As the 2nd period bell rings, students flock to the media room. They make up Nest Network, the student media publication of Eaglecrest High School. Creators of all kinds join together to make their ideas a reality and create something worth the time of their fellow students.

But how does a Nest Network story start?

It all begins with an idea.

“I just think, ‘What’s something in the school that no one talks about?’” said reporter Ren Hotzfeld. “I want to learn more about the school and share that information with everyone else.”

Those ideas are then turned into a first draft, which can sometimes take weeks to finish.

“I like getting interviews as soon as possible, and after the interviews, I use [them] to build my story,” Hotzfield explained. She uses her quotes to guide her writing, and thinks about what she can use from each interview.

At this point, the story goes to the next step of the process, where the editor comes into play.

“As I read through it, if I see a sentence that kind of reads weird or there’s a grammatical error — most of the time I’ll just fix the grammatical error,” Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Garza said. “And then if there’s a deeper issue with the sentence structure, or if it’s a quote integration that’s a little unprofessional, then I’ll help the reporter fix it and also teach them on how to avoid that in the future.”

But editors still have their own stories, and time management can be a major challenge for them, according to Garza.

“It’s difficult to find that balance between editing and writing. Most of the time I’m working on a few stories at a time while also working on other people’s stories and trying to balance that,” Garza explained. “I’m not the best at [time management], but I’m definitely getting better because of this class.”

After the editorial process, the story is finally complete and gets published, whether that means a digital release through the NN website or a physical one through the NN magazine. The whole process typically takes a few weeks, but can take upwards of a few months for major stories, before finally making its way to Eaglecrest and all the people inside of it.