50,000+ Reads on Vocal

I always wondered when it would happen. Then casually going over my stats, I felt my wrists shake in excitement. It finally happened! It's a milestone that I have always wanted to reach because it's hard for many content creators to get views. 50,000 is a significant number for me. It's the word count goal for most Nanowrimo projects and since then, it's become my target word count for most of my novels. I don't always reach this word count with the final product. In fact, I've published more short stories than novellas than longer works but I don't think readers care much about word count. They care more about what words we use and how we use them to express our ideas.

I haven't written many posts on Vocal lately. After writing and publishing over 500 stories on Vocals, I decided to stop focusing on how much I was getting out and instead just publishing and writing when I have the energy to do so. It gives me more time to focus on my WIP books and also get used to writing on Medium as well. I enjoy Medium, and I think it will be good to use in conjunction with Vocal. I don't think I will publish every single Vocal post over on Medium, but the posts that did well on Vocal have had some attention over on Medium as well.

Medium allows direct comments which Vocal do not at this present time. However, the ability to add comments is a feature that has always been requested on Vocal and I believe it will be added sometime next year.

While I am here, I would like to thank all 41 people who have subscribed to me. I am also enjoying the pledge feature that Vocal has added which is another way of supporting other writers on a monthly basis. These all add up. I like how they've kept the tips and bonus features.

I do feel bad that I haven't written much over the Christmas period, but I will explain why in this post. For a long time coming, I've had a hunch that a mental burnout was about to happen. I've woken up feeling tired, dehydrated and in a lot of pain.

I've always worked hard, and it's frustrating when things don't go well or as intended. Little things like the internet dropping out for a few minutes and dropping something can get blown out of proportion. Unexpected bills and being told to isolate and then seeing all the hypocrites get exposed with slapped wrists.

Sometimes I consider changing jobs or going back and getting a different career. On one hand, I can't see myself working anywhere else, but on the other hand, I've had a lot of traumatic things happen to me in the workplace. Of course, my dream job would be just writing, so I wouldn't need to have a full-time job anymore, but I need the job to pay my bills. The good days are great, but the bad days are more common. I feel as if I may do something I might regret by staying in the job.

I've been able to reach out for help and I got lots of help which I am thankful for. The journey to stability and hoping to do the stuff I love again has been long. Seeing me reach this milestone is important to me because it means that I am better than I was yesterday. I know there is something I am doing right. Seeing my reading stats is a reminder that I am not a failure.

Thanks everybody.