Confessions of a contest queen

This Week’s Winner
Rowena Wendy Lei, 33, is married and mother to two. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication from Ateneo in 1995. She is a cement dealer and quite recently a freelance writer, contributing articles to various publications.

I think I was born a skeptic. I’m a firm believer in the saying “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is,” and I have been proven right time and again. Perhaps it was because my parents separated when I was very young, I stopped believing in whimsical fairy tales other children my age fantasized about.

In college I took up my desired course, which was communications, but in the end I wound up in a career path that was, above all else, the practical choice. I knew in my heart I wanted to write, but having grown up in an environment with not much room for artistry or caprice, I chose to work in sales where you earn as much as you can sell. The prospect of making more money in a shorter span of time won, and I have ever since wondered what could have been if I had from the start pursued a career doing something I loved.

I took up writing as a hobby. I put up a review website, critiquing anime and video games. My sister-in-law came across it and told me to write a 300-word essay about a particular mall. There was a contest, she said. She was going to submit her entry that day and she said she could drop off mine at the same time. She thought I had a good chance of winning. I was doubtful, but I dutifully typed up a 300-word essay that morning and handed it to her by noon. Less than a week later, I got a call from the mall and was told I had won P20,000 worth of gift certificates.

It was the shock of a lifetime — I had never won anything prior to that. The rest, as they say, is contest history. Writing contests became my outlet. All the frustrations I had for not pursuing a writing career, I poured out with frenzied passion in my essays, stories and even poems. And I would win — everything from gift certificates to gadgets to vacation trips. It had gotten to be such a usual occurrence that my family and friends would no longer be surprised when they would hear of my winnings.

I met my favorite book through one of my best friends from my high school days. She called me one day and told me that she had watched a film entitled The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, and that the heroine reminded her of me because she too would join all these writing contests and would win a wide array of prizes that she used to support her family. I was intrigued. I immediately went online and did some research. I found out that the movie she saw was based on a book of the same title. I went to work and called up what seemed like every single bookstore in Metro Manila until I found one that had the book in stock. I had it reserved and bought it that same day.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is the true story of a 1950s housewife named Evelyn Ryan. Evelyn was the high school valedictorian and has a budding career in a newspaper. But as fate would have it, she gets married early and has 10 children. This keeps her from working since she has to take care of the kids and the household. Undaunted, Evelyn continues to write, contributing anecdotes and poems to various publications. The 1950s and 1960s were times when writing contests were the “in” thing in America. Evelyn takes advantage of this, joining jingle-making contests, rhyme contests and the like. She wins all sorts of prizes: cash, home appliances, food, clothing, which is why author Terry Ryan (Evelyn Ryan’s daughter) subtitled the book How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less.

Evelyn Ryan’s story is one of hope and determination. Despite her incredible contest winnings, her life is anything but a charmed one. Her husband is an alcoholic who has violent tendencies, and for the most part she single-handedly keeps the family afloat with her writing and contesting ways. What I love and admire most about her character is her indomitable spirit. Even when her life is at its darkest, she would meet every single day with a smile and an unwavering faith that things would turn around. Her effervescence and optimism radiate through the pages, reaching out to my cynical heart and mind. 

I was not at all like Evelyn Ryan. I was too much of a realist and I had let negative experiences stamp out that side of me which dreamt and hoped. I learned to expect the worst in every situation so as not to be disappointed. Everything to me was practical and based on rationalization. I had become accepting and unquestioning of whatever life handed me, believing that was just how the world works. While it was very convenient, it did not lead to a full life.

The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio made me think long and hard about how I was spending my time in this world. So what if more than a decade has passed since I had gotten my degree? These writing contests have all the more made me realize that writing is what I should be doing.

Evelyn Ryan taught me that life is what you make it, and that instead of regretting past decisions, one should look forward and do what’s best for the present and future.  It’s never too early or too late to start doing something you love… and proof of that is how Evelyn Ryan was writing until the day she died. I hope that one day, like Evelyn, I can say with pride that “I feel that I’m doing exactly what I was meant to do in this life.”

That to me would be the greatest prize.