As you are a human being who lives on the planet Earth, I would assume you have been a part of some sort of competition at some point in your life. Usually, these competitions are of a sporting nature. Mine are not. Sports and I don’t get along very well.

Before I came here, I went to a Catholic school. In eighth grade, I wrote for the school’s recently-established online newspaper. I wrote game reviews; not necessarily recent releases, mind you, but just whatever I wanted to write about. I wrote somewhere in the vicinity of several dozen reviews, most of which were not published. The secret to writing the reviews was knowing what good writing was and basing your style off that.

In early 2012, I was told of the Promising Young Writers Program by one of my teachers, Mrs. Simpsen. If I submitted two written essays, I would be in the running against 275 other students for a Certificate of Recognition. She told me this when the deadline was around a week or two away, because who needs time to write things?

I don’t know why she chose me. Maybe it was the game reviews. Maybe it was some of the papers I turned in for class. I don’t think it matters too much, in the end. What matters is that she did pick me.

I decided to enter the competition, even though writing two competition-level essays in two weeks’ time is not very ideal, to say the least. I found a loophole, though: The only requirements for the essays were that they couldn’t have been published before. I had a very large backlog of unpublished game reviews, one of which I submitted, after a little polishing. It was for the 2010 PSP game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. I’m an unabashed Metal Gear fanboy, and you could clearly tell in the review.

Then came the hard part: the second essay. The two essays had to be of two different genres, so I couldn’t write another review. I decided to do an original story, framed as a journal entry. The plot was that, in the future, it was all post-apocalyptic and stuff, and a bunch of corporations ruled the world. Depending on what I named the main corporation, it was either Blade Runner or Tekken fan-fiction. I would like to say Blade Runner, but I know in my heart it was probably Tekken. The protagonist was a resistance leader of some kind, and he was all hopeless and gritty. My memory of the whole thing is a little hazy, to be honest. I didn’t really like the way this essay turned out. It all seemed forced; it didn’t feel like I cared enough, like I didn’t have enough time.

I didn’t have enough time, but, you know, it shouldn’t show in a paper.

My parents thought it was too dark, and needed a title. I added the most generic title I could think of, something along the lines of “Journal Entry from the Future.” In retrospect, I should have named it a date, like “10/12/2054” or something. I didn’t lighten it up any, because though my parents work for the Pantagraph, they’re editors, not writers, so what do they know? (This is how I thought then. I still love you, Mom.)

I suppose I should write a little bit about my writing process. I’m running about a half a page short, anyway. First, I come up with a basic outline of what the paper is about, what I’ll say in it. Then, I flesh it out. If there’s a specific number of pages I’m supposed to hit (like this paper), then I’ll expand or cut out parts of the paper to make it fit. Then, I polish it and work on the phrasing of sentences to make it flow better and sound more natural. I often ask others what they think about it, usually my parents if it’s something I have to turn in. I take their suggestions and try and work them into the paper. I always keep in mind, of course, that at the end of the day it’s still my paper. If I don’t think a suggestion will make the paper any better, I won’t use it.

I think the reason I became a good a writer was that I knew what good writing was. Take the game reviews, for instance. I had read numerous reviews on websites like IGN, and had seen video reviews from websites like The Escapist, which might as well be called “ZeroPunctuation.com,” since that’s the only person on that site anyone cares about. When writing the reviews for the school paper, I emulated that style and that format, while twisting it a little to make it my own. It also helps that I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to spelling and grammar. It helps to make your papers look professional, giving them a sort of “production value.” It makes it seem like you know what you’re talking about.

So, all padding aside, I turned the essays in. After about a month or two, I received word that I would be awarded a Certificate of Recognition for my essays. The Promising Young Writers Program awards two types of certificates: Participation and Recognition. If you enter your essays, you’re guaranteed a Certificate of Participation. It’s essentially a “You Tried!” award. The Certificate of Recognition means that you were good enough to be noticed by the judges. Of the 276 participants in my year, only 85 of them were awarded the Certificate of Recognition. This was a group of people spanning the entire country. Three of them were from Illinois, including me.

I received my official certificate at graduation. It really meant something to me, because this was the first time I felt I was good at something I liked doing. I like writing, and it feels great to be recognized for it.

I definitely want to keep writing as I get older, whether it’s in the form of magazine articles, books, or (hopefully) movie scripts. I think writing for the competition was the moment where I realized I really liked writing, and was pretty damn good at it, too. I hope I get a job writing something in my life, because I guess it means I’m living the American Dream: doing what I love, and getting paid for it.

Unless I can get a job playing video games all day. Then I’m totally on that.