On Losing the Christopher Paolini Writing Challenge

It all started when I was perusing Paolini's website to find his fan mail address, as I had done a few months ago. I had just published my first book (a children's picture book) and wanted to thank him for his encouragement after I'd sent him a letter a few months prior, and he'd responded telling me to go for it. I scrolled mindlessly through his website until a blog post caught my eye, clicking on it to reveal an opportunity the likes of which I'd never seen before. A chance to not only win thousands of dollars, but also to get a one-on-one meeting with the man himself.

I'd been a fan of the Inheritance Cycle starting all the way back in middle school, and the chance to actually speak with Christopher Paolini rather than sending a single letter and praying for a response was something that made me salivate, to say the least. I'm physically disabled so all of the authors meet and greets, book signings, etc. that others would have the opportunity to go to were completely cut off from me, since travel was much difficult. So, something like this would probably be the only chance I'd ever get to speak with someone I'd looked up to for so long.

Plus, a few extra thousand dollars in the bank wouldn't hurt; especially when I was going to graduate soon and wanted to buy some presents for my friends as a sort of final farewell in case we ended up never seeing each other again. It'd also mean I could actually afford an illustrator for my next book rather than just waiting for someone to appear who'd be willing to draw the stories that I'd written for nothing that I could trust, as my last one was far too busy to help out these days when finals were creeping around the corner.

So, I got to work. Unfortunately, I hadn't been privy to the contest when it had originally been announced several months prior, so I didn't have much of a timeframe to write out my story, only having around 15 days or so to come up with a fully completed and revised story. A tight deadline, but I was determined. I got on my computer and after several brainstorms, ended up choosing an idea which would go on to be called 'Laila's Lament'. I used the feelings that my family had faced when my sisters had grown up and gone off to college of having to say goodbye to the people you care for and let them venture off into the unknown as a sort of base theme and worked my way up from there.

By the time I'd finished the story, it was over 6000 words and I needed to cut down alot of the excess detail I'd added. It was a brutal process of deleting the lines I'd written and picking which ones were the most necessary, but I had help from my literary teacher & friends who were willing to read over the story. I spent hours revising and rewriting, all the while filled with a strange sense of hope that overtook me as dreams of what could happen if I won filled my head. Maybe I could ask him about publishing and graduate from a self-published author to a traditionally published author, maybe I could show him the stories I've written and get valuable insight on how to improve my craft.

Anything and everything that could possibly happen during those sacred 30 minutes flew through my head and pushed me to keep on working. I was of course at a disadvantage considering my overall youth and general lack of experience compared to other contest members, but my hopes prevented me from giving up and calling it quits, pushing me to go forward even when doubt weighed me down.

I eventually finalized the story, and my friend even helped me by drawing a quick line art of its final scene as a cover for the contest submission. I submitted on the last hour the contest was open, filled to the brim with excitement at the prospect of winning, and actually achieving my dreams. The more logical part of me kept on trying to temper my expectations, but there was always that sneaking little hope that kept me thinking maybe, just maybe, I'd win.

But I lost.

The reason why I'm writing this post now isn't to try and create some form of sob story declaring why I should've won and was better than anything else, but because I wanted to show that everyone here has some kind of story similar to my own. Maybe it wasn't the exact same (unless of course you're a disabled highschooler from middle Georgia, in which case I'd be more terrified than anything else that we're so similar), but we all had that same dream, that desire to win and to be seen as the best of our peers. Over 1000 stories were submitted into this contest, and over 1000 stories weren't chosen as the winners/runner ups. We're all from different backgrounds and we wanted different things, but we all entered this contest hoping that maybe we'd win, only to lose.

After having now completed the contest and reflecting on my actions and decision to compete, I realize that my biggest desire wasn't really about winning, but instead about having my writing skill to be affirmed. Every writer's had to deal with the difficulty of gauging the quality level of their work, as writing is one of the most subjective forms of art out there in the world. There are so many different styles and different kinds of readers, that it becomes nigh impossible to truly determine how good of a writer you are. You can of course ask the people you know, but they'll be biased towards what you've written and won't be able to give you a hard and truthful answer. You can ask strangers on the internet, but the number one rule on the internet is to never completely trust everything you read on the internet.

Contests like this however, run by people who have gone through the gauntlet and have been proven to be good writers, are the perfect way to have the caliber of your work determined. When you win, you can prove to yourself that you aren't just beliving yourself to be something you're not, casting away the many doubts that build up whenever you make something on your own. When you lose, those doubts can just grow stronger and make you question if all of the effort you've put into your work was even worth it in the first place.

And thoughts like that can hurt. Alot.

For someone like me who's constantly questioning whether or not he's a good writer or people have just been lying to him to spare those feelings, thoughts like that can be devastating. Especially when you feel like writing is one of the few things that you're good at.

So, to anyone who's starting to have feelings like that, I address this story, this strange incoherent rambling of emotions that likely won't make sense to the few people who read this far, to you.

You've lost, but this isn't the end.

For every unique opportunity that presents itself, there will always be another in the future. There's always another bridge, another path and another road to be taken. Although you may have missed this chance, there's going to be another one in the future, even if it isn't the same kind. I know that probably just sounds like cookie cutter advice that's difficult to believe (even for myself) it's the truth.

One of the best parts about writing to me- is seeing how your quality level increases with every new story written. Every famous author's first story starts out rough, but as they continued to write their skills improved over time. Every story that you write, every sentence scribed, and punctuation mark placed, brings you one step closer to whatever goal or dream that you write for. Humans are creatures of growth and change, and your writing will always reflect that, regardless of where you are now and where you'll be in the future.

It all depends on if you're willing to take the first step and actually try to chase your dreams, rather than just remain a dreamer and nothing else. And everyone who competed in this contest has proven that they're capable of doing that. So long as you keep on doing that, you keep on writing and you keep on trying, you'll continue to grow until the stories you've written now seem like child's play to the ones you can create in the future.

You'll always learn something new from the next story you write, so long as you're willing to keep on putting up a fight.

Those are my thoughts on losing the fantasy writing challenge, and I hope that whoever else participated (and didn't win like myself) will be able to take away a lesson from their contest submission and use it to improve themselves for their future literary endeavors. I know I will.

Thank you for reading this strange story of mine, and thank you for letting me participate against you all in the contest. It was a pleasure to compete against you all.

Sincerely,

- Saif