Amra Pajalic

Sometimes you need a change of perspective to see things clearly. My crappy childhood is coloured through my feelings of deprivation. Why didn’t I have the Mummy who came to my parent/teacher interviews? Who got up in the morning and made me breakfast? Who drove me to school? All these little resentments bubbling under the surface.

Last week I sent a copy of my book to two of my favourite teachers. Bronwyn Malone my year 12 English teacher who read every single crappy thing I wrote and commented on it too, then gave me a book as a present. And Denise Kirton my year 10 English teacher who supported me through a bad year when my mother was hospitalised and I missed more than 50% of school. There was talk of keeping me back to repeat, but she was one of the teachers that backed me to move forward.

I received a phone call from Bronwyn and she remembered me. Had a great conversation with her and felt all chirpy. Mum came over and I told her about my conversation. She said how when she attended my parent/teacher interviews all the teachers were really positive about me and told her how smart I was. My response-and then you never came again. I kept thinking she didn’t come to my parent/teacher interviews because she didn’t care enough about me.

Then she said something that blew me away. She said, I was so depressed I couldn’t get off the couch. She battled to cook us a meal and cope with the basic tasks of the household. And I remembered. I remembered her lying on the couch in her tracky dacks, sleeping or looking glassy eyed at the television. She was on heavy medication to battle her mania and it made her a living vegetable. Those years were full of stress and pressure and she was hospitalised frequently.

I remembered my brother and I nicknamed her Whale because she was like a beached whale that didn’t move. It shames me that I never thought about the woman lying on the couch. What was she thinking as she lay there almost from dawn to dusk, her life passing her by?

I don’t know if it’s the changed perspective, being a Mum myself, battling a few bouts of tiny/mini depressions that gave me this newfound empathy. I think I need reevaluate my every childhood memory and instead of focusing on the things I missed out on and doing my poor, deprived child routine, try to get inside my Mum’s head and look at the world through her eyes.

Just spent the morning playing with my writing. Usually I do my first draft by handwriting. I find that it lets my imagination roam free. I don’t have to worry about perfect prose and can’t self edit so I do a lot of free writing.

Because of carpul tunnel I can’t handwrite anymore so I’m producing a first draft on the computer. It’s been a struggle because I stop and start, try to fix sentences, feel horrible because the writing is crap, and feel disconnected from what I’m writing.

Realised that I don’t really know my characters and need to spend some time unearthing them in order to discover my story. So this morning I had two characters write a letter to another character justifying their behaviour.

As I was doing the exercise I could really feel them come alive. I could understand their point of view and see how I need to get their motivations right on the page.

Then I did some arguments. Just set up two characters fighting with each other. Writing their dialogue without quotations marks or tags to indicate who’s speaking. I went into the zone and did some free writing and all these little gems came out. I’m really discovering where the tension lies and how to illustrate it on the page. I can feel the story shifting and changing, the themes coming to life.

Tomorrow I’m going to do some description exercises. Describe the character’s rooms and what this has to say about them, as well as describe them to each other. See what comes out of this. I feel like I’m constantly learning on the job. That I have to keep changing it up to keep myself fresh and move forward.

I’m making a commitment to leaving the house every single day. My new routine will be to drive my daughter to childcare at 9 am and come to the library and write until I have to pick her up at 1 pm.

This process of discovering your story is very confronting and in some instances unpleasant. Even though I’ve written 5,000 words today I have nothing to show for it. No self contained scene, no good writing, just ideas and character traits.

The only reason I’ve done so much is because I have no choice. I’m in a public space with a heavy backpack and laptop. I can’t leave my laptop unattended and I can’t go for a walk carrying a 10 kg backpack. So I sit and write.

I write my novel, I write a journal entry, I write an email, I prepare handouts for the Artists in Schools project. I have no internet to distract me. No tweets to read. No telephone that is ringing. So I write.

Insomnia has started up again. It goes hand in hand with my productive writing streak. After months of agony I’ve finally settled into my stride and am producing something I’m happy with. A few things have contributed to this turn of events, I finally found a character that speaks to me, I have a deadline weighing me down, and I’m doing my first draft on the computer as opposed to by hand.

I’ve been struggling finding a character’s voice. So much has happened in my life since I wrote The Good Daughter, the birth of my baby being the major one, that my perspective has shifted. I feel like I exorcised a lot of demons with The Good Daughter and now want to deal with other themes and issues.

I have 8 weeks until I begin my Artists in Schools project at St Albans Secondary College. My deadline for a first draft was always going to be 10 July because I expect the project will derail my creative urges and if I do write, it will be more dabbling. So now that the deadline is closing in and I have so many things to prepare for the project as well as the draft I am hugely motivated.

I’ve been battling carpal tunnel since I got pregnant and this has affected my productivity. I usually hand write my first draft, but this has been causing me a lot of pain. I’ve been forced to type out the first draft and some good things have come of this. I can never hand write as fast as I type. Last week I wrote 9,000 words and the story just began to pour out of me. I’ve also figured out that I can no longer type with the laptop on my lap because it aggravates my injury. For now my kitchen table is doubling as my writing desk.

The only thing I’m not enjoying about this process is the insomnia. I get so tired and worn out, but keep pushing on. Get to the end of the day and I’m fatigued and have nothing left. Also been feeling like reading more. Just read Sarah Dessen’s book Someone Like You and her voice and the depth of her characterization completely blew me away. Feel inspired again to strive to find my groove. For a while there writing was hard yakka and unpleasant. Nothing was working, whereas now it’s effortless and coming together like cutting through silk. Enjoying the ride while it lasts.

Inspired by Steph Bowe and Simmone Howell I re-read my diary and am going to re-create a snapshot of my life when I was 16 years old. These are extracts from a diary entry dated Monday 11 Jan 1993.

‘Very optimistic about the future. I’ve become reflective, withdrawn into myself and I like it. I’m not dependent on anyone.’

I had some really bad friendships at my old school. They bullied me, made me feel horrible about myself and when I changed schools I was trying to change myself. I’d been so desperate for their friendship that I did whatever these girls wanted me to do. Including kissing boys they directed me to kiss and bullying another girl. I completely lost myself.

I changed schools in Year 9 and things got better. High school still wasn’t a good place for me because of all the drama going on at home, but at least it became an oasis to get away from that stuff, rather than another battlefield. I had some good friends who weren’t obsessed with boys and I had a much better time of it.

‘I do my exercises regularly and am trimming up. Measurements 34.5, 26, 34. I’m pretty happy.’

I watched a movie or read a book where they had a woman’s perfect measurements. I was a little vain bugger and decided that I wanted to have these perfect measurements so I began an exercise regime every morning to get to this. Somewhere along the way a boy I liked also said that he found girls who could do the splits really sexy. So I spent months practicing the splits until I could go down all the way on each leg. Crazy.

‘I just read George’s letter. My first and only love letter. It’s beautiful and sweet and it makes me happy.’

I still have this letter. It’s such a gorgeous letter. Actually I’m going to transcribe some of it.

‘To my one and only loved one, Amra

Love is not what I feel for you, it’s something stronger than that. When I say I love you, it feels empty. It doesn’t say how I really feel because I don’t feel only love, I feel you. Your warmth, your happiness, your joy and your tender lips which I will hopefully reach one day.’

As you can see it’s beautiful penmanship on gorgeous white paper and it was wrapped with a red ribbon. This boy was a true romantic. I remember receiving this letter and being so choked up with emotion I could barely breathe. I never went out with him. I think I was too scared off by his emotion and heartfelt sincerity. Whenever I saw him for weeks afterwards I was in an agony of embarrassment and squirmed under his stare. He was really cute too. He looked so sweet with brown eyes and tousled hair.

At this point I had a really disturbed view of relationships and had a habit of fixating on guys I could never get, or agreeing to go out with a guy and then dumping him the day after because I was too weirded out by the opposite sex. I don’t think I was very considerate of other people’s feelings, especially boys who liked me. I don’t think I was very kind to George, but I can’t really remember. My memory is very selective, anything that will make me feel bad gets wiped out. I have a strong survival mechanism which is why a lot of high school is a blur.

‘My hair is short and I’m trying to grow out my blonde dye.’

I always was and still am obsessed with my hair. It’s my big vanity. I chop it, dye it, ruin it, get rid of it, then obsess about growing it out again. It’s an ongoing battle. As you can see in the photo I kept a lock of my own hair. If that’s not vain, I don’t know what is.

‘I want to be a journalist but only if I can get a cadetship.’

I remember doing research about being a journalist and there was a uni course or you could get a cadetship, which was hugely competitive. In the end I did nothing. Once I got to the tail end of high school and had to do something I got too scared and sabotaged  my chances at uni. I ended up going to university when I was 25 years old. It took that long to get the confidence in myself that I could achieve this.

‘Gotta go and watch MASH.

MASH isn’t on anymore. I’m pissed off.’

I’m still a tv junkie and have my favourite shows that make me all googly happy.

‘I’ve got a sewing machine and I use it. I’m making a dress for her in red silk. I’ve got to finish it.’

I was making a red silk dress for my best friend’s birthday. I remember that. I measured her beforehand, but of course wasn’t too versed in the whole leaving a few inches for the sewing part so when I finished it she couldn’t fit into it.

I was absolutely devastated. I’d bought a huge box and packed in with tissue paper. I spent ages sewing and was obsessed with seeing her in this beautiful red, silk dress that would bring out her dark hair and eyes, but never did. I wonder what happened to the dress.

She’s still my best friend all these years later and I’ll have to ask her about it. Still have the sewing machine too. I’ve used it off and on during the years, but in the past my attention to detail has always let me down. I’m keeping it because I keep thinking it will come in handy to make costumes for Sofia when she’s at school.

‘I wanna get a tattoo of a rose on my ass. I’ll wait til I’m of age and decide.’

I did end up getting a tattoo of a rose on my arm when I was 21. The ass was out by this time because it was dissected by stretch marks and cellulite. This was a big achievement for me because it was something I’d dreamed about for so long. It made me realise that the only thing stopping me from doing something I wanted-was myself.

Still love the tattoo because of what it symbolizes although sometimes I feel a bit annoyed that I picked the most passé design in the world. Every girl gets a rose tattoo! And also by the time I did get a tattoo it wasn’t this huge rebellious thing because every Tom, Dick and Harriet had a tattoo.

‘Haven’t had a boyfriend since Edo and don’t want one. Waste of time. V is halfway in love with R. Stupid. Doesn’t take much for a female to fall in love. I wonder how I’m gonna be. I hope I don’t automatically mould myself to his tastes like I see everyone doing.’

I never did have a boyfriend in high school. I did have a lot of crushes though and was quite boy crazy at one point. Edo was a guy I was with for five minutes when I visited my cousin in Adelaide. After high school I dated a few guys, kissed a lot of frogs, and at 19 I met my Prince. We ended up getting married 8 months after we met. It was a completely crazy, completely whirlwind courtship. We’ve been married for 13 years and still madly in love.

And no, I did not mould myself to his tastes. There’s something inside of me that is just unable to conform. My husband has this whole speech about how I don’t ever do anything he says, but if I feel like he’s attempting to dictate my choices there’s this part of me that internally rebels.

After watching my mother lose her whole life because she was always conforming to a man’s expectations I’m hardwired to do the opposite. It means I’m a prickly porcupine to live with sometimes, but at least my husband also says he loves me because I’m spicy. Let’s just say things are never boring between us.

And in response to Steph describing herself:

‘I think it’s really important to remember that I’m an atypical teenager. I’m very family-oriented, and don’t have many close friends. I’ve been doing high school by distance for the past four years. I hate parties. I refuse to drink, smoke, take drugs or engage in any other risky behaviours. I spend a lot more time with my family or on my own than I spend with people my age. I don’t really understand crushes or teenage dating rituals or why everyone wants to get laid so much. I live most of my life in my head.’

I too didn’t then, and don’t now, have many close friends. I think most writers are a bit of loners. I used to be embarrassed about this tag, but now I say it with pride. In fact I’ll say it again. I’m a loner.

I didn’t engage in drinking etc. In fact at the ripe old age of 32 I’ve never been drunk. I saw too many people get damaged by poor choices when affected by alcohol so I didn’t do it.

I was extremely boy crazy and while I didn’t want to get laid, too many yucky things happening when I was too young to understand, I was driven by my hormones into crushes that led nowhere.

But I did then, and do now, live most of my life in my head. I find myself having to fight to be present now that I have a child and make sure I’m not distant. Again another symptom of the writing affliction. You’re always torn between the real world and your fictional world, which sometimes feels more real than the one you’re living.

So that’s me at 16. A lot vain, a little sad, trying to find my place, with one good friend. What were you like at 16?