That Time I Returned to Vocal, and Nobody Knew Who I Was

Gather 'round children and open your beautiful brainballs to a tale of adventure and exploration. An account of failure and resilience.

A saga of spirit and resurgence!

In other words, that time I started writing on Vocal again, and nobody knew who I was.

In the year two thousand and twenty-one,

The esteemed writing platform Vocal had just crafted a beautiful Spotlight interview on yours truly, which you can peruse at your leisure here.

Cards on the table: None of the links found in that article will work for the reasons I will explain henceforth.

Everything was coming up, Lindsay.

I had written several Top Stories on the platform by this point, including one significant piece about how to become Vocal Famous. I should have coined the term Vocal famous at that point because it really took off.

But hindsight and all that, amirite?

The good peeps at Vocal went as far as to agree in my Spotlight interview to make me their official Vocal Mascot.

Neither of us knew what Vocal Mascot's position would entail, but we breezed over the fine deets. The most important thing was that the Vocal community loved me, and I was making bank (30 cents per day!) from that love.

So, how did everything break down after that?

How did I, a once valuable creator to the Vocal community, find myself creeping back here four years later, my precious title of Vocal Mascot ripped away with no credit to my name?

Well, my friends, this is not only a tale of resurrection.

For with every resurgence, there must be a rock bottom. A point for which the follies of the past must be acknowledged and repented.

A moment of clarity when we see our collapse for what it was—recklessness.

After my Spotlight interview, I had become too big for my britches.

I mean this both literally and figuratively. I had been writing day in and day out, which caused me to balloon up to extraordinary measures with the lack of physical activities, but much more importantly, I started to genuinely believe I was too cool for Vocal school.

I stopped reading stories, rarely participating on the Vocal community pages on Facebook and assumed that every story I published should be placed on Vocal's front page.

Oh, what I snobtastic fool I was!

When inevitably, I entirely stopped receiving Top Story spots for my articles, I had the hissiest of hissy fits and, in a blind rage, deleted my Vocal account, including all of the stories that I had published here.

Was that an incredibly rash decision? Yes, yes, it was.

Did I regret deleting the account and my writing almost immediately after doing the deed? Yup. Sure did.

Is it extremely embarrassing to admit that I did such an immature thing? Also yes.

Over the past few years, I've toiled away on other writing platforms and managed to cobble together a book. I also tried to give up writing altogether and navigate myself through the corporate world of warehouse management. I hated every second of it.  

Which eventually led me back here, to you, my Vocal refuge.

It occurred to me that only the writing mattered when it came down to it. Top Stories, shitty management jobs, low-paying writing gigs, and the clout that comes with a few creds peppered throughout the internet don't hold a candle to the buzz I get after crafting a good tale.

It is the writing that counts.

It's the reading and connecting to fellow writers that matter in this literary realm. The connectedness of people from far and wide creates a warm home for the words we love.

So here I am, creeping back onto the Vocal platform—a little ashamed, a little exhausted, and relatively unknown by so many new (to me) writers here.

Being the new kid on a familiar block is weird and intimidating. But I'm carrying a wealth of hope in my back pocket, pushing me forward.

With my past experiences in mind and a new lease on life, I'm excited to share words with my fellow creators again.