How 4-H Annoyed Me By Criticizing My Writing

*pokes blog* 

Well, I haven't really updated in a while. I must rectify this by telling you a fabulous (and pretty long) tale of adventure, writing, heartbreak, and revenge. The title of the story is How 4-H Annoyed Me By Criticizing My Writing, which also happens to be the title of the post. Fancy that. 

Still have no idea what those numbers mean. I got the picture off Wikipedia.

Yes, a few years ago I was in 4-H. It might just be me, but it wasn't quite as exciting as TV would have you believe. But then I found out that there was a category for the fair for creative writing, and everything was happiness and rainbows and smiling clouds.

And then I found out that for a first year in said category, the word limit was 400 words.

400 words. 

I couldn't write squat in 400 words. Well, it was a long time ago and my writing skills weren't that developed yet. I could write pretty long stuff, but short stories were kind of beyond me. What a foolish, naive child I was.

But I tried. In the end, I had to count some of the words as images and leave a few things out of my word counting in order to stay within limits. I think I had maybe 399 words after that. There's no rule against cheating a tiny bit, is there?

"Actually, there is. That's why it's called cheating."

I slid past the judges at the township fair, which qualified me to go to the county fair. My general outlook on the situation was "W00T! I'm the best!"

After judging was over at the county fair, I skipped into the fine arts building to receive my enormous trophy and check for $1 bazillion dollars. Imagine my surprise to find that my story—the one I had worked so freaking hard to make the most brilliant 400 word story at the whole fair—had gotten a red ribbon.

"Lacks character development," they said.

"Lacks brain cells," I said.

To be fair, it was pretty crappy. Probably the stupidest thing I've written since the Little Kitten books. *shudder* I just couldn't see it through my rose-tinted pride-glasses and childish hubris.

The next year, I was determined to win. I had been left a bitter husk by the critiquing of my little Cinderella story. Contributing to the bitter-husk-factor was the fact that the drawing that I had worked on for hour had gotten a freaking white ribbon. Because the stones were uneven. That's how they are in medieval castles. Geez… Looking back on it, I probably could have done the stones a little better. I think my nostalgia goggles are falling apart.

This year, I could write 500 words. Apparently, a hundred little words can make a huge difference. Or maybe I was just better at writing a year later.

I spent hours—or maybe it was only about twenty minutes, as I was quite an impatient child—writing up detailed character bios for characters I ended up cutting. For those of you keeping track at home, this makes the most character info I have ever written before actually writing the story. In the end, I didn't actually use most of the information I invented. I cut swathes of details, leaving me with three major characters and two minor, which is two more characters than I had the year before.

It paid off. I would have gone to the State Fair, that unattainable epitome of 4-H prowess, 'cept creative writing doesn't have a State Fair category.

Oh well. I got a purple honor ribbon in photography, at least.

We here at Newfallen Mystery Enterprises hope you have enjoyed this random and fairly self-centered excursion into Miss Clepe's backstory while she procrastinates on writing. Cheers!