enlist in the military, fight in Ukraine, and then return home pardoned war heroes. Some of the best fiction, in my opinion, calls attention to real-life phenomena and provides new ways of approaching these issues.

And sure, it got Honorable Mention. That’s not nothing by any means, but it’s undeniable that lengthier stories see less engagement, and that badge has not been enough to spotlight “Rebirth” as I would have liked.

So, once again, my attempt to elevate real world events of note is reduced to shouting into the void.

What’s Next for Me and Vocal?

Likely not much.

I’ve got a dark fantasy novella to finish, a behemoth of a Dick Winchester finale to publish, and a Nightingale to flesh out. More on all that in the coming companion reflection “A Year Well-Written: Not Vocal.”