But as much as I tried to imitate the winning pieces, my draft sounded neither razor sharp nor sincere enough, and that frustrated me immensely. It wasn’t until I analyzed every word, comma, and sentence of their pieces that it hit me: I had it backward. Their writing didn’t make their voices shine. Their voices made their writing shine. It wasn’t because Edward or Maria had some canned, perfect strategy for writing that I could learn. It was because they were just expressing themselves, uniquely and unapologetically.
When this finally occurred to me, I had room to pivot. I stepped out of the sparkly, intellectual, too-large costume I’d been trying to fit into, and settled for writing from the perspective of my genuine self. This turned out to be a major relief: not only was the pressure to use words and phrases like macabre, whimsical and party-sanctioned poster boy lifted, but it was empowering to hear my actual voice emerge. I reminisced about DoorDashing Chipotle and complained about mediocre Disney live-action films. I put my own life on paper, and this created a huge shift in my academic and personal journey: I was enough.
By the time this realization sank in, my charged ambitions had quelled into a light buzz. I wasn’t so fixated on winning anymore. I still read student pieces, but I treated them as something to admire, not something to imitate. And honestly, I was just enjoying the process of writing. I made playlists of songs I’d been meaning to listen to and looped them while I wrote. On a slower day, I switched my background to photos of me and my friends, thinking that it would help get the good vibes going. And soon I found my favorite pastime: to prepare brownies and type away at a draft while they baked in the oven (so 20 minutes later, no matter how unsuccessful my writing endeavors were, I’d be welcomed by a rack of fresh-baked brownies). In the end, writing for contests became an oddly comfortable part of my routine, one which made me a more independent, carefree and at-peace version of myself.
When I did start to get results, seeing “Samantha Liu, 16” on the list of finalists felt like a fever dream. Whoa, it hit me, I’m Samantha Liu, 16. And with just that line of acknowledgment, I glowed with pride. Someone out there had read my work and cared about what I wrote. That became my encouragement to bury myself in my next piece: if I wrote earnestly enough, my words could reach someone. As you can probably guess, when I won the Review Contest, I was dysfunctional with astonishment. The surprise of winning was one thing; having my review published in The Times was an entirely different kind of high. My voice, with all my opinions and critiques and bad puns, was going to be heard, and that meant that I mattered. That was beyond validating for my 16 year-old self.
It wasn’t until after half a year of tunnel-visioning myself into contests that I lifted my head and saw how fundamentally writing had changed me. This half-catharsis, half-challenge of untangling my thoughts and expressing them eloquently — it made me feel proud. And smart. Spontaneously, I’d find myself contributing semi-articulately to Thanksgiving political discussions. Or taking rhetorical risks in my A.P.-Lang timed writes, or citing memorable news articles in A.P. Gov discussions. Oh, and I could tell my friends that my name was in The New York Times, which was the coolest flex ever.
I didn’t end up winning the Editorial Contest, probably to the disappointment of my 15 year-old self. And for the remainder of 2021, I swapped out The Learning Network for the Common App, and reviews for résumés. That was one of the most brutal periods of my life, and one which doesn’t need to be rehashed.
