I remember once when talking with a friend that she felt discouraged that she just wasn’t a good writer. But I told her, “Being a good writer is a skill that anyone can learn if they want to and have the dedication.”

The bittersweet truth of writing is that it is not easy; it takes work and practice just like any other skill. And I believe truly great writing comes from a writer's soul. When a writer is truly passionate about what they are writing about, it reflects upon the reader. This is part of the reason it is so hard to be a writer because it requires looking deep into your heart and attempting to convey that through words twined together on paper.

Being a writer puts you in an incredibly vulnerable position, because when your writing is shared with the world, it is revealing part of you. Depending on what the writing is on, it exposes some of the writer's deepest emotions. A writer, also, is not only a thinker, but also a doer. Truth is that we all have thoughts crossing our minds throughout each day, but to be able to convey them on paper into a cohesive matter is difficult.

I had a breakthrough moment when a college professor of mine told me, “The best writers are the best self-editors.” Before I heard this, I put such pressure on myself to get everything I wrote down perfectly the first time around, to the point that I did not write anything at all. But what my professor taught me was that no one gets it all perfect in the first draft, not even the best writers.

This made me realize that the process of writing could be all my own. I did not have to follow any sort of checklist that a former English teacher told me and, actually, the majority of rules were ruining my creativity. At some moments, it’s just about getting your thoughts down on paper and making sense of them later.

If every writer followed the formats and rules that all the teachers gave us, then every story or article we read would be so alike it would be boring. The point is that every writer has their own style and way of writing the same way that any kind of artist has their own individual twist to make them unique.

The relationship I have with writing is definitely a mixture of love and hate, which I am sure is the same for the majority of writers. Writing is a process of thinking, brainstorming, researching, collaborating, drafting, editing and actually writing. And, honestly, the majority of the time I do not actually feel like writing, because it takes me into a different world in my head that consumes my focus. It is a tedious process that is constantly thinking of new ideas, re-reading and re-writing, which can be exhausting. But, at the same time, it makes me feel so alive. It helps me organize my own thoughts.

Once I reach the finish line of writing something, it is so rewarding. I feel so accomplished and in that moment it makes it all worth it. Yes, it is a torturous process to get there, but somehow enjoyable. When it is all finished there is a joy in knowing all of those words together create a story told by you.