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THE SECOND PLACE WINNER (NO ENTRY FEE DIVISION)

My Own Definition

by Amber Herrick

         I will tell you what success is. When I first began writing, I promised a thirteen year-old friend she would get a preview of the completed novel. By the time I finished it she was fifteen, and I lived on the other side of the country. I came to visit her at the worst possible time; her mother had abandoned the family and left the country, and my friend was in pieces. She came to where I was staying to read my book, but her body was listless and her eyes dull and unseeing.
        “This is a bad time,” I told her. “We’ll wait, until things are calmer–”
        “No,”  she interrupted. “I want to read it now.” She took the manuscript from my hands and went into the kitchen, and I settled down in the fidgety manner common to all writers waiting for a verdict. I heard the rustle of pages from the kitchen. Now and then came a short laugh. I peeked into the kitchen to see her smiling, eyes roaming over the pages.                                                             I should interject at this point to explain “The Note Passage”. In my novel, a Prince writes a bizarre note of farewell, and I never thought I got it quite right. I cringe every time I read it. But kids, for some reason, love the note passage. My teenage friend was no exception. She started laughing, then laughed harder, and I came into the kitchen to see her falling out of her chair laughing, with tears in her eyes. And I thought: This is why you write. To make people forget they are miserable. To take them to a world you created, and whether funny or scary or tragic, it becomes a sanctuary.  A writer can be wrapped up in trying to create art, but I believe in the end all that matters is that you entertain. Not entertainment in the sense of reality TV and bad movies, but real, true escape from the world we live in. The ability to generate this mental teleportation is the only real art, and instigation of joy the only real success.
        In the years since then, even with publications and accolades, I still consider my friend laughing her heart out in the kitchen to be my single greatest success. Every time I think of it I imagine that someday there will be other kids, all over the world, sitting in their rooms or hiding in a treehouse or holed up in their closet, laughing at a Prince’s silly note.
 

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