I was also curious about what happens behind the scenes.

After becoming a Production Assistant post-college, I saw how a script gets broken down for filming, how a shooting schedule moves scenes around, and how the early mornings and late nights eventually become part of the finished movie.

The scene you encounter first on the page might end up somewhere in the middle of the film. The last thing you write might become the beginning. What starts as a collection of small vignettes becomes something entirely different once you start putting them together.

I’d already discovered how much I loved talking to people about their ideas.

It was a college course in pedagogy that led me to become a Writing Center Consultant. And if there was a dream job, this was it.

I wasn’t there to fix someone’s writing. I was there to sit with them, talk through their ideas, ask questions, and help them decipher how to say what they were really trying to get onto the page.

Sometimes that meant asking something as simple as, “What did you mean here?” Then working through the piece together: what was worth keeping, what needed developing, and where they wanted to take the idea next.

Then I started creating my own ideas.

Honestly, I started freelance writing because I wanted to create.

I’d been trying to find ways to combine my love of fitness with my love of making things. First, with small projects for a fitness center where I worked as a receptionist. Later, while writing race recaps for a running organization where I was working.

But I wanted more than to simply write after the work day was done. I wanted to come up with ideas. Create things. Find stories and figure out how to share them, during the day.

That eventually led me into virtual assistance, freelance writing, and social media. At Black Girl In Om, I brainstormed ideas for their monthly Twitter chats and digital publication, partnered with potential influencers, and listened for what people in the community were talking about and interested in.

That was the part I loved: thinking about what stories could resonate, crafting conversations worth joining, and figuring out how an idea could connect people not just with a brand but with each other.

Then I started thinking about how people learn to write.

Funny thing was, I didn’t set out to become a teacher. I was actually freelancing and interested in how I could teach people about writing. So I took a two-year teaching fellowship working with middle school students to learn to teach.

What surprised me was how much I enjoyed creating lessons for my students. I loved researching social-emotional skills, thinking about the interests in my classroom, and developing materials that would engage and connect with these 12- to 14-year-old students from low-income communities.

For many of my students, academics wasn’t necessarily a place where they felt seen, or where learning felt accessible to them. So I wanted to find ways to spark their curiosity and show them that their interests belonged in the classroom, too.

Instead of rehashing the usual handful of historical figures, I wanted them to find people they could genuinely connect with. If a student loved basketball, they could research Michael Jordan. If they were interested in entrepreneurship, they could explore someone like Madam C.J. Walker.

And once again, I found myself doing what I’d been doing all along: taking an idea, thinking about who it was for, and figuring out how to make it meaningful to them.

Then I got to design something from the pieces.

As my teaching fellowship came to an end, I was given the chance to redesign our training manual into an interactive workbook for the organization’s spin-off brand.

And this was fun.

I got to look at something that already existed and ask: How could we make this better?

Pulling from what I’d learned creating lessons, I thought about how someone would actually move through the material, what they needed to understand by the end, and how the workbook could do more than just offer up information.

I wasn’t just putting training documents into a prettier package. I was thinking about the experience of the person on the other side.

And I loved it.

And then I realized I liked bringing all the pieces together.

When I became a Partnerships Manager, I thought creating presentations would be the fun part. But pretty quickly, I found myself doing what I’d always done: coming up with ideas, asking questions of our processes, and looking for ways to make what we were already doing better.

When my role eventually shifted in a direction that wasn’t for me, I was offered a contract working on special projects with the Program team. There I got to put that behind-the-scenes instinct to work in a completely different way.

I helped bring to life our first annual team summit, from figuring out the logistics to researching hotels and booking employee travel. I loved seeing how the little pieces fit: the plans, the people, the schedules, the details you don’t necessarily notice when you’re attending an event but that make the whole thing possible.

So, here I am.

All those twists and turns have taught me I don’t need to box myself into writing, education, creating, or the behind-the-scenes work of making things happen. They all weave together to create the same thing I’ve been drawn to for years: getting curious about an idea and finding ways to make it breathe.

That could look like helping a writer find the heart of a piece. Turning a stack of training materials into something people actually want to use. Or getting into the details behind an event so someone else can focus on who’s in the room.

That’s the work I get to do now.

I help educators and education-focused organizations develop their ideas, create meaningful resources, and bring their projects to life.