writing life

I have decided to take an early redundancy from my work thanks to the Voluntary Student Union legislation and apply for a scholarship to try and write and study full time. Also thinking of applying for fellowships overseas with the support of my lovely partner. It's exciting and terrifying at the same time I have always had a day job or a respectable study path (in psychology) and now it feels like a bit of a gamble.

Yesterday I went to my first Children Of the Dragon workshop for a little while. I'm one of the contributing writers to this project which is looking at Vietnamese-Australian youth at the 30th anniversary of the community being here and where it might go next. The people in this project are energetic and most seem committed to the community and see themselves in thirty years doing something for it. I wonder whether this obligation to do something for the community is prevalent amongst Vietnamese because they are relatively new, the concept of nghia, or do all ethnic communities feel this obligation? One of the challenges popping up in this project is the perception that what we are portraying is too negative. We only refer to drugs once, and not to gangs at all- however we portray a lot of intergenerational conflict and PTSD. We cannot candy coat what is in the community though and I actually think our portrayal is very gentle. The burden of trying to be representative is weighing on the director and it strikes me as being a bit unfair- no one Australian Anglo production is ever expected to be representative of its culture.