Writing Life

I Have Submitted My Fifth Vocal Piece

It’s a piece that I had to sit on for a long while… ouch.

Image generated with DALL-E by the author

I have this interesting story that I think people would like to read. I’ve entered it in a contest that’s currently running on Vocal Media as judged by Christopher Paolini.

Before I give the link to this story I wrote, I have a few things to say about this matter.

First, I have an elevator pitch I need to share, both for the contest and for the story.

Contest elevator pitch:

A grown dragon finds a lost — or abandoned — toddler in the forest. Write a fiction story about what happens next.

Story elevator pitch:

Ak’Bar the Red Dragon rescues a young girl who went missing in the forest. A father-daughter-like relationship builds between them as he tries to find her birth family.

Second, I have to express that this contest entry took so long to finish and upload.

My contest entry took a while for two reasons that I can share. The first reason is that my editor was unavailable for a while after I finished writing the piece. This entry was supposed to have been edited by last week, which would allow for more time for reader engagement, though that never took place.

As for the second reason, which I feel makes more sense now, I needed emotional detachment from the piece. I was too invested in the way I wanted to see the story cleaned up, which would ultimately hurt my writing if I were to edit it so soon after I finished writing it. That would suck… especially since I was intent on getting this chapter of the story out a lot sooner.

Third, I must give a massive shout-out to a few people for their part in how this played out.