Personal Narrative: My Essay
At the end of July, I considered giving up on writing again. With all the hours I poured into my last essay, it felt like a slap in the face that they didn’t even send a “thank you for trying” letter. I spent the announcement day sitting on my in-law’s porch sipping coffee with Baileys and stewing over yet another essay contest loss. Lacking in ideas of where I went wrong, I tried imitating old photos of authors again for inspiration. Leaning on the arm of the wicker chair with my chin resting on curled fingers; I held my pen like a cigarette, hoping to channel the inventiveness of Orwell or Fleming.
With U of L’s tuition jumping to chest tightening $11,068 for fall and spring semesters, it became impossible for me to pay for school out of …show more content…
pocket. I created a plan in the beginning of March to try writing scholarship essays for extra money instead of taking up a second job. Two authors, Kristina Ellis and Marianna Ragins, won $500,000 and $400,000 in scholarships respectively while they were still in high school. Their books, Confessions of a Scholarship Winner and Winning Scholarships for College, are the reason I decided to try writing as a way to pay for college. While I often think about giving up writing for a second job, I can’t bring myself to do it; I’m enjoying the challenges more than I hate the losing. I have no delusion to believe I could win $400,000 in scholarships, but it lifts my spirits knowing it can be done. I didn’t find Kristina Ellis’s or Marianne Ragin’s books to be exceptionally helpful for writing, but as an average student, I found their similar backgrounds encouraging. Neither author was a top athlete or an elite test taker while they were in high school, but both were wildly successful because of their dedication to writing scholarship essays. Admittedly, I was overexcited planning this essay project in the beginning, and did not consider how far behind I was in my writing abilities. Both ladies were high schoolers, so the writing process would have still been fresh to them. I, on the other hand, wrote my last major paper in 2007 as a junior in high school. Nevertheless, I took Ellis’s and Ragin’s successes to heart and used it as fuel for starting my own scholarship hunt. I picked the first weekend in March to bundle up in my favorite chair expecting to crank out an essay within a day.
Staring at the white screen, my inner voice fell silent and my skull felt hollow; squeezing out a single idea was like squeezing water from a rock. Papers that I expected to finish in a couple of days ended up taking weeks to complete, and I resented myself for being so slow. The lower enthusiasm resulted in more YouTube and Reddit breaks during the brainstorming process. My confidence in my own paper was often crushed after I read other winning scholarship essays.
Two months passed and I had almost resigned myself to believing I didn’t have the “right-brain” creativity to make an award winning essay. In my frustration, I often joked that it would be easier to drop my pants in the middle of campus for money than it would be to write an attention-grabbing paper.
By June, I still hadn’t won a contest, but in my procrastination, I found a group on Reddit just for writers. Reading the struggles of the other posters put my mind at ease, and their advice helped melt away my negative attitude. I never considered creating a structured writing schedule, the concept of "show don't tell", or the average time it takes a writer to do quality work. I just assumed that most writers had the ability to sit down and type whatever was on their mind with impeccable grammar and
exposition.
I took a weekend at the end of June to reorganize myself and put my expectations in check. With no experience, it was going to take several months to make a quality paper, so before brainstorming, I allotted time for research on writing advice. Brainstorming became an exercise in being honest with myself, as most of the stories in my essays were either fake or over exaggerated. Other scholarship winners seemed to have these extraordinary life stories which initially led me to believe they won because of their experience, not because of the quality of their writing.
With U of L’s tuition jumping to chest tightening $11,068 for fall and spring semesters, it became impossible for me to pay for school out of …show more content…
pocket. I created a plan in the beginning of March to try writing scholarship essays for extra money instead of taking up a second job. Two authors, Kristina Ellis and Marianna Ragins, won $500,000 and $400,000 in scholarships respectively while they were still in high school. Their books, Confessions of a Scholarship Winner and Winning Scholarships for College, are the reason I decided to try writing as a way to pay for college. While I often think about giving up writing for a second job, I can’t bring myself to do it; I’m enjoying the challenges more than I hate the losing. I have no delusion to believe I could win $400,000 in scholarships, but it lifts my spirits knowing it can be done. I didn’t find Kristina Ellis’s or Marianne Ragin’s books to be exceptionally helpful for writing, but as an average student, I found their similar backgrounds encouraging. Neither author was a top athlete or an elite test taker while they were in high school, but both were wildly successful because of their dedication to writing scholarship essays. Admittedly, I was overexcited planning this essay project in the beginning, and did not consider how far behind I was in my writing abilities. Both ladies were high schoolers, so the writing process would have still been fresh to them. I, on the other hand, wrote my last major paper in 2007 as a junior in high school. Nevertheless, I took Ellis’s and Ragin’s successes to heart and used it as fuel for starting my own scholarship hunt. I picked the first weekend in March to bundle up in my favorite chair expecting to crank out an essay within a day.
Staring at the white screen, my inner voice fell silent and my skull felt hollow; squeezing out a single idea was like squeezing water from a rock. Papers that I expected to finish in a couple of days ended up taking weeks to complete, and I resented myself for being so slow. The lower enthusiasm resulted in more YouTube and Reddit breaks during the brainstorming process. My confidence in my own paper was often crushed after I read other winning scholarship essays.
Two months passed and I had almost resigned myself to believing I didn’t have the “right-brain” creativity to make an award winning essay. In my frustration, I often joked that it would be easier to drop my pants in the middle of campus for money than it would be to write an attention-grabbing paper.
By June, I still hadn’t won a contest, but in my procrastination, I found a group on Reddit just for writers. Reading the struggles of the other posters put my mind at ease, and their advice helped melt away my negative attitude. I never considered creating a structured writing schedule, the concept of "show don't tell", or the average time it takes a writer to do quality work. I just assumed that most writers had the ability to sit down and type whatever was on their mind with impeccable grammar and
exposition.
I took a weekend at the end of June to reorganize myself and put my expectations in check. With no experience, it was going to take several months to make a quality paper, so before brainstorming, I allotted time for research on writing advice. Brainstorming became an exercise in being honest with myself, as most of the stories in my essays were either fake or over exaggerated. Other scholarship winners seemed to have these extraordinary life stories which initially led me to believe they won because of their experience, not because of the quality of their writing.