Balancing the Pen and Paycheck

Creative writers with full-time jobs face unique challenges balancing their passion with their paycheck. I share my 30-year journey navigating the worlds of teaching and writing, revealing practical strategies for maintaining a creative practice amid life's demands.

• Building writing into small pockets of available time rather than waiting for perfect conditions
• Creating accountability through writing groups, online communities, and mentorships
• Recognizing your energy patterns and assigning creative tasks accordingly
• Finding inspiration within your day job rather than seeing it as an obstacle
• Using morning routines, music, and environmental shifts to trigger creative states
• Avoiding creative burnout through strategic rest and rejuvenation practices
• Experimenting with different writing approaches until finding what works for you
• Honoring your creative impulses to invite more inspiration

Visit amrapajalic.com/podcast for the full transcript, show notes, and how-to guides to support your writing practice. These cost-effective $5 guides provide actionable steps to help integrate creativity into your busy life while supporting this podcast.

Chapters

• 0:00 Episode Introduction
• 2:42 My Journey as Teacher and Writer
• 8:31 Creating Accountability and Community
• 18:14 Building Writing Into Your Everyday Life
• 31:52 Avoiding Burnout and Finding Rejuvenation
• 43:19 How Teaching Inspires Writing
• 51:39 Making Time, Not Finding Time
• 56:47 Episode Closing and Resources

Transcript

Amra Pajalic: 0:01

Welcome to Amra's Armchair Anecdotes.

Amra Pajalic: 0:04

I'm Amra Payalich, writer, teacher and storyteller. Pull up a chair and let's dive into stories about writing, life and lessons learned, sharing wisdom from my armchair to yours. You can find the episode show notes, your free episode handouts and my how-to guides at amrapayelichcom slash podcast. And now it's time to dive in. Welcome to Amra's Armchair Anecdotes. Today's episode is about balancing the pen and the paycheck how to stay creative while we're working full-time. I'm Amra Payalich. I'm a full-time teacher, writer and indie author, and today I want to talk about how do I keep teaching and working and focusing on my creative practice. Unfortunately, this is a struggle that all creatives face. I do play the lottery every week just in case I might win that big prize and be able to be transformed into a full-time author and still be able to eat and pay bills and take care of my daughter. But in the three decades that I have been focusing on my creative practice, I have also had to work in a day job and I have had to find ways of keeping my creativity and my energy going and how to fit it into the cracks of time. I have only ever had the opportunity once in my life to be a full-time author, and that was for an amazing 10 weeks of my long service leave, which meant that I had actually worked seven years full-time as a teacher in order to earn those 10 weeks and that little space of time. And it was amazing I achieved so much in such a short amount of time because I knew that there was a clock ticking and that it was coming to an end, that it was coming to an end. But I do have to work on how to keep creative and how to keep my writing going, because not many of us have that opportunity where we are able to dedicate ourselves full time. You know, we're usually fighting for it for a while in the hope that we will have that breakout moment when we will be earning enough from our creative practice.

Amra Pajalic: 2:54

So I'm going to take you back and talk about how I became both a teacher and a writer, and I always knew I wanted to be a writer. It was the only thing I ever wanted to do in my life, um, but you know, when you go through the school system, it's not really a career that people know about and that they can guide you in, and so I took a long time to sort of discover. You know this space in my life. I finished high school. I was one of the first people in my family, like my parents, had not finished high school and I was too intimidated to go to university. Intimidated to go to university. And my careers counsellor because I changed my preferences and ruined my chances of university opportunities offered me a course in doing an administration course and so I did that and I did an apprenticeship in administration and was unleashed in the working world. And while administration was a good gig, it was comfortable, it was a nice cushy job because, you know, most of my family were factory workers, so this was still a lovely step up it did not satisfy my intellectual and creative curiosity. I had realized that I had ambition. So I was like, well, I'm in administration, I may as well look at how to make this work, how to get jobs.

Amra Pajalic: 4:43

I did a certificate in of in shorthand, which is sort of obsolete now because we've got all this dictation software, um, but it's basically someone dictates and you're writing in characters, uh, and then you're transcribing that and producing text from that, and I hated this course. I worked full-time, um, I would to TAFE, which is like a vocational course, once a week after working the whole eight hours and do three hours, six to nine. I didn't like it at all. I would call my husband and go, come pick me up, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this. And he would pick me up a few times and he was like I don't want to do this. And he would pick me up a few times and it was like no, you've got to do it, you've got to see it through. And so I did.

Amra Pajalic: 5:30

And I had to pass a test where I took dictation at 50 words per minute and I passed and I succeeded and I thought, oh well, I did something I really hated. I finished it, I got through it. I was able to do it while juggling full-time work. I wonder what would happen if I did something that I actually liked, and that's when I found the Diploma of Arts in Professional Writing and Editing, and that was what gave me this opportunity to enter this world as a writer, learn how to do all of these things in terms of pitching to publications, navigating my way through the publishing world and again, I did that while working full time and going once or twice a week over four years. And then I did a Bachelor of Arts, again working at that time three days a week and studying two days, working at that time three days a week and studying two days. And eventually I worked up to having my novel published.

Amra Pajalic: 6:30

But I realised I had that awakening like a lot of people do. I thought that my novel being published would change my life. And it did in some ways, because when you achieve your childhood dream, it is incredibly validating. You know that you did it, that you put yourself out there and you achieved that. But it did not change my life in the monetary sense. Advances that you get from publishers, especially in Australia, are not in, you know, living income. I received a $5,000 advance on my first novel and I realized that my dream of not working wasn't going to happen.

Amra Pajalic: 7:18

Unfortunately, I'd already quit my job at that point because I went on maternity leave and I was like, oh, I don't want to work in this anymore, I will find something else, which was a good and a bad thing, because it forced me to really think about my future and think about, if I have to work, what should I be doing. And I did my teaching qualification and I entered teaching, you know know, quite as a mature woman. I was 36 years old when I started teaching. I am now 47 years old and I've been doing it for 12 years. I'll be turning 48 in a few months, and so I had resisted up until that time, finding an actual career. I had thought, oh, I just need to work jobs that don't take up too much energy and too much headspace, because if I do a full-time job that will take all of my energy and take all of my drive, I will stop writing and I will not keep that up. And so there was some truth to that, because working in administration was quite dull. It wasn't as taxing, because teaching is physically and mentally demanding. You can't stop in the classroom, you're always on and you're always having expand energy. And then also outside of the classroom, in terms of organizing and preparing lesson plans and all of the things that we have to do, you never kind of switch off. And so I was right in that sense, because when I started working full time as a teacher, oh my gosh, it was exhausting. I was so tired, so tired.

Amra Pajalic: 9:05

I started working full time as a teacher when my daughter was five years old and she started prep. When I started teaching. Thankfully, my husband was the stay home parent and he was the one doing everything for her in terms of pickups and drop offs and cooking and cleaning and coordinating everything. But I would literally come home, um, sit down and have dinner uh, those first few months and then I would go to bed with her, like at her bedtime. She would go to bed at 7 30 and I would be in bed at 7 30, um, and it was very, very challenging and very hard, and so I had to really look at ways of maintaining my passion and my writing practice, both when I was in administration and when I was a full-time teacher, and there are a variety of strategies I've used for that. So I'm going to go into some of the ways that I did that, and you know the ways that I found inspiration and momentum.

Amra Pajalic: 10:09

So I think one of the ways that I learnt when I was in administration, I had to find spaces of time where I could write, and the only time I had was when I was traveling on the train going to work, and so I started transcribing and writing, handwriting my pages, and I set myself a goal that I was going to do three pages each way on the way to work and three pages on the way home, and each page turned out to be 250 words, and so I sort of did the maths and figured out that if I did that every day I would achieve 5,000 words. Now the problem with that process was the typing up, which had its pros and cons, because I was. Now, the problem with that process was the typing up, which had its pros and cons, because I was handwriting, I was unlocking that stream of consciousness and there was no editing as I was writing, and then, when I was transcribing it, that was the opportunity to edit and to polish it, and so I had to figure out ways of keeping myself motivated when I was a teacher, and so some of the ways that I did that was I got a mentor. I was working on my memoir when I was working as a teacher and I knew that I would struggle with writing and with maintaining that energy and I knew that I needed some sort of support system to keep me accountable, and so I applied for and I eventually, after the third go, received funding from Creative Victoria and I got a mentor in. Alice Pung is now my very, very dear friend, who's a successful memoirist, and so she, you know we would set a schedule in terms of me writing and I would send her extracts and I would have phone meetings with her, because we were both juggling with things and we would struggle to meet face to face, and so we would do a lot of things on the phone and then meet face-to-face every once in a while, and so that was one strategy that I employed was creating those accountability opportunities and those opportunities to connect with other people.

Amra Pajalic: 12:42

Some of the things that I did was I was blogging my writing goals and my writing word count and, interestingly, at that time, you know, blogging had just started and it was getting, you know, traction and I was doing this for myself, as a way of, you know, keeping myself going and, you know, doing that author blog. And the more I did it, the more people sort of started coming to my blog. I started connecting with other bloggers and actually created a really nice online community, and so that was also great and supportive. And I remember the first time that I had a comment on my blog from someone and I went and checked them out. It was someone in England and I was like someone in England is reading my blog and it was this amazing moment of you don't know what you put out there and who might see it. And this blogger was also someone who ended up getting published and getting a traditional publishing deal. So for a long time we sort of kept in touch online and kept each other motivated online, and so that was another way that I kept myself going and that I created those accountabilities.

Amra Pajalic: 14:02

Some of the things that I did was, you know, writing groups. So when I originally started writing, I was seeking support and people who were like-minded, and so when I did my TAFE course, I met my friend Jodie, who I'm still friends with three decades later, and we became critique partners and accountability partners so we would keep each other motivated and check in with each other. There were also opportunities to create little writing groups, because we were critiquing each other's work and we would work in groups where everyone would read each other's work. People started sort of taking those writing groups and those critique groups outside of the classes and meeting in the real world and using that as accountability. And so early in my career I found writing groups. There was this one writing group I found online which was really well organized I was a romance writer at that time. That was the genre that I was exploring and these women were amazing. I have to say, the one thing about romance writers that is just jaw dropping is they are the trailblazers in terms of promotion and marketing and that whole world, because they really know how to connect with readers and how to create those connections with readers. And so that group was amazing. We would have monthly meetings. There would be, you know, reward systems about, you know, like at the beginning it would be like who's written this much, who's submitted, who's done this? We would get chocolate, we would bring each other work to read, we would do little workshops and, you know, upskill ourselves and learn. And that was a wonderful opportunity.

Amra Pajalic: 15:58

And so I've tried different writing groups. Some of them were a little bit dysfunctional, where some of them did get. You know, I kind of call this the good, bad and the ugly. So I've had the good and the bad and the ugly of writing groups where I had, you know, the amazing ones, the great sense of community. Then there was one where it became a little bit egotistical and it split into a bit of cliques and stuff. Um, there was another writing group I was a part of, which is amazing.

Amra Pajalic: 16:28

I'm still sort of connected with, uh, some of these writers, um, but it got too big. We got too big for um, you know, meeting regularly, and so then people started sort of um, creating little offshoots and meeting, um, and then I got to the point where I thought, uh, I need a writing group and I want to create my own. So I created my own. I sort of reached out to people I knew who were aspiring writers and we started a writing group. We set up a schedule, we rotated and met each other at each other's houses and that worked really well for a while and it gave me the impetus and the motivation that I needed. And then that group sort of splintered. I did have one before that. Also, we were meeting in the city. It was just a few of us who were friends and we loved the opportunity to sort of go into the mid city and meet and connect.

Amra Pajalic: 17:19

And so I've always had some sort of you know groups or online support systems. Even today, I saw this meme about how every woman has a online chat group with you know, with some cute name, where they're just constantly posting, and I'm like, yeah, I've got two of those where I've got, you know, two online chat groups. We have very cool names and we just kind of post in there and motivate each other and share what we're working on and just have that continuous conversation. So I guess what that comes to is create some sort of a network, whether it's online, whether it's in real life, whether it's people that you know, whether it's people that you don't know. That's one way of finding motivation and creating those opportunities to keep going and to keep your writing practice going. So I wanted to talk about how to build writing into your everyday, and I think one of the things that we do is where we romanticize writing.

Amra Pajalic: 18:30

But in general creative pursuits, when you think about you know, a writer or a painter or an artist. They are in this beautiful space with the luxury of time, and most of us are not. We do not have that, you know, in my house at the moment. I have a tiny little desk in my bedroom, which is the only space I could fit a desk into, and I do most of my writing at home, either at that desk, on my bed with a cushion and my laptop, or downstairs on my recliner lounge with a foldable table that I put my computer on, and so we don't have that. You know, like I do now, after three decades and after working for 12 years as a teacher and being able to reduce my time, and now I'm working four days and I have one day to myself and I have this beautiful studio that I can use, but I still have to write and work on my writing practice the other four days while I'm a teacher, and I don't come here to do that, I do that at home, I do that in short bursts of times that I can, and so you know you have to find ways to make it fit in.

Amra Pajalic: 20:04

I remember what shattered my romantic perceptions of the writing life was reading Stephen King's On Writing, and he talked about how he got this beautiful office in his house and set it all up and that was supposed to be where he would write and he would go in there every day and just inspiration would die. And so he slowly started migrating to the kitchen table and having his computer there while life was going on around him, while his wife and his children were getting up to things, and that's when he started writing. And so I realized he's this incredibly prolific writer who has, you know, worked and developed this success and he realized that, you know, writing just has to be a part of your life, it just has to be a part of your daily practice. Um, you can't sort of wait until that perfect time and have a whole day and have this whole you know time that you can do it. You have to find those little spaces, and so that's what I did. You know, for For quite a few years, while I was working full time, I would wake up at 5.30 in the morning and I would write for an hour until 6.30 in the morning and do my morning routine and get to work.

Amra Pajalic: 21:37

And that was the only time that I had. I was too tired and too shattered to work after school because in those early years, teaching took all my headspace and all my energy. And so I knew that the only good brain that I had was in the morning and that I had to sacrifice to make that work. And so, in order to wake up at 5.30 in the morning, I had was in the morning and that I had to sacrifice to make that work. And so in order to wake up at 5.30 in the morning, I had to go to bed really early. I had to go to bed at 8.30 and get enough sleep to be able to wake up then and to sustain my practice. And that's what I did. And that meant being very strict with my bedtime routine and it meant not going out, although that's hard for me sometimes, but, you know, not going out and not making any commitments after work, because I had made that commitment to myself and initially, when I started doing that morning routine, it was really hard.

Amra Pajalic: 22:27

Um, you know, you would wake up early in the morning and my brain would be kind of, uh, you know, it takes a while to wake up and I would sit down and it's like this is all the time I've got. I need to make this work, I need to write. And you know, sometimes you put pressure on yourself psychologically where it's like I must write now, this is it Do or die, and the brain does not work well under pressure. And so I read this book uh, the morning pages by julia cameron, and she talked about unlocking your subconscious and writing in the morning, not putting any pressure, letting your muse play. And she also had all these other great strategies that I used, um, in terms of making a date with yourself and ways to inspire your creativity. And so sometimes I would wake up in the morning and I would just write lyrics. I would write music lyrics, or I remember some days I would wake up and say I don't want to be awake, I don't want to be writing, I don't have nothing to say. And then, just as I kept sort of doing this word vomit.

Amra Pajalic: 23:28

Slowly things would start happening, things would start coming to me and then it became a routine and my brain started waking up. At that time it started activating. The writing started happening because I only had that one hour. I would write and whatever I was up to I would have to stop, and sometimes it's good to stop at the high point in a scene where, like you know where you're going and then you have to stop. And I would go to work and when I would have quiet moments my brain would be sort of turning it over and the subconscious would be doing its little job of creating associations and words and images. And then I'll come back the next day and it would just pour out of me and it would. It would really just come together and then I would have these big waves of writing inspiration where you know, I would feel like doing it on the weekend, and I would get that wave of inspiration and motivation and then I'd finish a chapter and then I would have to start again and I would go through that process of oh my, my God. I've got nothing to say. I don't know what the next chapter is going to be, but it would happen because that continuous practice did it, my writing. I would always listen to what people were saying and how they were writing and I would try it and some things would work for me and some things would not work for me, but I would figure it out.

Amra Pajalic: 24:59

You know, there were some times when I was going to my car with a notebook and I was writing in my car for 20 minutes, or I was sitting at my desk and just writing something at my desk, and so you have to create these small chunks of time, and sometimes the way to do it also is to take the pressure off. You can either make it about word count or you can make it about time, and so there have been periods of my life where I've not been able to make it about word count and go. I will write 1000 words a day because that was unsustainable, that was too hard when I had a young daughter, and so, for example, when I was waking up at 5.30 in the morning, it was not about word count, it was just about. I will wake up, you know, five days a week at 5 30 and I will dedicate this time to our writing practice and whatever I do, I do and some weeks I would have amazing word count where it would be, you know, 5 000 words, and some weeks it would be like a thousand, a thousand and a half. It wouldn't be huge, um, but that's what I had to do. I had to make that commitment and I had to make that small goals for myself and build in ways of doing that.

Amra Pajalic: 26:19

Other ways is, you know, finding what works in terms of writing. Like you know that writing in life I now sometimes, when I'm struggling with writing, I have a tv show on in the background, usually either a tv show I'm not really into, obviously, because when you're really into it you're like or where I'm re-watching something. You know how we've all got our favorite shows that we kind of do on repeat, um, and so I might have that in the background where it's my comfort watch and I'm not really paying attention, I'm not really in the zone, but I'm always tricking my brain where I am occupied and kind of like watching, and then I'm sort of writing and then, slowly, the inspiration and creativity is coming, and so I do a lot of things in the midst of life where you know I will, um, write while things are going on around me, while, um, I'm cooking in short bursts or, um, you know I can't do it while I'm cleaning, but at least then I'll listen to my audiobooks. So, finding ways of making it work, um, so I think, to go through what the important things are, the strategies I think, create some accountability in some way for yourself. Build in strategies to do it in small ways, in small steps, and make writing a habit and not a chore. So if you are writing and you're getting bogged down and you're getting bored and it's not working, well, go to something else. Give your muse a break, give it time to rejuvenate. So to do that, you might need to either take a break from writing and just immerse yourself in being a consumer of entertainment, either reading or watching things that inspire you, or you might need to write something else. It might be time to take a step back and do something else that you can write.

Amra Pajalic: 28:38

So when I was writing my memoir I would go through burnout and I would hit points where it was too hard because there was a lot of trauma associated with writing my memoir. And so what I did with that was I started writing a romance novel and so I would work on my memoir and then when I ran out of oomph or I was just really feeling weary or you know blue, I would work on the romance novel, which was more fun, it was light and it was entertaining. And you know, the memoir did take a while. It took five years to write and in that time I wrote other books and other pieces, but that was what I needed to do. I could not dedicate myself to that on a full-time basis because it was too hard. Even the novel that I did for my PhD, which is going to be the first book in the series, it was a very hard book to write because it's dealing with some really serious and difficult themes. It is dealing with war, it is dealing with genocide and massacre and deprivation, and there were times when that was really hard to write and I did have to take a step back and write a short piece or write a short story and do something else that would take me away from that darkness and from that moment.

Amra Pajalic: 30:00

The other way that I sort of dealt with it sometimes I now can't write without playing instrumental music, but before, when I was writing, I sometimes had to find the right music to motivate me, to get me in the mood for certain scenes, and so that was something else that helped me get through dark moments or through moments where I was struggling with inspiration Finding the right music, finding the right soundtrack and having that be something that accompanies me and gives me that bit of support in the writing process. Now I always play musical soundtracks. I do it even when I'm at work, teaching, doing my lesson planning and doing other things. I just like sort of having like a work at teach or my work at a school that has 2,000 people in it. We have, you know, 1,600 students, we have over 200 staff and support staff, so there's a lot of people, a lot of bodies, a lot of noise, and so I find that I need to kind of cut off that sensory overload and shut it down.

Amra Pajalic: 31:13

And in the early days when, um, you know, my daughter was small and and there was a lot going on in the house on a day-to-day basis. I did have to do that too, where I would put, uh, my headphones on for brief periods, uh, when she was, just try and snatch those 15, 20 minutes of time, um, and write and do that bit of a sprint and move forward, and so that would kind of create that little bit of space. Now, one of the things that happens when we are juggling so much is we need to prioritize rest and we need to avoid burnout. So I did, and I still do, kind of get burnt out. The thing now is I'm getting better at recognizing it and I am getting better at taking care of myself and taking a time out when I am feeling that.

Amra Pajalic: 32:08

However, I am now at a point where I am really driven and I always have to do something, and so I'm learning to have a very impressive to-do list, and so then, anytime when I have time to do something, I look at that list and I look at what is something that I can do if I'm really tired. That does not require much in the way of concentration, so I might be creating promotional graphics or marketing or doing some editing for some of the things that I'm producing at the moment and what is something that requires concentration and needs to be done when I'm fresh. So if I'm proofreading, that has to be done the first thing in the morning. So that's one way to sort of look at managing burnout and managing your energy levels, looking at how do you feel like what can you do at the time that you've got? So obviously, you know, stepping back when you need to step back.

Amra Pajalic: 33:11

I go through times where I'm really tired and I either need to have a weekend where I'm just doing, you know, binge watching, marathons of a TV show that I love or a repeat of something that I love, or I'm reading a book cover to cover. I find that that rejuvenates me so much If I just sit down and I do nothing but read for a day and kind of leave the world behind. Because as soon as I read a good book and you know something that is well constructed and that uplifts me, I just I feel inspired to create. I feel that energy coming back where I want to create something. And then also nature I'm finding I really did not appreciate enough, I think, in my early days, how much nature does to recharge us, and so one of the things that I do now is I go for walks in this beautiful park that is near my house, brimbeck Park, and I either listen to podcasts or I listen to audiobooks. And so I have this time where I'm out in nature enjoying, like I love, looking at trees there's something about looking at trees that really makes me feel good and then, because I've got the headphones and I'm either listening to a podcast that is helping me in terms of my writing, or helping me in terms of my you know business practices, or thinking about myself as a creative, or learning something, or I'm just listening to an audio book. I'm listening to, you know, a genre that I like, a book that I like.

Amra Pajalic: 34:58

At first, when I started listening to an audiobook, I'm listening to. You know a genre that I like, a book that I like. Um, at first, when I started listening to audiobooks, it was a struggle. I remember the first time I listened. I listened to an audiobook. The first 20 minutes, just, I felt so jangly and I felt so like, oh, I don't know if this is working for me. And then it just stopped and I was in the moment and I was just as I was hearing the narrator, um, I'm one of those visual people, so pictures appear in my mind and I see things like a movie, and so now, um, this happens with audiobooks, where I sometimes don't know did I listen to it or did I read it, because I see the visuals and one of the things I've discovered is the voice is very important to me. So I've now learned to listen to a sample and find a sample that you know, a narrator, that really appeals to me, and so I love that opportunity to sort of take that time out to still feel like I'm multitasking, because sometimes, you know, my ambition is just I want to do so much, and so then, doing the walking, being in nature, and then listening to an audio book and doing the reading, it just feels like I'm achieving so much still, um, so, I think, connecting with other creative people and engaging in the creative world.

Amra Pajalic: 36:18

So, you know, going to galleries, um, going to launches, going to events, going to conferences, um, I have met some amazing people, you know, like my friend dimet. Uh, I met her at a not a launch, but at an event I think it was the victoria's premier's awards and she just came up to me and we started talking and we just kind of connected and then we exchanged emails and then we started doing things together and started collaborating together and you know, um, I don't know how many years it's been now Sugar I think it's been 16 years and we're really really close friends, still there for each other and constantly, you know, talking regularly, posting in our online chat on a constant basis, meeting up me, her and Alice you know all writers mothers, wives, you know got very full lives and still moving forward with our creative practice. And you know our jobs, day jobs and so I think that you know you don't know who you're going to meet or who you're going to connect with, and especially in those early days as an emerging writer, it is so important to make connections with people who inspire you, and now I get so many ideas when I talk to some of these people in my life who are in the creative world in different ways, where you know they help me problem solve or they give me ideas of things that they've listened to or things that they've heard, and so we're just kind of feeding each other constantly. So you know, give your muse time and space to play. So I spoke about the morning pages and I really think Julia Cameron's book the Artist's Way is something that might be really useful for people. I've recommended it a lot to a lot of creatives and to a lot of writers and it really kind of puts you in touch with trusting the muse. The other one is Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic. You know reading things about writing in different ways, that people do it and then trying it. It's really important.

Amra Pajalic: 38:35

One other thing is don't keep rewriting the same book. Try new things. Like when we start, first of all as emerging writers, it takes us a long time to finish a book, and that's what I did. You know, my first book was my romance novel return to me, um, and which is there on my bookshelf, and, um, I spent three years writing that book and I got, you know, bored and frustrated with it at certain points and I would take time out and I would write a short story and I would write a freelance article and I would write a poem, and so every time I got bored, you know, either I would jump to the next scene I would keep my momentum going that way but also I would try something fresh or try something new. I would try and get my muse playing again and get it inspired. And so I would also encourage you to try different genres. I remember when I was doing my diploma and you know we would have guest speakers every well, one of the classes every week, and so guest speakers would come in and they would talk about the different ways that they were writing, and I would try it. You know we had someone talking about flash fiction, so would come in and they would talk about the different ways that they were writing, and I would try it. You know we have someone talking about flash fiction, so I wrote some flash fiction and I had it published. And even today I listen to podcasts. I really love the creative pen and her interviews with different writers and different creatives, and I hear ideas of what they're doing and how they are finding energy and inspiration, and so I try it. So you know, always try those different genres and different ways of doing things.

Amra Pajalic: 40:12

One other thing is don't chase trends. Remember when the vampire books were the big thing and everyone had a vampire book, and then we did all these different types of vampire books. The problem with chasing trends is, when you look at the traditional publishing world, a book might be published, you know. Say now, that book was written at least three years before. Then there was a submission process, then it was picked up for publication, then it, you know, went through the editing process and then it was scheduled for publication. Like every book that is published. Traditionally, it's got at least one year usually more from when the contract was signed. So the problem with chasing trends is whatever is published currently has had a long lead time, and so if you're chasing a trend, by the time you go through the process and write it, that trend might be over. And the problem with that is you are then personally disappointed and bitter and irritated, which is how I felt when I've chased trends, because I could have been working on something that I was really passionate about and that, even if it didn't, you know, get picked up, I would have been personally satisfied and content with it.

Amra Pajalic: 41:30

Make your trends, write your passion, write what tickles your brain, put your unique twist forward, and that is how you will keep getting that inspiration and keep getting that momentum. Okay, I also think you know, write the fun bits of a novel, leave the boring bits. So, uh, when you're first writing a draft and I still do this now I sort of plot out a lot more than I used to. But I get bored and I'm like, oh, I don't know what I want to say with this part. I think I've done as much as I can and I work on the next scene, the next interesting scene, and then as I keep going, it becomes clearer to me what's missing beforehand and what I need to develop beforehand and the world building that I need to do, and then I can go back and flesh out the scenes that I've got. So, you know, keep yourself moving forward so that you keep that inspiration going, and then, obviously, try different ways of writing, you know, with music, with TV in the background, with your children in the room.

Amra Pajalic: 42:41

Another thing that people have talked about, and I haven't really experimented much with, but it's dictation. So these days there is amazing, you know transcription software and dictation software that you can use quite inexpensively, and so I've been hearing a lot of writers who just use their phone and they dictate into their phone as they are moving around there every day, and then they put that through to you know, through some software where it gets transcribed, and that's how they write, and you know that might be one way of moving things forward and getting that word count down and building it into your regular life. So, you know, use the tools that we've got now and software that we've got. Try new ways of writing and new ways of building it into your writing practice and see what works.

Amra Pajalic: 43:38

I've pretty much every book. I've done something different or tried something different. I, you know, used to get different books about book structure and how to structure them and I would read the books. So you know I used Save the Cat or something cat, and you know I would use those tips and those structural templates. Now I use Plotter quite a bit, which has got the different ways of plotting and the different ways of structuring your novel, and so that's something that helps me with that structure and thinking it through. So, you know, try the different ways of doing things.

Amra Pajalic: 44:23

And then, you know, just listen to other creatives, find ways of. You know, if you can't in your real life connect with other people, it's wonderful now to be able to do it online, to be able to listen to podcasts, to be able to find people on YouTube and watch their videos in times you know the times that you've got and just hearing what other people are doing and trying it. Not everything will work for you, you know. Some things will work for a short period and then it's not going to work anymore. But that is the thing about this creative life and this creative world you are constantly evolving and learning and changing and changing your thinking and changing your processes, and that's the joy of it. I constantly need stimulation and I need to find the fun and the joy, and so that's the way that I work and that's what I'm always looking for.

Amra Pajalic: 45:31

I want to talk about now, um, how teaching inspires writing and, in a way, how do we find inspiration from our day jobs to continue our creative practice? So when I worked in administration, um, a lot of the jobs that I did, you know, were industries. I wasn't, you know, like they were just industries. I was working the not-for-profit sector and stuff. But what I found worked for me in terms of motivation was the fact that it gave me the opportunities to learn software and technology that at that time, I did not have access to outside of work, in a sense, like I had my own computer, but just some technology and some software was more expensive, and so there were things that I was learning that were was helping me with my creative practice. So I remember one job I had I was learning a bit of coding, I was learning about project management, and so some of those skills translated to my writing world and helped me kind of find an in With teaching.

Amra Pajalic: 46:32

I now have different benefits, so one of the really important things that I've gotten out of teaching I'm an English teacher and so I have to teach texts and teach text analysis and text response, and so through that process I have to deconstruct novels and the structure of novels and the language of writers and authors, intent, and I've found that has really helped me with my writing, because now my brain is constantly thinking about the way that things are structured and you know writing strategies and it's woken up that part of my brain. I've also found you know that developing of discipline with teaching because as a teacher you're very busy. There is not much time. We're constantly on the run. Like you know, I have a short break, recess and a lunch break, and it takes five minutes to pack up and go from the classroom to my desk and five minutes to go from my desk back to the classroom. So then that time is really compressed and so you have to figure out how to manage things and how to do things quickly. And so you know even strategies, like I love drinking tea, but I would never be able to have enough time to make a cup of tea and actually drink it, and so I started bringing tea in a flask so that I could quickly just pour myself tea, and so it really made me good at problem solving, that thinking how do I maximize time and how do I do things in a much quicker time frame and how do I maximize what I can do when. And so the strategy about the good brain and what brain am I working with and what can I do that started at work, where sometimes I'd be too tired and it's like, well, I can't do the lesson planning or I can't do that, you know, preparation of the text analysis, but I can go stand at the photocopier for half an hour and photocopy all the resources that I need. So you know, looking at the time and how I'm feeling and how do I maximize it, that was really helpful.

Amra Pajalic: 48:44

One of the most important things that being a teacher has given me is the mindset. So I live in the suburb of St Albans it is where I grew up and I teach at the school that is my former high school and I teach at the school that is my former high school and I love that I am in that position to do that because I love being a role model for my students. When I grew up in this area and we are in the western suburbs of Melbourne, so it's low socioeconomic in general you know really hard lives a lot of migrants, migrant parents having to give up their dreams for their children and to give their children opportunity, and then the pressures that places on the students. And then when I grew up, I hated living in this suburb. I hated being associated with this suburb. I could not wait to get out.

Amra Pajalic: 49:47

And I see that with a lot of my students because you know, when I say where I work and when I say where I live, people have a lot of stereotypes and a lot of negative views of my area and they say a lot of negative things about my students and I'm like, well, you're wrong. My students are the most beautiful people you know. They are so incredibly respectful. The things that a lot of other teachers face in terms of disrespect and disregard does not happen very much at my school. Disregard does not happen very much at my school, and so I am really happy and I get a lot of motivation from being a role model for my students, for being able to show them how it doesn't matter where you come from, it is what you do with it and what you can achieve, and that gives me a lot of impetus and a lot of that inspiration to keep going. And then, even when I look back at my cultural background and my community I am from a Bosnian background and being able to tell stories about my culture and my community also gives me a lot of inspiration. And so that you know, being a role model, you know to go back to teaching and how that motivates me with my writing. I get a lot of you know, a lot of inspiration from that.

Amra Pajalic: 51:20

So I look at what are you doing in your day, what is it that your day job is and how can you get some lessons from it? Or how can you get some motivation in terms of thinking? How is it supporting your writing practice? So you know, at certain points in administration it supported me in terms of the learning side and learning packages. Um, then it supported me in terms of writing on the train and so that traveling part of it, um, and so you know, find your're working full time, but have that creative itch.

Amra Pajalic: 52:08

Just don't give up. It is possible. You just need to find what works for you. You need to find the moments and the ways that you can make it fit. Um, it's not about having the time, it's about making the time, and there's something about sometimes with our creative practice that we don't prioritize it because we might not be making any money with it, especially in the beginning, and therefore it's not worth our time and not worth prioritizing. There's always something else to do, but we have to prioritize it for ourselves because we have to prioritize who we are.

Amra Pajalic: 52:47

So if I'm not writing or if I'm not working on my creative practice, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good mother. I'm, and I know that I'm not being my best self and I am not being the person that I should be. And so I have learned that I have to prioritize it, not just for myself, but also for everyone around me and for all of the people that depend on me, because if I want to be a good mother and someone who is experiencing joy and who is modeling joy, then I need to do what gives me joy, and so that's something that I really focus on modeling with my daughter and I see how it works with her where she also prioritizes her creativity, where she will sit down and paint something and create something and have those moments of joy. And we can very easily waste time I know I do on social media and a lot of things like that and so I have to practice discipline in terms of dedicated time and even if it is 20 minutes a day if that's all you can give it, then give it that habit.

Amra Pajalic: 54:19

As you are creating that opportunity for your brain to engage and for your muse to play, it will start developing more. I find that the more ideas I have and the more that I action on my ideas, the more they keep coming to me. I learned that from I really got that from Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic, where she was like it's about honoring your muse, and if you don't honor your muse, she will flutter away and go to someone else, and so that's the way that I think of it. It is about honoring that energy and whatever that is coming from and just putting it out there and building those small moments, those small practices, and having them build into something more. So thank you for listening to this episode and I hope you have gotten some helpful tips.

Amra Pajalic: 55:18

Don't forget that on my website there is a transcript. Don't forget that. On my website there is a transcript, there are show notes and there is also how-to guides to support you with your writing practice, which is also a way of you supporting this show. They are very cost-effective $5, and so they are giving you these actionable steps that might help you having that how-to guide and having something written down, and by purchasing those, you are helping to support this podcast. So I hope you got something out of this.

Amra Pajalic: 55:56

I would love to hear from you and love to hear some ideas that you have in terms of how you integrate your creative practice and how you move that forward. So go to my website, amrapajaliccom slash podcast for the show notes. So that is A-M-R-A-P-A-J-A-L-I-c dot com slash podcast for the show notes, and tune in next time for my next episode, where I'm talking about how short stories build a publication history and how they can help you find an audience and get a publishing contract. So thank you. Thank you for tuning in to Amra's Armchair Anecdotes. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe and follow for more insights, stories and inspiration from my armchair to yours. Remember, every story begins with a single word.