Serenity Clay: Karma

I currently live in a small sea side town called Bargara. A beautiful place where the sound of the water crashing against the rocks is as soothing as a lullaby and the smell of fresh ocean air fills your body with relaxation. The time as I write this is midnight and like most nights all I can hear is the chatter of the insects and the whistle of the wind as it slips through a crack in my window. That’s where my chair sits, right by that window. I’m sitting on it right now trying to remember what age I was when I first fell in love with the craft of writing.

I remember reading a lot as a child. It started with the Goosebump books and the Babysitters club; it didn’t take long for me to want more so I started to read Danielle Steel and Barbara Taylor Bradford. I even sent a couple of my short stories to Trans-World Publishers (a previous publisher of Danielle Steel) and asked them if they could tell me whether I could be a writer one day. I think I was around nine. Their response to me was I already was a writer, I had potential and all I had to do was stick to it. Even though now as an adult I know that not many people would want to dash the dreams of a nine-year-old so of course that’s the kind of response I’m going to get but back then it was that letter that gave me hope and motivated me to follow my dreams. And as far as I’m concerned I am living that dream.

I am writing and people are reading it which is more than I ever thought would happen. When I was little my dream didn’t consist of getting rich, or even being published it was simple for me then and it’s simple for me now. I get to sit down, I get to let my mind wander away and I get to play make believe all the time. The whole time while I’m writing I’m not thinking about what bills need to be paid or what housework I have to do, for that time I’m not even me. I’m my character, I’m in their world, their reality and that is (minus my children) the best part of my day.

I love to write and to create I can’t express that enough but for a long time there I didn’t think I was ever going to be cut out for it. I dropped out of school at the beginning of grade ten and ended up working as a waitress at a truck stop, I went on to move away with my much older boyfriend, then came back to Roma the country town I spent most of my teenage years in, to work at Video Ezy and to get drunk a lot. That town is an absolute riot, ask anyone even now what would be their favourite recreational activity and their response will no doubt be ‘drinkin – the only recreational activity.’

At 18, I began working for the Office of Rural Health, the best job I ever had. I received my Certificate II in Business and Administration which my boss fast tracked me through because I later found out I was pregnant. After Amber Lee was born I spent my time being a new mum and then a year later I fell pregnant with her sister Gabriella. Because I was no longer new to the homemaking job I started to study while I was pregnant which resulted in gaining me a Certificate in Freelance Journalism and a media pass. But it got to the point where I was no longer satisfied with Certificates so then I made the decision to enrol in University where I am currently working toward my BA in Literature and Composition.

My future plans are to raise two beautiful, healthy and well adjusted children, to graduate from Uni, to continue to add plenty of content to my website and to get my Certificate III in Investigative Services so I can obtain my private investigators licence. I’m already living one dream my other dream is to help the people that our system can’t or no longer have the resources for. These are my plans, my life map. All that is left for me to do now is follow the road and hope I don’t crash