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15-year-old junior high school girl writes book on youth

2009-09-28 15:45 BJT

From then on, every day after finishing her homework she would spend one hour writing. "Sometimes my mind went blank and I could produce nothing. Sometimes I just wrote down a couple of sentences." According to Gong Chen, during the past two years she has produced around 100,000 characters, mainly in the form of prose and also, in a novel. In May 2008, Gong Chen applied to join China Young Writers Association. On September 22, she obtained a membership card for the Hanzhong Writers Association, thus becoming its youngest member.

During the constant writing process, Gong Chen's compositions often won first prize in the writing competitions. In the summer of 2009, the idea of publishing a book entered her mind. "I have spent most of the summers in bookstores. After reading so many books, I started to think: why not publish a book myself? At least it can serve as a reminder for me as I travel along the road of youth and as proof that I loved literature when I was young," she said.

So she took out her previous writings and read them carefully. After pondering over the idea for a period of time, she officially brought it up to her parents. "My parents were very supportive. I carefully selected some articles, mainly essays, from my previous writings, and asked my father to take them to a publisher," said Gong Chen. The book was soon published by Huaxia Publishing House, and the copies soon made their appearance in Xinhua Bookstores nationwide.

Gong Chen said that she is a person with lots of ponderings and reflections. And in her classmates' eyes, she was more mature than her peers. And her maturity is fully manifested in her articles: although she is only a junior middle school student who is 15 years old, no immaturity comes across in her writing; actually what we see more is her maturity.

To be a journalist is her dream

"After being on for a long time, the lamp on the desk begins to squeak. The feeble light strives hard to provide some light to my pen and that pile of books." This is the beginning of one of her essays called "Wonderful Moments of the Past."

As regards to her junior middle school days, she has her own unique way of describing them. In an article titled "A Female Second Grader of Junior Middle School," she wrote: "The life in the second grade of junior middle school is like beer, like cola, like candies, yet it is more like the traffic lights at the intersections…The life of second graders can be called bitter, yet not as bitter as that of third graders. Second graders can be called foolish, yet not as foolish as first graders."

Gong Chen said she plans to keep on writing, yet her biggest goal is to become a journalist, "because I will be free to travel."

 

Translated by LOTO

Editor: Shi Taoyang | Source: CCTV.com