Halverson student wins writing contest

Staff

Published Sunday, April 29, 2007

By Sarah Kirchner, staff writer

Nicole Borneman started writing stories when she was 6 years old, and by the time she was 10 she won her first writing contest. She is well on her way to becoming the next J.K. Rowling, which she said is her life aspiration.

Nicole won first place in the fourth-grade category of the Once Upon a Story writing contest, sponsored by the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Minnesota Children’s Museum.

“I was really happy but my mom was more excited than I was,” Nicole said. “When we got the message on the machine my mouth was hanging open and I shut it and it fell open again.”

Winners were chosen for each grade, kindergarten through sixth, from 939 stories entered in the 20th annual — and last — contest. The winning stories were published in the April 15 issue of the Pioneer Press.

A few months ago, Nicole’s grandmother saw an ad for the writing contest in the Pioneer Press and suggested Nicole enter. Many story ideas were thrown about, but her mother, Karen, told Nicole to use “The New Kid and Me.”

“I just thought I should give it a shot and see if I could do it,” Nicole said.

The winning story is about a girl struggling through peer pressure. She wants to befriend the new girl in school but her friends are busy bullying her. It is written with first-person narration and vivid descriptions, well beyond what one would expect from a fourth-grader.

“I think I was thinking if you put yourself in someone else’s shoes and what that would feel like,” Nicole said.

When she first heard about the contest, Nicole sat down and wrote seven stories to enter.

However, Karen played the editor role and suggested Nicole use a story she had written previously. The contest had a 1,000 word limit and she squeaked by with 996 words.

“I like to write a lot,” Nicole said. “My mom likes it when I write a lot.”

“She’s someone who comes home and sits down on the computer and writes,” Karen added. Nicole often sits at the computer writing for over an hour at a time.

Nicole went to the Children’s Museum April 20 with her parents, brother, two grandmothers and a great-grandmother to accept her award and an illustration of her story.

Currently Nicole is working on three stories, but she rarely finishes them. She said she writes about 100 stories a year, but deletes most of them because she gets sick of them or doesn’t feel like she’s at a place to call most of them finished.

Karen said Nicole’s strongest point in writing is the character development and describing things in detail, which is evident in “The New Kid and Me.”

“After school, I waited for the new girl who had been introduced as Kayla Washington. I leaned against the wall, tracing handprints that had been pressed in the wet cement years ago.

“Soon I spotted her. Her fluffy brown hair hung in her face, and her brown eyes blended in so well they almost weren’t visible.”

Nicole said the characters aren’t based on anyone she knows, but the narrator slightly resembles herself.

“I’m sort of like her because I try to be friends with new people, but I’m not as nice as her,” she said.

Througout her life, Nicole has entered three writing contests, most submitted by her teachers. This is the first time she’s won, but she has received honorable mention before.

“She’s a well-rounded person. She’s one of those students you wish you could have 25 of,” said Nicole’s teacher, Maria Olson.

Nicole was chosen by Olson to attend the young writers conference in May in Rochester to take more writing classes.

“I’m just so glad she was getting recognized for something she enjoys so much and does well at,” Karen said.

Nicole’s dad already put dibs on being her agent, with a price of 75 percent of her profits.

Nicole said she plans to keep writing. She’d better if she wants to live up to the Harry Potter phenomenon.

“I would love to be famous,” Nicole said. “I can just see my name in lights.”

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