When people ask me if I have a boyfriend, my immediate answer is that I'm in a love-hate relationship with my writing. This November, I'll be coming up on my one-year anniversary of writing for Odyssey. As I look back, I realize that writing for Odyssey has done a lot to shape me into who I am as a writer today.

Before I began writing for Odyssey, I was a freshman writing arts major struggling through what felt like the world's longest writer's block. I felt like I had been drained of my creativity. My roommate at the time had been writing for Odyssey since the end of her senior year in high school and suggested I try it out. If it wasn't my cup of tea, I could just stop writing for them.

I started my journey with Odyssey writing about my experience of leaving high school for a year. From there, I fell in love with writing all over again. Writing something new every week forced me to start getting creative again and explore what I liked to write about. It also guaranteed I'd get writing practice outside of my school assignments.

I'd be lying if I said writing for Odyssey was all perks. There have been some weeks where the last thing I want to worry about is getting an article in by the deadline. There have also been times where I felt my writing wasn't good enough to put out. Life can get in the way every now and then. However, going through these trials and errors taught me a lot; the biggest lesson being that I need to constantly work on time management.

Even with all the ups and downs of the last year, I am nothing but grateful for what my time with Odyssey has done for my relationship with writing, and I look forward to what my future with them will bring.