The Home of Forgotten Stories

I’ve written a new story for Vocal’s the Return of the Night Owl Challenge, and I hope you like it! I’ve also published it here so my friends can read it. It’s called The Whispered Scream. (Vocal link here: https://vocal.media/fiction/the-whispered-scream)

It’s given me so many ideas for this particular world, that I’m thinking I could make a much longer story or a novella.

Unfortunately, I also had to subscribe to Vocal to submit the story. So if I don’t get any winnings, I’ll have to make a decision whether to stay with that site or not. It seems like it could earn me some exposure, but is it really any better than WordPress in that regard?

In other news, I believe I’ve also fixed the tip links on my stories, so that’s a relief. And I’ve changed the tip link on my main page to an actual donation link, too.

Interestingly, it’s very difficult for me to talk about submitting a story for a contest without providing some obligatory self-criticism. For instance, I was tempted to abashedly admit the low amount of time I spent on the story, and to mention a few flaws I’m only now just noticing. One wonders why in the hell I would do that. The world will be more than eager to tell you everything that’s wrong with your art; why should I assist? Editing is something one does in private. This urge to publicly self-abnegate seems a little bit pathological. “I was arrogant enough to reach outside of my own personal site and submit a work for professional review! How dare I? Here are the reasons it won’t do me any good. I’m listing them so you won’t have to tell me.”

Writing is an act of defiance.