Spring into summer makes everything feel like a fresh page. The air is warmer, the days stretch longer, and possibility hums in the background, waiting to be put into words. It feels fitting to mark this moment because, for the first time in years, I’ve actually finished something I started.
Writing and I have had a complicated relationship. I have always loved it, but loving something doesn’t mean it comes easy. I’ve abandoned more drafts than I can count—half-finished short stories, poetic nonsense scribbled at 2 AM, plot outlines that never made it past chapter one. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that if I wasn’t finishing things, maybe I wasn’t really a writer at all.
But then, this year happened.
On a whim I applied to be a part of Her Campus. At the start of it, I was an editor, not a writer. Editing felt safer. Less vulnerable. It was easy to see potential in someone else’s words, to pull them apart and stitch them back together in a way that made them shine. It was so much harder to believe my own words could be worth reading. But then Theme Week rolled around (for people who don’t know what that is – once every semester the exec team chooses a theme and opens the floor to anyone who wants to write whether that’s your role or not) and for some reason, I did something terrifying: I told people I would write something. And once I had said it out loud, I knew I couldn’t back out.
That first article was a battle. I doubted every sentence. I rewrote entire paragraphs only to go back to the original version. I hovered over the submit button for far too long. And when I finally sent it in, I braced myself for the worst—except, somehow, the worst never came. People read it. People liked it. People related to it. And just like that, I realized something I should have known all along: the only way to be a writer is to write.
So I kept going.
In the winter semester I challenged myself to write every two weeks, and each article became its own small victory. Some pieces flowed effortlessly; others made me question why I had ever signed up for this. But in all of it, I found something I thought I had lost—joy. The thrill of getting a sentence just right. The satisfaction of seeing an idea take shape. The quiet moment after finishing a piece where I could sit back and think, I did that.
Writing is still scary. I still have days where I wonder if I’m any good at it. But this year, I proved to myself that I can do it. I can see something through. And that means more to me than I can put into words.
I want to thank the editors I’ve worked with this year—Willa, Cassie, Emily, and Emma—for their feedback, their validation, and their belief in my words (even when I didn’t believe in them myself). And to Her Campus, for giving me the space to start finding my voice—she’s still playing hide and seek, but I think I’m getting closer. This year has felt like a beginning, and I know I have a long way to go—to figure out what kind of writer I want to become, to trust the shape my voice is taking, and to follow this path wherever it leads, one sentence at a time.
As summer begins, I’m carrying this momentum forward. Into new projects, new stories, new challenges. I’m working at The Queen’s Journal, learning a different kind of storytelling, pushing myself to grow. I don’t know exactly what this summer will bring. But I know this: I’m not done writing. I never was.
So, here’s to fresh pages, unfinished drafts, and the endless possibility of words.
See you next year, Her Campus. And until then, I’ll be writing.