I’m Now A Top Writer In Writing — I’m Stunned

11 December 2021 Mike Lewis

My last story was about earning money despite not being a top writer

Two days ago I published a post about how I earned $94 in a week despite not being a top writer or having any articles curated.

You can see that article here.

Today, I checked my profile to find out that I am now a top writer in ‘Writing’.

I’m pretty stunned, for two reasons.

The first is that it seems pretty ironic that I got a top writer award right after writing about not being one.

The second is that I still have memories of my English teacher claiming that I was average at best. If only she could see my award. I think she’d be stunned as well.

Actually, I don’t think she would be stunned. She’d probably claim that I cheated, as that is what she accused me of in school.

My school essays probably were usually average, simply because we were forced to write about topics that I didn’t have any interest in. But one day we got a topic that was perfect for me.

As a child, I used to enjoy birdwatching and even had books on the subject. I lived in a small village that had abundant wildlife and a large variety of birds.

So when I got to write about a chaffinch building its nest, I wrote with more enthusiasm than usual. And what was the result? The teacher told me to go to the front of the class and asked me who had written the essay. It was so good that she didn’t believe I’d written it. She even threatened to keep the whole class in detention if no one would admit who wrote the essay for me. But no one could admit it, because I wrote it myself.

She then proceeded to tell me how the marking system worked. She said that 5 out of 10 was average, 6 out of 10 was above average. These were the two scores I usually got. 7 out of 10 was very good, and only about 25% of the class would get that mark. 8 out of 10 was near excellent. Only around 10% got that mark. 9 out of 10 was truly excellent, and only one or two students would get that score.

She added that no-one could ever get 10 out of 10, because it was impossible to write a perfect English essay. No matter how good it would be, there would always be room for improvement.

She then said that the essay I’d handed in was worth a score of 9 out of 10, but as I hadn’t written it (according to the teacher), she gave me 0 out of 10.

Throughout my school years, she always commented on how average my English essays were. Yet I had scored 9 out of 10. So was I average or excellent? My take on it is that I can be excellent when I’m writing about something I have an interest in. But I’m average or just above average if I have to write about something that I don’t have any interest in.

This sums up why I like writing on this platform. Medium allows me to only write about topics that I enjoy.

So, here I am, a top writer on Medium. I’m still stunned.