I Don't "Lose"

As of right now, I have 110 reads. Or... something like that. It's been a few hours since I last checked.

Who helped me get there?

-My mom. She's the one who helped me sign up for this platform.

-My mom's friend. I never even knew about Vocal until she sent me a text saying there was a challenge (Christopher Paolini's Fantasy Fiction Challenge) that I could enter.

-Gigi Gibson. One of the first people ever to comment on one of my stories!

-Addison Horner. Best person ever. VIP. Totally, totally awesome.

-Mel! Mel liked my newest story Child in the Sky!

-Naomi! Naomi also read Child in the Sky as well as Before It Becomes 100, a short journal about about... well, when I had 98-something reads and I was freaking out.

All these people have supported me. And probably a lot more that randomly click on my stories because it's in the "latest stories" section or the newest article published on a Challenge. Thanks to all of you. I really appreciate it.

Now to the real part.

I... have only won 1 Challenge.

I didn't exactly win, either. It was a school day and I suddenly had the bright idea to enter the Reset Your Password Challenge with an excerpt from one of my stories. I was strangely convinced, as I submitted it, that I might've actually won something.

January 13th, I checked my laptop at school and found out that I had won 10 bucks and was a Runner-Up! Child from the Past was so convicting that the judges decided it was worthy of being third or second-to-last (I don't remember) Runner-Up. Which, of course, the order of Runner-Ups doesn't mean anything, but... still. It impresses me to this day.

Now, Child from the Past was a story that I put some real heart into. Maybe that was why it (sorta) won.

But there are other stories that other people write that also deserve to win. They also pour their heart into these articles and wish that they could win.

Not everyone can win, which is an unfortunate truth. (I've learned that from you, Vocal.) I've only won once.

It's fine with me. Child from the Past was something I worked very hard on.

And yet... Follow I worked hard on, too. Carry Me I worked hard on, too. Edges was a haiku I worked hard on, It Shouldn't Hurt was a short story I worked hard on... Sometimes it doesn't make sense to me how the Vocal judges pick things.

Maybe they just have bad days sometimes. (Everyone does, Vocal. I don't blame you.)

Child in the Sky is almost an echo of Child from the Past, if that wasn't visible enough from the parallel in naming. I use different characters, and yet the same world. The same storyline, filled with Operators and Partners and imaginary friends. Except the Operator that narrated Child from the Past, the story of Carys, no longer exists.

He resigned. Another person took his place, as per usual when someone resigns from an important position.

I don't have the same kind of satisfaction with the Sky's the Limit Challenge as I do with the Reset Your Password Challenge. But I'm hoping that I win. Or at least... somehow win.

I try not to "lose." What I mean by that is that I try not to sulk about how I wasn't mentioned or my story wasn't commented on or nobody read it. I might do that occasionally, with certain Challenges, (Christopher Paolini's... ya know the name... was one example. I wrote Failure just from my feelings of doubt after looking at the results.) but it's something I want to avoid from now on.

I don't want to "lose." I may lose, but I don't want to "lose."

I hope you win, too, if you're reading this. And if you don't win- if neither of us have any kind of Honorable Mention of Runner-Up or even the big First Prize- or if you're not brave enough to enter these Challenges, I hope you try not to "lose," too.

If we all tried not to "lose" so much, I think the world would be a different place.

But... I won't get into that. It's a little too deep for me. It's a Saturday morning and I just wanted to journal a bit.

Good morning to you, Vocal. I hope lots of people are winning today.

Ciao.