During this past school year, my Language Arts teacher made all of her students enter the 2009 American Association of University Women (AAUW) writing contest. This year there were over four hundred entries submitted. I entered a fiction story.
About a month or so later, the predetermined day of the results arrived. The day passed, with no news of the winners. I knew that I had not been as great a writer as my mom said I was.
The next day we got a call from a number we didn't recognize. My mom handed me the phone with a smile. It was the contest judges, to tell me that I had won first for seventh grade fiction!
Our family attended the awards ceremony where we met my teacher (who was smiling more than anyone else in the room), as well as the other winners.
About a month or so later, the predetermined day of the results arrived. The day passed, with no news of the winners. I knew that I had not been as great a writer as my mom said I was.
The next day we got a call from a number we didn't recognize. My mom handed me the phone with a smile. It was the contest judges, to tell me that I had won first for seventh grade fiction!
Our family attended the awards ceremony where we met my teacher (who was smiling more than anyone else in the room), as well as the other winners.
From this I learned two very important things:
First, you never know if you will like something until you try it. I had never written anything outside of school before, and it was actually kind of fun!
Second, and the most important; the judges quoted a famous author. He said, "the most important thing for a good writer to have is a very big trash can!" I learned that it is actually a really good thing to make mistakes, because of what you can learn from them.
