Demoted!!!

Day 0.5-The Beginning of a Contributor's Life

          "You mustn't do that anymore, Paul. Because if the coordinators notice that, it will easily be the reason so that you will be kicked out." –Hannah

And so I did.

"Your writing is awfully similar in structure and narrative to the original one. It felt like the writer didn't watch what he needs to or simply expounded on the existing content." –Julianne

I did that.

"You just seem to plagiarize and paraphrase. You must improve, Paul Winston." –Neenah.

I would like to improve.

My editors and co-writers seemed to have given me the necessary knowledge that I would need, and warned me of the consequences that I will face if I did not. However, it seems like my inexperienced self made me do more things that are actually different from their expectations, which they highly discouraged. I continued to do it, until the day I totally predicted came.

"I'm sad to say it, but, Paul Winston, we are letting you go. However, we fully acknowledge all your contributions and thus would like to give you another chance. Time of improvement is subjective, so I have opted not to give you a specific time." –Annabelle.

One of the head coordinators talked to me about my performance, and finally fired me—or more accurate, demoted me to a mere contributor, not being allowed to do what I think I do best—writing. I was still in the organization, but I am not there. Yet who could blame her? I was the one who need improvement, and I didn't heed to their various warnings. Am I the one to blame? Or is it someone besides me? I don't know, and I don't think that I should blame anyone.

The shock from that is totally big, and it is hard to recover from something like that. After all, who becomes happy when they get fired, or maybe, stripped of their rights to do something they really want to? I got frustrated, but I think that is life. But I sometimes wonder—why is life that harsh?

I just lost from a high-stakes quiz bowl. When I got home, I received that message from Annabelle. It was October 25th. Is it a bad day for me? I can't remember much of what happened later that day. I just went to church for choir practice.

However, right after that, I decided to counsel myself by chatting some of my co-workers, or more accurately, former co-workers through social media. I started by chatting one of my closest buddies there, Carlo.

"Hey, guess what?" I typed into the chat box. "Something great happened to me!"

Carlo took a while to reply, but he did.

"Whoa! Did you get an award?" he replied.

"No, I didn't. But it's something better than that!"

"Hmm...did you get a new job?" he asked.

It took me a while to ponder that. "Yes, I did!"

"Oh! What? Is it good?" replied Carlo.

"Yes!"

"Wait, let me check."

"Okay."

Carlo took a while to find out what happened to me. Then, he chatted to me once more.

"You are a contributor now. What do they do?" he asked.

"A contributor is someone who has successfully contributed at least on work, then got fired as a writer, in my case. But more accurately, I got demoted. I cannot write anymore for NWA."

"B-but why? Isn't that a bad thing?"

"Huh? Of course not. It is the best thing that may happen to a writer. It's heavenly." I replied, showing sarcasm. Carlo did get it, but asked more questions.

Nor Writings Authority, or known by its abbreviation, NWA, is the organization tasked to rewrite everything necessary to be rewritten—erroneous spellings, erroneous blurbs, erroneous synopses, erroneous passages, and above all, erroneous pages of history. They have the power to officially rewrite anything, and their rewritten works have the most influence and following, and also has the best ones.

Meanwhile, I, Paul Winston is a kind, smart, and athletic high school student—on the outside. In work, while I think that my attitude is never any different, the reality is it is the complete opposite—I am rude, pretentious, and above all, boastful. Many people have told me to restrain all of these tendencies behind me, and I really try my best to. However, there are things that happen, even if I do not want to.

"What will happen to me now? One of my works has many mistakes!" Carlo asked as he put up a sobbing emoji.

"Don't worry, everyone makes mistakes. Just care not to do mistakes that I did like paraphrasing and plagiarizing, at least to what they think I did," I replied.

"Come back, Paul, you are a magnificent writer. I have loved your works!"

"Ha, ha, ha. Thanks a lot, Carlo, but I'll be back in a month, just you wait! I'll be rolling up the streets of writing once more!"

Carlo replied with an obvious joy. "Oh! I see! I'll be waiting," he said, putting up a smiley.

That ended our conversation. That really made my chest go a little light, but still, the frustration and the shock from being demoted to a contributor really haunted me.

I couldn't sleep that night—I needed to verify if that was a dream or not. But unfortunately, it was all but the truth. The pounding of my heart won't just go away. The privilege that I was granted was taken away. But once again, it is all my fault.

And now, as a resolution, I need to study more of English grammar and nurturing up my writing style, eradicating every bad things that cooped up inside of me. All for the sake of rejoining the writer's guild of this legendary organization. All for the sake of regaining once again the honor of writing. All for the sake of satisfying me.

But why is this happening to me? Am I just out of luck? Who knows? I may be annoying right now, but that's just how I ponder myself. Am I the bad person here? I slept after 3 hours.

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Afterword!

If you are reading this, thank you for taking time to read my story—which is an erroneous one.

Oh my god! This story turned out to be more frustrating to write than what I have planned! If things go well, this might just take around 30 days, with no points of climax and conflict—just pure studying of English grammar, just like what I said. If anyone of you noticed the references that I was making, just don't think about it—it's not that important if you don't know what I'm talking about. I plan to update this every day until the end of November or early December, or in worst cases, might take up until New Year.

For those who did not get what I was trying to say in the story, I'll explain it here. Paul Winston is a man of pride who got demoted from his job and on the way to redeem himself.

I'm going to put a self-review here. The plot of Demoted!!! was uninteresting, bland, and it was too confusing. I'd give a 1.5 for effort out of ten.

I don't care if that became a review. I just want to express what I want to write. We have the writ of habeas corpus, right? So don't me. Once again, I thank you for reading!