First, I want to thank everyone who participated. Thank you!
There were 126 awesome entries.
I read many of them several times before choosing the Top 3.
YOU ARE A WRITER
The most important criteria for the “You Are A Writer!” writing contest was for you to share your story with the goal to inspire aspiring writers.
The final decision was more than difficult, and I was torn between many of the entries. What it eventually came down to were the stories that I kept coming back to because they touched me emotionally.
There was one story in particular, which moved me so much so that I have never been able to stop thinking about it. It truly made me consider what it means to have hope in the midst of chaos. I don’t want to give too much away, but let me just say that for this young lady to make it through a raging war outside her window to become a writer, is beyond awe-inspiring. She is the winner of this contest.
Without further ado here are the winners of the Positive Writer “You Are A Writer!” writing contest:
1st Place: My First Poem A Story by Sal (Posted in full below.)
2nd Place: I Am A Writer by Andria Bicknell
3rd Place: When I realized I was a Writer by Robert Duvall
CONGRATULATIONS!
Here’s the winning entry:
My First Poem A Story
The war held heavy nights, some nights we couldn’t taste sleep because of the fights, terror, and fire.
That night when I became a writer was a dark one, and by dark I mean both the darkness that fell over our hearts and the power outage that swept over the city.
Photo Cred: Dreamstime
English is my second language, but I’ve always loved it, read tons of books, breathed it, till I reached a point where I’d actually think in it, dream in it.
All we could hear that night was the bombing sounds coming from afar, the gun fights emerging now and then disturbing the few silent moments between every explosion, and the sound of our neighbors baby crying terrified.
All we could think of was that it was our last night on this Earth, that finally we were going to abandon the war our country was going through and meet our creator peacefully, and as I sat in my empty room gazing at the last burning candle in my room the flame somewhat struck my mind, and my hand picked up a pen involuntary and started writing the first poem in the English language I’ve ever written:
Every breath of life counts,
every struggle to survive in those days.
I thought about the pain the children felt as our neighbors baby kept on crying.
Darkness surrounded the world with clouds,
enormous, vicious clouds of shade.
“Succumb to misery my little children,
my poor wretched suffering slaves”,
hissed the darkness throughout space,
and death came swiftly hovering
over this eternal night of hate…
Wind came in from outside (we kept our windows open even in winter to avoid the compact the bombs made as they exploded, thus avoid having our windows glass shattered), it blew causing the flame of the dying candle to flicker changing the shadows it made against the wall.
Gazing at this insignificant scene my hand moved again:
A single candle burns with light,
trying hard not to fade.
Facing it….. sat I
gazing at the lonely flame.
watching it grow bigger in mind,
rise higher to the sky in a race.
Sighing I thought about freedom, about being able to get out of my home without having to think whether I was going to make it back or not:
For this very thought my heart aches
knowing that it’s only an image in my brain
certain that this terror will never come to end.
A deafening sound made me creep under my bed, my parents shouted that it was ok, and rushed to my younger sisters room.
In that state I thought about death, how relieving it would be, how peaceful, how much I’d be glad to get rid of war in any way possible.
Slowly reaching my hand up I took both the pen and the paper and started writing when interrupted by my father opening the door.
After assuring him that I was fine he asked me to join everyone in the living room, I nodded ”just two more minutes” I pleaded as he gently closed the door:
So I lie with eyes wide open,
waiting for them to close my grave.
Listening to the sweet melancholy
that in my heart consistently plays.
Willingly giving in to the everlasting sleep
that with kisses shall fill my cheeks
and forever shall my soul embrace.
Dropping the pen down I rested my head on my arms and closed my eyes, moments later the electricity came back just as my candle finally died. Quickly getting out from under the bed I ran to my computer to check out what was on Facebook, and just when my happiness was at it’s highest the power went off again after only half an hour forcing us all to go to sleep.
The next day I woke up half falling down, the two armies were fighting, and I cursed both of them for waking me up so early. Glancing down I saw part of my paper, picked it up and read, I read it twice then tossed myself back on the bed happy that I had written a poem! An amateur but still a poem!….
My first poem. It wasn’t what I expected for a first, I always thought kids wrote about butterflies, teens about super natural stuff, but still I was proud, somehow satisfied with what I had, I ran to my parents room and read it, they helped me with the name ”Aurora.. the lost hope”
I was a sixteen years old girl turning into a writer, and that’s when I started living to write.
Aurora…the lost hope
Every breath of life counts,
every struggle to survive in those days.
Darkness surrounded the world with clouds,
enormous, vicious clouds of shade.
”Succumb to misery my little children,
my poor wretched suffering slaves”,
hissed the darkness throughout space,
and death came swiftly hovering
over this eternal night of hate…
A single candle burns with light,
trying hard not to fade.
Facing it….. sat I
gazing at the lonely flame.
watching it grow bigger in mind,
rise higher to the sky in a race.
For this very thought my heart aches
knowing that it’s only an image in my brain
certain that this terror will never come to end.
So I lie with eyes wide open,
waiting for them to close my grave.
Listening to the sweet melancholy
that in my heart consistently plays.
Willingly giving in to the everlasting sleep
that with kisses shall fill my cheeks
and forever shall my soul embrace.
© 2013 Aurora (Sal)
Join me in congratulating the winners in the comments!
Over the next few months I will be contacting authors in this contest for the inclusion of their entries in a compilation eBook. I hope to have the eBook completed by early 2014 or sooner.
(Top 3, if you have not received my email within the next 3 days, please contact me.)
