The Ink Chapel

We did it.

I have officially graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing & English, with a concentration in Poetry.

Which means I am now academically qualified to spend six hours deciding whether a character should sigh, scoff, or simply stare into the middle distance.

Worth it.

When I first started this degree, I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever finish. Four years sounds like forever when you’re standing at the beginning. Somewhere along the way there were discussion posts I never wanted to write, research papers that consumed my life, enough peer reviews to make me question every sentence I’d ever typed, and approximately seventeen thousand citations. (That’s a rough estimate. It felt accurate.)

There were also plenty of moments where I wondered if I was actually any good at writing.

Funny how life works.

I chose a concentration in poetry because, at the time, fiction felt intimidating. Poetry felt safer. I understood it. Fiction felt like this giant mountain that everyone else knew how to climb except me.

Fast forward to today.

I’m over here building kingdoms, inventing religions, creating magical creatures, arguing over fictional politics, and spending entirely too much time figuring out how many wolves is an appropriate number of wolves.

Turns out I accidentally became a fantasy writer anyway.

The last sixteen weeks of school felt especially strange because my concentration classes were already behind me. I was basically wrapping up general education courses thinking, “Wait… I already did the thing I came here for.”

Ironically, those classes ended up being some of the most enjoyable. I got to write about World War II, survive an art class where I somehow learned charcoal doesn’t immediately ruin your entire house, and I finished my very last term with…

Two A’s.

Not a bad way to leave.

People have asked me if a Creative Writing degree guarantees you’ll become a published author.

Nope.

Publishers don’t care whether you have a degree nearly as much as they care whether you wrote a fantastic book.

But the degree represents something different.

It represents four years of learning to write better than I did yesterday.

Learning how to revise instead of panic.

Learning how to accept criticism without immediately assuming my keyboard should be thrown into the nearest lake. (Although it’s still hard to receive criticism).

Learning to think like a writer.

Most importantly, it taught me that writing isn’t waiting around for inspiration.

It’s showing up.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Now that school is finally over, something else gets to become my full-time creative obsession.

Book One.

I’ve joked for months that I’d work on it “when school is over.”

Well…

School is over.

No more discussion boards.

No more finals.

No more wondering why every professor wanted a different formatting style.

No more “webmail” notifications that somehow appeared exactly when I was relaxing.

Just me, a blank page, entirely too many notes, and a fantasy world that’s been patiently waiting for me to stop writing essays about literally everything else.

I’m ridiculously proud of earning this degree.

Not because it makes me a better person.

Not because it guarantees success.

But because I finished something that took years of commitment, ridiculously countless cups of tea & coffee, and more determination than I realized I had.

So here’s to graduating.

Here’s to every late night, every paper, every poem, every assignment, every incredibly hard earned A, every moment I doubted myself, and every moment I kept going anyway.

Now…

On to writing my novel.

© 2026 The Ink Chapel. All rights reserved.

Author’s Note:  I’d like to thank every professor who said, “This should only take about an hour.” Respectfully… I would like those hours back. Also, a sincere thank you to “webmail” for reminding me about assignments I had already submitted. Your unwavering lack of faith in me kept me humble. 😌🎓