I am heartbroken. No, truly. I know I'm quite prone to be overly dramatic but this time it's serious. Allow me to explain from the beginning.
The only writing competition I ever came first in (yes, meaning that I WON!) was for the exam board AQA back in 2011. The theme was 'identity' so you either had to write about your identity or make one up to write about. I made one up.
The story of how I won is actually quite mysterious. So much was down to chance. I wrote the piece last minute and didn't give myself time to proof-read anything. Then on our last day of school, I forgot to hand it in to my English teacher and only remembered about an hour later, when I was shopping with my friend. I made her go all the way back with me in the hope our teacher was still there - she was.
Already my prospects didn't look good.
I had to find a computer and print off the pages to be posted to AQA and I worried the printer wouldn't work. It did, though. Relieved, I said goodbye to my teacher and went about my day. Then it was the two week Easter holiday.
Two days later, my teacher still hadn't posted my entry and she was leaving the country to enjoy her time off. While very lovable, she is also extremely forgetful. If I had known at the time that she hadn't posted it yet, I probably would have been in a permanent state of anxiety. My teacher later confessed that she posted my entry on her way to the airport!
I remember receiving an email from my her in the last week of Easter saying that I had been short-listed for the competition. I managed to hold in my excitement then, since I didn't want to be too disappointed when I ended up losing. Of course I didn't think I would win. I was just sixteen, and still quite new to writing.
When I got back to school after the holiday, my teacher had great news: I had won. First place. Numero uno.
I totally thought she was playing a trick on me. It took a while for the information to sink in. Then I grinned for the rest of the day, quietly containing my joy. When I came home from school, I plugged in my iPod, turned the volume up as high as it could go, and danced like a mad woman. Thank god nobody else was home when this was going on.
I felt like winning the competition validated my writing skills. I was no longer just a girl who did writing in her spare time (and frequently, when I really didn't have time to write...). Other people thought I had talent, too! It wasn't just wishful thinking/arrogance, I really could write well! This was probably the push which told me that pursuing writing might not be such an airy idea after all.
The prize wasn't even that important to me, just the fact I had won was enough. Although the prize was pretty cool: a creative writing class with a writer named Diane Samuels for me and 19 other kids. Oh, and £500 worth of books... For the school. Don't feel too bad for me though! I managed to use £200 of it to pay part of my Geography trip to China the following year. Great stuff.
AQA had my submission up on their website proudly for all to see. I had to email them twice though, because they spelt my name wrong in several creative ways. Then I went wild posting the link to my Facebook page, Twitter feed... Everywhere.
I wanted to post the link here too, so I could do some bragging. But AQA have updated their website, wiping my name, the competition and all evidence of my talent away for eternity. You can understand why I am so devastated.
Perhaps next week I'll post my winning entry on here, just so you can have a look at what my brilliance was like when I was aged sixteen - if I can find it.
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