I wrote a JohnLock fanfiction and won second place in my school's writing competition!

As the title suggests, I won second place in my school's writing competition! I physically cannot believe it!

For context, I cooked up a random entry the day the writing competition was announced. The entry requirements stated that each submission must be less than 400 words. Which... isn't a lot if you really think about it. I only realized this when I finished writing.

My entry was, in short, a JohnLock fanfic. Yeah. The entry was basically about Watson's life after Holmes' death, how he coped with the loss. I wrote it in the format of his case reports/diary entries. To be frank, I submitted it as a joke. We all know that English teachers frown upon fanfiction--how it isn't 'real literature' and all that. But I submitted it with the slim chance that maybe they actually might like how unique my entry was. And I was right!

Everyone else wrote their own original short stories, from what I know (the other entries haven't been published and I'm dying to know what the student who took first place wrote), so maybe they might have liked a change. Originally, the plan was to write a House M.D. fanfiction, but I realized not many people actually know who House is, and settled on a more well-known character--Sherlock.

Even more nerve-wrackingly, the winners were announced in the Dining Hall in front of the whole school. When they called up the third place winner, AKA the gee-wiz math genius who excels in English class I thought, 'No way in absolute hell was I going to beat that.' Consequently, I lost all hope. But they announced my name right after. I couldn't believe it. Sure, the applause for me wasn't as loud as I expected (Maybe the sound drowned out in the midst of the moment), but I was shocked to my core. I have never written anything formally (other than my first AO3 fanfiction), nor have I submitted anything for any writing competition, ever. 

Afterwards, we took a photo on stage, and students congratulated me. Notably, one girl asked to read my submission and I gladly shared it with her. Apparently, she'd applied too, and she showed me her entry. Honestly, it could have had a real chance save for the grammatical and spelling errors. She even got her English teacher to look over it for her! I, on the other hand, wrote, showed it to my family and one friend, and then submitted it. I felt kind of bad, actually.

While I walked back from the stage, my advisor (homeroom instructor, if you will) called out and clapped for me. I've never felt this happy before. Also, the first place winner is in the same advisory as me. When we stood on stage together, he told me it was a big win for the homeroom group. I was ecstatic.

Anyways, winning this competition was all I needed to have faith in my writing skills. The comments I get on my fanfiction on AO3 are motivating and sweet, sure, but that's kind of fandom culture. I didn't really take it to heart until I won this competition. Honestly, it just made my victory sweeter.

Prizes will be announced next week if I remember correctly. I will update what I won once the time comes. 

Thank you for reading, if you stayed thus far!