Feeling so tired. Sofia is teething at the moment and had a few restless nights. I’m trying a new technique. After an hour of enduring her tossing and turning, and getting increasingly frustrated by it, I turned on the light and read her three books. Then we went to sleep and she was out within 10 minutes. Told my husband this morning and he thought it was a bad idea because it’s teaching her night-time wake ups are fun. We’ll see if I suffer for it.

Had a full on two days. Yesterday I did my workshop at St Albans Secondary College. I developed worksheets for the students to develop a character and then plot their story and they worked a treat. By the time they went through all the steps they had a fully developed idea to write a short story from. I was wrapped because this group have weaker literacy skills and I was nervous about how to take them through the workshops.

After that I went to Keilor Downs Secondary College where they held a ceremony for the students participating in the Premier’s Reading Challenge. They had an awesome participation rate with all of the Year 7s taking part and students from Year 8 onwards also getting in on the act. There were some students that read 100 books which was amazing. The ceremony was such a great celebration and the students were so enthusiastic to get recognition.

A student leader made a speech and spoke about the students embracing their real self and being nerds. She made the point that in a few years time when they got out in the workforce who was going to be looking better to prospective employers. It was amazing to see how this program is changing the culture at schools and that by getting so many students involved then it becomes cool to read.

I also met Hendre Roelik who is doing a writing residency at the college and he was so inspiring. He got up and had a chat with the students and presented them with their certificates. He was so full of energy and you could see that the minute he spoke he had the students with him. He runs workshops and he said ‘story is my life.’ And that’s the truth. Once you get students engaged with a story they’re interested.

We had a chat about boys and literature and how this view that boys are only interested in action books etc actually does them a disservice. Some of the stories the boys I’m working with are about love, friendship and they write from girls perspective. While yes, boys do read differently, we also might be inadvertently selling them short.

Today I began my first session at Sunshine Technical College where I’m running a 6 week workshop funded by the Smith Family. This is part of a program where Year 9 students get the opportunity to participate in different workshops so there’s Music, Comedy, Sport, Visual Arts and Creative Writing. I’m working with 6 students and they’re all keen and interested in writing. Today we were creating a character and there were some wonderful physical descriptions. The project culminates in a presentation night for students and family and we’re looking at collaborating together to develop a performance of the student’s work so it’s quite exciting.

All in all it’s been a full on and exciting week and I’m only on Tuesday.

If you weren’t able to attend my session and are curious about what was said head to Girl Friday and read all about it.

For the ten years that I was an aspiring novelist I made it a goal to attend at least one session at the MWF. Each year I’d sit in the audience and dream about the day when I was on a panel talking about my book. Well, yesterday my dream came true. I was on a panel called Family Matters with Robyn Bavati, author of Dancing in the Dark, and with moderator Ruby Murray as part of the schools program.

The panel was everything I’d imagined. The Festival organisers did a great job in matching me and Robyn together. Sabiha, the protagonist of my novel The Good Daughter, and Ditty the protagonist of Dancing in the Dark, have a lot in common. While the books are vastly different in their depiction of the subject matter at hand, they shared a lot of the same themes and it was a pleasure to be able to chat with Robyn.

When I first sat down in the auditorium while we were doing the sound check I was so excited I literally could not sit still. The sound guy put the headset on me and I broke out in Madonna’s Vogue moves. He didn’t look too impressed. I’m guessing it was a joke that got old fast.

I’d managed to dress to impress. These days it’s usually an achievement to leave the house with brushed hair but yesterday I took Sofia to childcare and then was able to get properly gussied up for my big debut. I managed to put on make up and have great hair. All in all I was feeling fabulous.

The session was so quick. One minute I was sitting there feeling nervous and wondering when all this was going to be over, the next I was chatting and getting a few laughs, and then Ruby was calling an end to the session. It was like being Cinderella and the ball was over. We went down to the bookshop and I had a few students gather around for a chat and was signing bookmarks for them.

My friend Jodi came with me and we made a day of it. I felt like a teenager who was sneaking away from Mum and doing naughty stuff. It’s been so long since I had a day to myself without the baby that I was giddy with excitement. We had a lovely lunch and then I bought some books. Among them Cath Crowley’s Graffiti Moon which I’m looking forward to reading.

I came home exhausted, but feeling so high with pleasure and joy. It was a wonderful and I’m so glad I was able to share it with someone. Jodi ended up being my photographer so I actually have some photos to share.

Just met my last group of students. Only four volunteered to do the Monday workshop and they are all boys. A second group of students were settling in to watch Looking for Ali Brandi and weren’t about to volunteer themselves for work instead. The boys were so sweet. They are all self conscious about their English skills.One of them was in English as a Second Language class for two years. They were very eager for help to write and edit their stories and we ended up having a discussion about how to improve their English skills.

My advice was that they read as much as possible. The school librarian is very passionate about reading and encouraging kids to read. She buys books that the kids are interested in so I was encouraging them to make contact with her. Reading is what saved me and gave me a way out of my circumstance. I told them about my brother who doesn’t have good literacy skills and as a tradie it limits his opportunities for work as he can’t present quotes, invoices or handle accounts for his business and so only works with industrial contractors.

I also told them that they need to use their teacher’s comments/feedback as a resource. They need to look at what mistakes they make in their assignments and start a revision sheet identifying their weakness so they can look out for those mistakes in future. When I began university I received a lot comments about my grammar as I was of the generation where we didn’t get taught grammar formally at school. I didn’t know how to use apostrophe’s correctly and this brought my mark down (even now I have to evaluate how I’m using them). By the end of my degree I didn’t have any comments on my assignments as I learnt to correct my own mistakes.

I had already decided to apply for further study and be a teacher, but this group of students have really inspired me to hold onto this dream. I could relate where they were coming from as they were all children of parents from a Non-English speaking background. Just like me they don’t have the help at home to assist with their schooling and provide them with guidance. While I decided to be a teacher because of future work opportunities for myself, it made me realise that this vocation needs to be about more than a paycheck. I want to inspire and help students and because of my background and circumstance I have the skills and experience to do that.

Things are accelerating for me. Have so much on I’m in bunker mentality where I can only deal with the task directly in front of me. I feel like it’s feast or famine. Earlier in the year was so dull with nothing going on, and now I’m hanging on the edge of my seat fighting to stay on for the ride. Just looked at my diary and I have had at least one meeting every week for the past two months as I coordinate my various projects. Was beginning to feel burnt out, but took some time to relax on the weekend. Read two books:

Steph Bowe’s Girl Saves Boy-an impressive debut for a 16 year old and a really lovely story.

Kathy Charles Hollywood Ending-a dark book dealing with gritty issues. Really well developed and deep. Reading it felt like dropping a rock in a pond where the ripples are still washing over me.

Other things in no particular order:

• I did a talk to a Year 8 comprehension class last Thursday.  Began reading an extract where Sabiha is rude to her teacher and looked up at their sweet,  little faces and stopped short of her rude remark. Usually my talks are for Year 9′s onward so I’ve now identified a suitable extract for this group. A Literacy Officer was observing and I received some constructive criticism about how to improve my talk and what activities I can introduce for the future so I was wrapped with that.
• I’m doing another teaching gig from 6 September at another school in the Western suburbs. I’m excited about continuing teaching and I’ll have this group of students for a whole 6 weeks so I’ll be able to do more writing activities.
• Next week is my debut at the Melbourne Writer’s Festival. I’m so excited. It’s been my dream to appear on that stage since I began writing and I’ve gone pretty much every year, so I’m really looking forward to it. Best part is my girlfriend Jodi is coming with me so we’re going to have a day out, sans babies. Such fun.
• With the MWF beginning have a few night events. This Thursday going to the Text Party. Hope to meet Kathy and Steph there and have a chat to them about their books. There’s a YA dinner organised next week by Melina Marchetta which I’m desperate to go to, but the bub has been a royal pain the butt at night so we’ll see how Thursday goes and take it from there.
• Started watching True Blood Season 3. Already feel like my day has a special zing because I have an episode to look forward to at the end of the day. Speaking of Vampires-watched the spoof movie Vampires Suck and was so disappointed. Was hoping it would be a great spoof of the whole vampire obsession going on in popular culture, instead it was a scene by scene remake of Twilight with a supposedly comical element that fell flat. People don’t seem to understand what satire is these days. It’s such a shame too because there’s so many vampire movies and tv shows that could have been incorporated for a hysterical send up of it all.

Time to back to work. Bub is in childcare all day so I have a whole day to try to be super productive and move forward with my to do list.

On Monday night the Muslim Women’s Leadership group I’m a part of hosted an Iftar Ramadan Multi-Faith dinner. Zeina and Manal were the driving forces between organising the event and it was a big success. We had a great turn out, beautiful food and everyone had a great time. I had the privilege of MCing the night with Zeina and it was challenging, but great fun. We made some wonderful connections to build on the future and to develop future community projects.

On Monday I finally submitted two community strengthening grant applications. These were bloody hard yakka because I had to get auspiced, which was an ordeal in itself, write the bugger and send them in. Just when i was breathing in a sigh of relief that it was all done, I received a message from council that the documents weren’t readable. So I had to print them off and toddle off to my milkbar to fax them. Finally the ordeal was over.

Even though searching for an organisation to auspice our application was hard yakka, auspice means to sponsor our project and handle the money, I ended up creating a lot of networks and making people aware of the project we’re working on ‘What a Muslim Woman Looks Like’ profiling the women from the leadership group.

At the moment I’m receiving work from the students I’m doing workshops with during my Artists in Schools residency. There is such a breadth of ideas and I’m enjoying reading the stories. I’ve asked them to submit them electronically so I can write comments electronically and then I’ll have individual sessions to discuss my comments.

Today I went to the city and met with Robyn Bavati, author of Dancing in the Dark, and Ruby Murray who is our facilitator during the Melbourne Writer’s Festival on the 31 August. I’m looking forward to the panel. Both our books share a breadth of themes and it should be an interesting discussion. Feeling exhausted right now and would really love to have a nap. It’s all up to the bub. Hopefully she might want to have a nap together. I can only dream.

Pressed for time at the moment. I’m putting in two community partnership applications. Spent the past week on the phone and email coordinating details. Will blog more later in the week. Didn’t teach on Monday because of curriculum day so I had the day to myself. Went to the movies and saw Inception. Is a must see movie. For now here’s the article I did about my guidance counsellor for newsletter.

“My name is Amra Pajalic and I’m a former student at St Albans Secondary College. Returning to the college as a Writer in Residence has been a strange and wonderful experience. There are so many familiar faces from my time as a student.

One of the people I was really happy to see again is Mr John Kortuem, my former guidance counselor. I was pleased to have a conversation with him and tell him the ways in which he helped me on my journey to becoming a writer.

When I graduated from high school in 1994 my future was a blank slate. I always knew I wanted to be a writer and I also knew that I wanted to go to university, but both these goals seemed unattainable. I come from a migrant background and no one in my family had graduated from high school, let alone attempted university.

I knew that to be a writer I could study or I could gain life experience and I always imagined that there would be this magical moment when I would sit down and produce a literary masterpiece. Instead my life took many twists and turns, each one bringing me closer to my dream.

Like my peers at high school I put down my uni preferences, even though it seemed impossible I could enter this strange world of academia that I knew nothing about. When we had the opportunity to change our preferences I put down only one option. I thought if it is fate then I will get into university, if not then I will go on to gain life experiences.

I did no research about the course that I was changing my preferences to and so I did not get in. I looked for my name in the newspaper and even though I knew that I had sabotaged myself, I was still shocked that my name wasn’t there. I stood in the milk bar holding the newspaper feeling scared. What was I going to do with myself? After 12 years of knowing what every day would bring, I had nowhere to go and nothing to do.

At this time there was high unemployment and the age group of 18-25 was most represented. Most of us had no skills and no work experience to compete against other applicants. While we were undergoing our VCE exams most of my peers went to Centrelink and registered for unemployment benefits, but I didn’t want to do this.

A few days after I found out I didn’t get into uni I received a phone call from Mr Kortuem. He asked if I had any plans for the future, if not there was an administration course I could study at TAFE. I agreed, at least I would be able to postpone making a decision about my future. I didn’t know it at the time, but this phone call would change my life. Completing this administration course would set me on the path to achieving my dream to be a novelist.

I’m sure most of you find this strange. How could an administration course change my life and lead to me becoming a novelist? But this is the wonder of life. Sometimes you do things you don’t like to make you realise what you want to do. By completing the administration course I gained skills that meant I always had a job, I never had to worry about unemployment, and the jobs I did along the way were all part of the journey to becoming a writer.

I went on and did further TAFE study and I eventually gained enough confidence to embark on my university career and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. I learnt that there is no magical moment where I would sit down and produce a literary masterpiece. Instead my writing journey has been a series of small steps on a long journey.

I’m not done with studying or with trying different career paths. Mr Kortuem showed me that the most important thing is to be open to trying new things because you never know what it will lead to.”

So yesterday also began with a baby drama. Went in to pick up my daughter from her cot in the morning and found her cot wet from vomit. Had an instant panic attack-she’s never vomited. I’m due at the school and have to run the workshops and have a meeting with a Arts Victoria Officer afterward. Get on the horn to my husband and he comes home from work. I end up spending the morning cleaning up after vomit-she vomited three more times and being a human pacifier because she needed extra liquids so she was breastfeeding more.

I went to school later and arrived during lunch. The workshop was great. These kids are part of the accelerated class and they’ve all decided on a story and were writing in class. Some of them were handwriting, others typing up their stories. I set a deadline for them to submit their stories.

I figured out I need to firmer to steer their creativity in the right channels. We’re focussing on getting stories based on realism. One of the students began writing a story and it was going to be a mafia boss story. I focussed in on a paragraph where she had an interesting description of the narrator’s brother and suggested she focus on the family dynamic. The story she had written so far would be the same, but the focus would be closer to reality. I also had a consultation with a Year 10 student during lunch and it was the same thing. She wanted to write a forbidden love story based on the American south, but I tried to get her to look closer to home for inspiration. Same story, but a more realistic setting.

This is something I’ve been struggling with. When critiquing other writer’s the focus is on respecting their writing style and story and critiquing the big picture so I haven’t wanted to interfere with the student’s creativity. I’ve realised now that they need to be steering in the right direction. A lot of them begin writing stories and don’t know what’s going to happen or why. I remember doing the same thing when I was their age, so I’m trying to talk through the why and have them underpin their stories with logic.

Had a great meeting with Arts Victoria. The school has been fabulous about supporting the project so we’ve been really on track. She told us about the 1000 Pencils project and Neil Grant the artist is now studying to be a teacher, while David Williams the teacher is looking to get into writing more. So even though the project is about student’s benefitting it ends up being a creative journey for the artist’s too. I know it has been for me. Til next week.

Yesterday’s workshop was a bit scattered. I had to organise three students who missed last week. Thankfully everyone has settled on an idea and did some writing. I collected their email addresses and set a deadline to have them email me either a complete draft or some writing.

I got in contact with David Williams who was the Project Manager for 1000 Pencils and he indicated that the students he worked with needed a lot of one on one time to develop their stories and then later to revise. So I’m going to give them an extra week after the deadline and then slowly start nudging. I’m planning on revising their stories on the computer and then booking them all for individual meetings, or maybe small group meetings, in order to give them support and really develop the stories. I’ll also be returning to the school the first four weeks of Term 4 to give the last workshop group support and help edit the anthology.

In other news I’m a busy bee cordinating the What a Muslim Woman Looks Like project. I need to write a media release for a Iftar dinner our group is hosting to celebrate Ramadan, requested a quote from a photographer that is going to work with us on photographing women for the project, put in a funding application with the help of Michelle at Brimbank Council. Now I need to focus on writing the profiles. One is down and another three to go. There is also one more woman to be interviewed, but we seem to be crossing wires when it comes to availability.

Running a writing workshop is like being on a boat in the middle of the sea. Sometimes you think you’re doing fine and land is in sight, other times the waves are rocking your boat and you’re battling to stay afloat, and sometimes you get hit by a wave and you don’t know if you’ll tip out or stay in.

I’ve been told that the time of day greatly influences teaching outcomes and boy is that true. My Monday morning group, period 1 and 2, have been the easier to handle and more dedicated group, whereas the Thursday group, period 5 and 6, who are students selected in the accelerated English class have been a bit unruly, and hard to motivate. It seems as if all their energy has been used up during the day and they’re kind of floppy and over it all.

After some struggle to get them thinking ideas in the end I just had to set writing time and got them to write down something, anything because they were like unruly eels with ideas undulating and slipping through their hands. We did a writing exercise to get ideas flowing and one of the ideas was to think of mean things someone did to you. A student mentioned a parent yelling, which became a mean mother.

I told the story about when my mother and I didn’t get along when I was an adolescent. My Mum always went on about how when she was young she had men fawning over her because she had no other achievements to brag about. Because of the struggles in her life she didn’t have a career etc. So when I became a teenager and blossomed she was resentful and we had a rocky relationship. After our discussion about parents being mean and mean teachers I went around to read individual writing.

A student wrote about a young girl having a loving mother when she was a small child and then her mother changes, becomes full of rage and yells at her all the time. In the story the young girl comes home from school all happy only to have her mother go at her and bring her down. The girl runs away, but she has nowhere to go and ends up coming back. While I’m critiquing the story she begins crying and I realise this a real story.

I waited it out, giving her time to deal with her emotions. A student brought tissues and another one hugged her. I talked about how writing is hard because it bring up all sorts of emotions. That sometimes it can help, sometimes it makes you feel worse. That if it makes it easier to write she can make the character someone outside of herself, give her a different name, different family. Or she can think about the reader and how this story might help someone else because we’ve all been betrayed by an adult. I told her I was proud of her for being brave to share her story, that it’s not easy to be so honest.

She asked me how did I forgive my mother. I told her it took time, that a lot of things happened between then and now and it’s a journey, and sometimes forgiveness isn’t about the other person, it’s about you being able to move on. And then I hoped. I hoped I told her the right things, that I gave her what she needed in that moment and that I didn’t royally stuff up.

When she left I checked in with Jo and told her what happened and sought advice. She said I said everything I could have in that moment and that she’d check in with the student and follow up. I asked her if I should change the writing exercise, but she said no, maybe this student needed this to work through this experience.

When I was preparing for this residency about writing from personal experiences I wanted real stories, stories that touched people and meant something. I did not foresee the dangerous minefield this could become because to write something real is to open yourself, to share your soul. It makes me realise the responsibility I have to these students to give them a safe environment to share and to give them the emotional support they need. It’s very scary and humbling. I just hope this is a positive experience for this student.

Some other things that happened:

• Had a talk with Jo and The Good Daughter will never be used as a class set because of the swearing and adult content. Bumb. I won’t change my writing style, but I will evaluate whether there is need for swearing etc in my book. I feel like TGD was full of my suppressed rage, it was about purging myself of my shitty adolescence and that now it would be a different book. I’ve seen how my writing style has changed and what I’m writing about with this second book.
• I was chatting again to a VCE student who is not sure about his future directions. We were talking about Australian politics and got onto asylum seekers. He was repeating the media mantra: can’t assimilate, we can’t support them because they’re bringing us down. I told him about the profile I was doing and two of the women were from Lebanese background. When her parents first came to Australia they moved to a suburb where their population was because they had no language skills. Over the years as their children went to school they learnt the language through them and assimilated. I told him it’s a process. It’s not something that happens overnight, but this is a story we’re being told by the media and politicians to cover up xenophobia. I told him about my degree and how doing a major in politics changed my life. I learnt to look at the world critically and began thinking about what do I really want to write, how do I want to impact the world.

All up it was a challenging and stimulating day. Until next time.