Vocal

           I’m going to change things up. At least for a trial period. I spent a lot of time this week jumping through hoops to enter a contest. The contest was to write a story about Fiskars scissors and how you use them in your favorite craft. I use Fiskars. They’re awesome scissors and stay sharp for a long time. I can write. I do write. All the time. And they wanted pictures, too. I take lots of pictures. This contest sounds like it’s right up my alley! Custom made for me! Maybe I have a chance to win one of the three prizes. I’d love to win the grand prize of $15,000. It would come in so handy at this time in our life when we’re dealing with expensive medical issues, but I’d settle for $4,000 second, or even third place for $1,000.

          I scanned the rules. The first thing I noticed is you have to be a subscriber to Vocal. I signed up. It was free. I read the Community Guidelines which outlines what kind of content is unacceptable. No problem for me there.

          As the deadline to enter approached, I read the entry rules a little closer. You have to be a member of Vocal+ to enter any contests. Contests are exclusive to paying members. But they’d let me join for a dollar for the first month. After that it’s $9.99 a month, cancel anytime. The monthly fee helps to keep the web site advertisement free; they justify.

          I guess if I want a chance to win, I have to invest a dollar, I thought. I don’t know if I’m a good enough writer to win but I won’t know if I don’t try. I signed up and paid my dollar.

          Then I read the part that says if you win, they will only pay you through a company called Stripe. Now I had to set up a Stripe account, which was free, but they want to link it to your bank account.

          “Stripe and Vocal are legit,” my oldest and beautifulest sister told me. “You can delete both after the contest.”

          I’m still really nervous about linking it to our bank account but understand that’s how you get paid. They deposit it right into your account. To work around this, I opened a new bank account with the minimum. Problem solved.

          So, I wrote the story. I’ve been using Fiskars for years and years. It took hours for me to dig through old photos and find pictures of crafts I’ve made in the past using Fiskars. I browsed through a ton of memories and good photos so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

I met all the requirements as best I could. I became a member of the Vocal+ community, registered at Stripe, and opened a new bank account. Nothing to do now but sit back and wait for the judges to pick a winner.

If it’s between two stories, the website says, they may choose the one with more community involvement.

So, you post a link on all your social media, get all your friends and family to read it and pass it along. I might be a little lacking in the social media department. All I have is Facebook — and God. One plus God is always a majority. I know that if I win, it will truly be a miracle.

I have to tell you. I need an editor. So often I’ll read what I meant to write and not actually what I wrote. Usually, after a day of rest, I can pick up some or most of those mistakes. And I’ll sometimes use the wrong spelling of a word. Shear and sheer read the same to me but mean two different things and I might never pick up on that. I have no education in English beyond high school and even then, I wasn’t very good at it. Nouns, prepositions, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions; it’s all mumbo jumbo to me. And let’s not even talk about punctuation! I’ll sprinkle commas in like snowflakes on a winter’s day or I’ll be as stingy as rain in a desert. There are just too many rules to follow so I just write the way I talk and hope you understand.

Having said all that, I found a mistake in the story I entered in the contest. The next day, after my story was accepted and published, I found a missing word. I can’t just go in and fix it like I do with Blogger. They have to give you access. And I understand that. They need to make sure you’re not adding in banned stuff. It’s a little frustrating though, that I can’t just fix it. Do you think they’d let me be a trusted contributor and give me free access to edit? I could use y’all for references. You’ve been reading me for years.

“Probably not,” you say.

Sigh. I know, right. But the longer it’s up there, the more people will see it, the more stupid I feel.

I said it once, I’ll say it again. I need an editor!

And that brings me to the change that’s going to take place this week. I’m paying for Vocal+. It’s a place to post stories and my letter blogs are stories. True stories of my life. So why not post them and see if I can garner a following — and get paid for it to boot! At six dollars per 1,000 reads, I’ll probably not get rich. And if it’s not worth my $9.99 subscription fee, I’ll cancel it.

“Peg! Your letter blogs are too long! No one’s going to read all that!” you say.

I’ve been thinking about that. I’m thinking, with a little work, I can break it into smaller stories. It’s going to change my style somewhat because I weave a common theme into my stories when I can. I won’t be able to segue into a new subject by saying, “Speaking of…” And I can’t assume they know Mike is my handsome husband, or Miss Rosie is my feisty redheaded neighbor (and so much more), or Itsy and Ginger were our little Yorkies and now gone, so I’ll have to explain relationships. In other words, my stories will have to stand on their own.

It’s going to impact you, my faithful long-time readers. Instead of getting one letter-blog a week, you’re going to get multiples as I break it into parts. You won’t have to devote a half hour on Sunday nights to read it anymore. Instead, you might need to find five minutes here and there as my stories are accepted and published.

 One more thing. Vocal tracks how long you stay on a page. They know if you’re clicking on it to just give me a view, or if you’re spending enough time to actually read it. So, clicks won’t count.

Support me in this endeavor or not. You will always be in my heart.