From Fatima

There is no other love-hate relationship than the one between myself and writing. On one end, there is the satisfaction of successfully expressing your thoughts in writing, fully believing you have conquered writer’s block and should begin brainstorming ideas for a future novel. On the other end, the planning and organizing of ideas, the blockages, and the dreaded page count unite and have you seriously second-guessing that novel idea. In saying this, my writing process, and level of stress, depends on the type of writing I am working through.     Academic writing requires the most planning and consideration, usually beginning with a deep, centering breath before I jump in. First, I’ll start with narrowing down my central idea and thesis. This helps me during my next step, which is creating a rough outline of the topics I’ll need to cover. Once I have my main idea and an outline of my paper, I focus on the individual sections of my outline and write down the main points for e...

G rowing up, I did not always consider myself a reader. I never felt pulled toward the material we read in class or the writing assignments we were given. I realized that feeling primarily stemmed from there rarely being room for exploration as a student. It wasn’t until I entered high school that I discovered the vast landscape of the book world and all that it offered to someone like me, who yearned for a place I could escape to (even in my imagination). I found that there was so much more to reading than I thought, with endless genres that I had never even considered. It was a turning point for me and I somewhat owe it all to my English and History teacher. They encouraged students to seek out the topics that interested them most when choosing novels, and more importantly they tried to instill in students a mindset that reminded them that the possibilities are endless. That mindset has shaped my perspective when it comes to reading and writing, especially in terms of how I encoura...