Today I am happy to announce our 3rd place winner of our annual writing contest, Kimberley Claire Young! Please help me congratulate her. 2nd place and 1st place will be announced over the next few days.
I am a writer.
Not a well-known or a popular or a published one, but I am a writer anyway. I’ve always written little stories, but I never dared to publish anything. I was scared to be judged or bullied for wanting to write stories. But I knew I wanted to write. Just because I could. I was scrolling through an old journal and read a story I wrote 14 years ago when I was a young girl of 13. It was about my cat and all the adventures he’d have when he jumped over the garden fence. I thought it was cute, but not very good. It was fun to see how far I’ve come since then.
I have some brain damage. I had 5 surgeries to have a brain tumor removed and had radiation therapy for a month. I still have the tumor, but it isn’t life-threatening. English isn’t my first language, but for some reason, I prefer to write in English. My life isn’t easy because of my illness, but I still have a voice. And I plan on using it to tell whatever stories that may spring up into my mind.
Recently, I went back to school. I’m studying to become a teacher’s assistant. Last year, I worked with kids from the first grade. I was so sweet to see the kids learning how to write letters. The letters became words, the words turned into sentences and the sentences became a paragraph of their very first story. I loved seeing the wonder in their eyes. Eager to know where their story would go next. I hope that when they reach my age, they’re still writing and make other people happy with their stories.
I have stories to tell. And so do you. I’m proud of how far I’ve come already. My confidence is growing steadily. I want you to know that everyone can be a writer. Just write something, anything! You don’t need to publish it right away, maybe never, but you still wrote something.
This is the beginning of your story. And mine. Let’s see how far we can take this, right?
I’m a writer. And so are you.
