Introducing ‘justathirdculturekid’ – my daughter’s blog

My children are growing up…fast.

This has come to me hard over the last few months. My son, here known as Thing II, is getting taller and more impressive with his skills. He’s turning into a mean Rock guitarist and his piano skills are moving very quickly too. He’s growing his hair long and still has drop-dead gorgeous eyes that seem to make every female love him. He’s nearly the same height as Wifey now and that’s scary. Only his voice is still high, reminding me that he’s still my child, but it won’t be too long before it breaks and begins the journey (downwards) to being a man.

Thing I when she was younger

With my daughter, that journey began quite some time ago and I have got used to her being adult-sized (at least compared to Bangladeshi adults who tend to be shorter than us bideshis) and how her conversation was becoming more mature. But it is with her love of writing that the difference is most obvious.

She’s always been a great reader. For four years now, in Bangladesh, she has devoured books. The whole Harry Potter series was no trouble to her and she has read most of LAMB school’s library. Increasingly she and I are reading the same books! For instance, she is now enjoying A Golden Age which I reviewed after reading a little while back.

Father and Daughter time over dinner

But her writing has come on tremendously as well. Last year she wrote many thousands of words on a novel that, whilst it never saw completion, was entirely worked on by herself and showed the potential for a real writer developing in her. This year, I encouraged her to take part in JulNoWriMo and if you are regular here you will remember posts I wrote about that. She completed her own 50,000 word novel and it is, I have to say, rather good even though – just like mine – it still needs editing and filling out in places.

Since then, she has continued to write, make plot plans and begin putting new novels and stories together at least in framework if not actually begun in earnest. Her output is probably more prolific than mine (and I’m quite proud of just how much I write these days – let alone hers!).

At a time when schools are desperate to encourage literacy and want children to read more than ever, I wonder if there are many parents who have to regularly tell their daughter to stop reading now at night time when she needs to get to bed or – more likely these days – to stop writing!

Performing a Bangla dance

It’s not like she isn’t active in other things. She’s also a musician, progressing particularly well on the piano, guitar and recorder and also a dancer. In fact it is dancing that is her other great love in life with only a knee injury putting a limit on the amount of practice she can do or want to do.

So it’s not like we can tell her she needs to get more exercise or anything. She manages her time pretty darned well and I envy her ability with that (though she never has time to tidy her bedroom it would seem).

So when she said she wanted to start her own blog, I couldn’t say no really, could I? In fact, I thought it was a pretty good idea. I may even have been the one to suggest it, offhand!

And that is just what she has done.

So may I present to you ‘Justathirdculturekid‘, newly started by my daughter who is writing using her pen-name of Amory Powell. I will continue to call her Thing I  though because I like it!

Please go give it a look (click on the name of the blog above) and leave some nice encouraging comments to my young almost teenage girl. She intends to write about her life in Bangladesh, school life and writing life – in fact her first three posts are exactly on these areas. If you are a writer she would particularly love to hear from you and receive your support and gentle critique. But all are welcome – after all, you’re all readers and a writer is nothing without you.

Thing I today

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