I was an award winning writer.

Many many moons ago, I was an award winning writer. 3rd in the state of Texas for Ready Writing. The task was simple, everyone received the same prompt, and then thirty 15 year olds would have 45 minutes to write, long hand on the topic. I won the district, I won the region, and then I went all the way to Austin to compete for the whole state.

I’d like to say that I was a prodigy and that my writing was extraordinary. In truth, I’d stumbled upon a formulaic structure that was novel to the judges. I knew that every other kid in there was going to use the 5 paragraph structure with a thesis, supporting paragraphs and then a conclusion. I decided to write a narrative story for the first page and weave in the prompt, make a stance on my opinion, then nail them with a demand in the last sentence.

Maybe I’m not giving myself enough credit. I seem to do that a lot, even to this day, 30 years later. Maybe I was extraordinary and my inner voice told me that I was just tricking them all.

That voice says the same thing to me now all the time.