The Case of the Vanishing Vocal Stories (and My Sanity)

I joined Vocal Media in November 2023, full of creative fire and caffeine. Since then, I’ve published 83 stories — okay, not a Vocal “power user” level like the legendary Mother Combs, Mike Singleton, Paul Stewart, or Oneg In The Arctic, but still... respectable, right? I just won my first Runner-up in the recent A Taste of Home Challenge for my story, Cooking Keftedes, Sharing Tradition. Okay, horn tooting over.

Each piece is a tiny part of me — some poetic, some personal, and some weirdly philosophical reflections written while trying to ignore the sound of my dogs wrestling in the background. So when my archive started vanishing, let’s just say I wasn’t thrilled.

The First Sign Something Was Off

I was innocently hopping between tabs on my desktop (Safari, Version 17.6) when Vocal suddenly hit me with this:

“Verify you are human” — Cloudflare security check.

Well, last I checked, I was. I had opposable thumbs, anxiety, and an unpaid creative writing habit — all signs point to human. But Vocal didn’t seem convinced.

At first, I thought it was just me. Maybe I triggered some weird bot filter by opening and closing tabs too quickly. It's got to be just me and my equipment, right? Like, “Oops, I must’ve clicked too aggressively.”

But oh no. This rabbit hole was just getting started.

The App Rabbit Hole

Today, I noticed a few new articles that gave me the indication that it wasn't just me or my equipment- this problem was much bigger than that. I started to read the comments on I am Not a Bot: Venting Poem and What's up Vocal: New software install is it?

Out of curiosity (and maybe a little masochism), I opened the Vocal app on my iPhone to poke around to see what I could or couldn't see. I wasn’t even trying to share anything. I just wanted to see my stories. Reassure myself they were still alive and well.

And that’s when I got hit with this screen, Vocal's rendition of the "blue screen of death" or the "rainbow spinning wheel":

“Unable to load Story — It probably has something to do with our server or your connection.”

Translation? “We’re not sure what’s happening, but we’re gonna blame your Wi-Fi.”

Only my three most recent stories opened:

Fault Line (17 days ago)

The Lost Art of Listening (18 days ago)

Terminal (19 days ago)

Everything else? Nada. Zip. Ghosted.

My app said I had 78 stories, but I’ve published 83. That’s five whole pieces wandering the Vocal void like lost socks in a digital dryer.

Oops, It Glitched Again

This isn’t my first rodeo with glitch gremlins. A little over a year ago, I published Spira, The Tiniest Tree — a story that meant a lot to me. I poured my heart into that piece, made a zillion edits in the Vocal editor, and finally hit publish.

And then? Poof. Gone.

I refreshed. I paced. I questioned my sanity. It was like Vocal had taken second look at Spira and decided, “Nope.”

So I did what I only know how to do - after screaming, crying and pulling my hair out - write about it - just like I am doing right now. It came back (thank you, data gods), but that experience left a mark. Abandonment issues found a whole new level. Ever since I’ve had this little whisper in the back of my head: What if it happens again?

Spoiler alert: it kinda did.

Why This Matters (And Why It’s Not Just a Glitch)

Sure, it’s “just a glitch” and I have faith in the Vocal Technical People behind -the-scenes will get this fixed. I am sure they were not having a good time troubleshooting this debacle. But to writers, our stories aren’t disposable. They’re tiny, timestamped versions of ourselves — our thoughts, our growth, our rabbit holes. If a story is inaccessible, it’s effectively gone. No one can see it, read it, love it, comment on it. We never think anything will be gone if published on the internet, right? Isn't that the irony?

And when it’s gone without warning? That’s maddening. It breaks trust. It makes you wonder what else is quietly disappearing. It's a reason to publish your stories on more than one platform, which I do on my blog Xine's Pack on Wordpress- but sometimes I get lazy and don't. I like the community that is on Vocal - I would hate to lose that. But this is a reminder to me to not be so lazy and maybe spread my net wider - just as a backup.

UGH!

In trying to save this and publish I now get this error! This story is probably lost forever! UGH!

“Unable to save story! Nested errors occurred.”

Nested errors? Is that like when one bad decision sits inside another, like emotional nesting dolls? Or when a glitch gives birth to baby glitches?

I stared at the screen, blinking. I wasn’t even trying to do something fancy. I just wanted to save the story — you know, the one about the app not working. The irony was almost too rich.

Vocal, please. I’m begging you. Stop nesting your errors. We writers are already out here nesting existential crises between paragraphs.

Vocal Status Page

To add insult to injury, the new status page they gave us the link to recently says everything is hunky-dory. Once again, making me question everything.