OMG. Wow. Wowee zowee! WOWEE ZOWEE!!!
Okay, I am just a little out of breath at the moment because I literally just ran up and down the stairs clapping, jumping and screaming more than a little over-excitedly! Really. You should have seen me. (Actually, on second thoughts, maybe it's better that you didn't.) I was hopping around uncontrollably, burbling random, incoherent noises and clapping like a maniac.
'Has she finally gone absolutely MAD?!' you are thinking.
Fear not, my friends! I am not mad! (At least, I hope not...!)
But I have just received an email that MADE MY DAY!!! :D
Actually, no, and email that MADE MY WEEK!!! :D :D :D
Not long ago, I entered a competition on the Spinebreakers site. (By the way, if you haven't joined Spinebreakers, you might want to go check it out - they have cool reviews, creative stuff and competitions going on down there...)
The description of this competition was:
"We all know distractions come thick and fast (and too easily)
during exam season, so we want you to write a short story (no word
count) about the things that do and could distract you the most whilst
you try to revise!"
AND...
The winner of the best short story (selected by Fever author
Dee Shulman!) will get a signed copy of Fever as well as a £50
Topshop/Topman voucher.
5 runners up will also get a copy of the book (unsigned).
Now, imagine my excitement when I checked my email inbox today to discover an email waiting for me notifying me that I HAD WON THE COMPETITION!!!
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I am so incredibly happy - this is maybe the third time I've ever entered a writing competition, and the first time I've ever won one! Thank you SO MUCH to Dee Shulman, the author of Fever for picking my story!
This has given me hope that my writing is not just a rambling mess of words that only makes sense to me, and maybe there is some hope of me becoming an author in the future after all!
So, anyway, I thought I'd share the story I wrote with you guys. I hope you like it! :)
MY STORY:
As willingly as a deer might approach a lion and shake hands
with it, (if the two animals in question were not lacking in the necessary
anatomical facilities to perform the action in question, that is) I opened my
Biology book. If I was to be the deer in
this situation, then that dreaded book was most certainly the lion – something
dangerous, something to be avoided at all costs and definitely not
something to be getting too friendly with. I glared at it.
Making sure to maintain a sufficient distance between myself
and the offending object, I leant slightly closer – not too close! – and
recoiled immediately. Clearly, if the careless, barely-legible scrawl I had
apparently been trying to pass off as my handwriting was anything to go by, I
had been just as delighted in September by the prospect of a whole year of
Biology looming ahead of me as I was now with the prospect of having to revise
that same whole year of Biology.
Well, to be truthful, ‘revise’ was perhaps not the most accurate
of word choices. ‘Learn’ a whole year of Biology work would be more like
it – considering the rather insignificant percentage of what we had covered in
class that had actually made its way through to my brain.
I sighed. A
big, long, deep sigh.
I sighed
again. A bigger, longer, deeper sigh.
I sighed
once more for good measure.
I screwed my eyes shut and strained my ears for the sound of
my mother’s hurried footsteps up the stairs, hoping she would burst in with her
motherly intuition and say –
“Oh, darling! I heard you all the way from downstairs!
Is the stress getting to you? Are you coming down with something? Oh,
sweetheart, maybe you should forget about revision for the rest of today – no,
for the rest of the week. Why don’t you come downstairs and I’ll make you a
nice, creamy hot chocolate?”
I opened my eyes. The room was
empty except for me and my Biology book. Hooray. What a perfect opportunity for
some quality ‘getting to know each other’ time. Oh, joy of joys, just what I
wanted.
I slumped down in my seat,
defeated by the knowledge that there really was no choice now but to buckle
down and attempt to begin deciphering my handwriting which, really, made tears
spring to your eyes with the mere effort of trying to read it.
But wait! What was that dry, tickling
sensation I could feel at the back of my throat? Oh goodness me, all that
sighing had made me so incredibly thirsty! There was absolutely no way I could
embark on my long journey down Biology Revision Lane without first replenishing
my water supply.
I made my way downstairs – not too
fast of course, for fear of over-exerting myself. Wouldn’t want anything to
keep me from my beloved Biology book, would we now? I reached the kitchen far
too soon.
I took a sip of water and flinched
as I felt my throat filled with iciness. Oh dear, now ice-cold water just would
not do for my poor throat! I needed warm water. I put the kettle onto boil.
Blissful minutes passed as I stood
in the kitchen enjoying the undisturbed silence.
‘Hang on a minute,’ I thought, ‘silence? Kettles don’t often boil silently.’
I checked the switch. It was off.
‘This must be a sign,’ I thought. ‘I am
evidently not in the right mindset for revision if I can’t even remember
something simple like turning the kettle on! No, it would be a waste of my time to put my
efforts into Biology right now. I’ll just
wait until the right time for revision comes, whenever that might be, and,
meanwhile, I’ll go and do something useful and productive like –’ My eye fell onto the laptop on the kitchen
table.
Before I knew it, I was logged
into Facebook, my fingers flying furiously over the keyboard as I engaged in a
heated discussion about the many evils of school exams with my best friend, a
fellow revision-hater.
Twenty- eight minutes later,
however, the conversation was beginning to dry up...
Me: I hate
revision
Friend: Same
Me: I hate
Biology
Friend: Same
Me: I hate exams
Friend: Same
Me: I hate people
who make us do exams
Friend: Same
Me: I think this
conversation has kind of reached its end
Friend: Same
So, we logged off. For a moment, I contemplated heading upstairs to
tackle that book that still lurked upon my desk like a parasitic organism. But
the thought was quickly squashed by enticing thoughts of the endless list of
things that I’d much rather be doing. Really, was it my fault that there were
just so many things that were way more fun than revision?
It’s quite amazing how much time
you can pass just dawdling about on the Internet. It’s like a never-ending web
full of mystery and excitement and, in general, things that are just way more
interesting than the likes of the lives of plants and animals – which is pretty
much all Biology entails.
And so there I was, happily
wandering about on the Internet, learning about anything and everything – from
books to films, celebrity break-ups to celebrity make-up, what to do in the
case of an alien attack and how to find a unicorn – when I stumbled across a
page that caught my eye. I looked closer and began to smile.
‘This looks like my cup of tea,’ I
thought. ‘A competition...how interesting...’
All thoughts of revision and exams
that had stubbornly remained lingering in my mind vanished, and I knew they
would not be returning anytime soon.
‘A writing competition...’
