(June 8, 2012) — For much of her life, Jessica Palacios has worked with her parents and their family bookstore, Once Upon a Time. Therefore, when it came time for her to choose what she wanted to do for her senior project, the choice was easy. “I wanted to write a novel. The senior project was a good time to do something related,” said Palacios. Palacios said that her project allowed her to take the writing skills she already knew and build upon them, in order to fully understand the writing process. “It seemed like it would be a good area that I could expand on and move past the little basic steps that I knew how to do and actually use my writing skills,” said Palacios. The project took Palacios’ research paper and built upon it to create a full story. “I decided to do that because I have always wanted to write a novel and I figured this would be a good opportunity Although she says her project hasn’t convinced her she wants to be a writer, the project allowed her to further analyze the possibilities that writing offers. “I’m not sure if i want to be an author just because it is a very hard job,” Palacios said. “I hope to major in biology and english. That way I can be a genetic researcher or if I want to, try writing.” Although her senior project choice didn’t sway her main career goals, the creation of a novel allowed Palacios to take a further look at working on a large scale project in general. “I think that the main thing that I learned from this project was that it takes a lot of work to complete something that is this big.” Overall, Palacios says that her project gave her a greater appreciation for the work that goes into making a novel. “Novels are not things that can be produced overnight or even in a month, contrary to what some people think. It takes time and planning and willingness to write, even when I don’t want to, because it’s my job,” she said.