Competition is a fact of life. It appears in all aspects of life—including school. Some students enter sports competitions. Others compete over baking, or drawing, or singing. Keira Cockerham (9) and Kara Stevenson (9), however, decided to enter a book-writing contest in which the ultimate prize was getting their work published.
And they won.
“When Stanley Tucker, the guy doing the contest, came to our school—Monarch K-8—he introduced this story writing contest. I’ve been into writing for years, but I didn’t really have anything at the moment that I was working on,” Stevenson said. “But I knew my friend had already come up with an idea. And so I asked her, ‘Hey, is there any way I can work with you on this?’ And she said, yeah, and that friend was Keira and the rest is history.”
Their book, Alien on Earth, tells the story of an extraterrestrial named Callisto coming to Earth and meeting two humans, whom he takes back to his planet. The book, which is less than 50 pages, was written in three months, as per the competition rules. However, Cockerham already had some ideas.
“The easiest part of writing was probably getting into the idea of it all, the setting. Once you get into the setting and the characters, you know [what] you’re writing about, and you know what the setting is, and it feels easier,” Cockerham said. “And then after that, you can go around and revise and make sure your ideas are coming across clearly.”
Cockerham was the main writer of the story, while Stevenson edited the work. In their mind, one of the hardest parts of creating the tale was coming up with a way to turn the events they had into a cohesive plot, as they wrote sporadically.
“I was like, hey, how do we want the plot to go? And then [Keira] gave me a basic outline, and then she would write a little bit, I would edit, and maybe I would add my own bit. And then she’d write from that,” Stevenson said. “Or sometimes she just wrote separate little chunks, she didn’t write in chronological order, and then we would have to piece it together.”
Having only three months to brainstorm, plan, write, and edit an entire story might have been a challenge for the duo, but the hardest part was procrastination.
“We wrote like half of it in a night, so there wasn’t the best editing,” Cockerham said. “But I would say I’m very proud that I actually did it, and that even though it’s not everything that it wanted to be, I’m very proud that I just followed through. And Kara and I got to write the book.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s good, just get your ideas out and try to actually start. I think starting is the hardest. And then once you start, you [keep] writing. I write all the time now,” Cockerham said. “Just go for it.”
