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Belinda Hamilton interviews teen expert and author Michelle Mitchell.

 

 

We’re heading into the lead up to mid-year exams for Aussie high school students. What are your top 3 tips to surviving exams?

 
Try these tips to help keep things calm….

1. Put as much value on relaxation and exercise as you do on exams. Value and time are two different things. You may have to cut down on the time you spent watching television or sports, however don’t eliminate them altogether.

2. Eat a decent breakfast before going to school. When you are hungry if affects your concentration, mental speed and clarity.  Eating a good breakfast, which includes protein, helps brain function stay stable.

3. Start assignments and study as early as possible. Stress builds when you have too much to do in too little time. Start each assignment the day you are given it and don’t leave things to the last minute.

 

We’ve been running a series on www.burnbright.com.au called Mirror Mirror to counteract the YouTube trend of teens asking the masses, ‘Am I beautiful?’ Our focus in this series is to highlight teen girls and women who have done incredible things with their lives. Who would you suggest we should profile for role models for young women?
 
I am privileged to come in contact with many young ladies who are turning their lives around and achieving great things.  Chantelliene is one of those ladies.  She is now a 24 years old, successful business owner.  She got heavily involved in drugs and alcohol when she was a teenager but has managed to get herself back on the straight and narrow.  She grew up with quite a number of challenges to overcome, including an alcoholic father. I’m so proud to see she is now kicking great goals for her own life and learning from her families mistakes.
 
Why do you think society places so much focus on young women to aim for beauty rather than striving to achieve amazing things?
 
There is so much focus on beauty and body image in society and the media.  It puts a lot of pressure on our girls.  I see girls wanting a ‘box’ so badly their life is melting down over it.  Girls don’t put all your eggs in the one beauty basket. There is more to you than how you look. I’m blogging more about this more at michellemitchell.org this week.
 
There’s a saying, ‘You can’t troll a troll,’ (eye for an eye) when referring to Internet bullying, however this is inaction is perpetuating the issue. How can teens take charge of the issue, without trolling the trolls?
 
I agree. You can’t beat a bully  by being a bully. The person who started the fight is usually meaner and stronger than you.  You can however, beat a bully by outsmarting a bully. One way of outsmarting a bullying is not giving them any attention AT ALL.  Bullies thrives on attention. The more dramatically we react, the more we fuel it.  The other way of outsmarting bullies is by taking yourself off social media sites that are known for bullying, like Ask.fm. If you have a profile on a site like that you are a sitting duck, waiting to be bullied.  That’s no way to live! Lastly, be careful who you friend and follow in the first place and keep in contact with supportive adults if you feel uncomfortable about anything online.
 
So much attention is given to how parents can start a non-threatening dialogue with their teenage children, but very little is taught to teens as to how to do the same with their parents, who may be just as disconnected in the relationship as they believe their teens to be. Can you suggest so me conversation starters that shouldn’t send parents into defence mode?
 
If you are asking your parents to allow you to do something ‘safe’ but you are still worried about your response, I’d suggest a few things.  Try not to over react and scream the house down. This will get their back up more.  Try to communicate your feelings calmly, slowly and with respect. Make your parents feel appreciated.  Give it a few days. You don’t have to get your point across in 30 minutes. Sometimes parents need time to think about things. 

Michelle’s Bio:

An advocate, author and active youth worker, Michelle’s honest and hope-filled approach has seen her help countless teenagers transition successfully into adulthood.

Working in schools, homes and community groups, Michelle is the founder of charity Youth Excel which started in 2000. Youth Excel delivers life skills education and support to hundreds of teenagers and their families though presentations, small groups and individual mentoring.

Michelle passionately advocates for equal opportunities for all young people, regardless of cultural background, socio-economic status or family dysfunction.

As a speaker, Michelle is entertaining, energetic and passionate about helping teenagers and their families navigate through challenging crossroads.

As an author, Michelle has incorporated years of grassroots experience into her book, “What Teenage Girls Don’t Tell their Parents”.  Michelle has also authored a series of five life skills programs being utilised by schools nationwide covering topics including self esteem, relationship strategies, problem solving, goal setting and self leadership.

Michelle is a registered teacher.

Along with her husband Doc and two teenagers, she lives in Brisbane, Australia

– See more at: http://michellemitchell.org/

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Talitha Kalago is a 28 year old Australian writer. Her first young adult novel, Lifesphere Inc: Acquisition was released on the 20th of May.

Lifesphere Inc: Acquisition tells the story of Eli, a thirteen year old orphan living in an immense garbage tip that rings the city. He sells trash to survive, while on the Topside, citizens live in hedonistic luxury. Eli dreams of obtaining citizenship by becoming a handler; bonded with a bio-organic life form called a meka.

On the Topside, handlers are celebrities, pitting their skills in televised meka battles. But new legislation will only allow those with citizenship to become handlers and Eli can’t raise the money to buy a meka before the law is passed.

A grifter named Kalex offers Eli a trade: meka of his own, if he competes in an illegal fight to the death.

So Talitha, is it true all your skin once rotted off?

Well, not all my skin, but a lot of it. At the end of 2008 I contracted Steven Johnson Syndrome, which is a very rare allergy like reaction where the body begins to eat itself. It’s a lot like having second or third degree burns, all over the body.

In my case, it went into my organs too. My stomach, intestines, liver and lungs were all badly damaged, and then it went into my brain and left me chronically ill with liver tumours and daily crippling migraines.

Actually I was living in Victoria at the time, and I was still very ill when the black Saturday bush fires happened. I was slathered in a thick layer of white paraffin all the time and packed in ice. I slept with my feet over the side of the bed in a bucket of ice water and with ice packs all over my arms and chest. Often, we were afraid to leave the house and take me to the hospital in case the fires got close and we wouldn’t be allowed home.

I wrote a novel over those few months of rotting skin and bushfires, and the white paraffin all over my hands ruined the keyboard completely. I actually finished Lifesphere Inc right before I got sick. The story I wrote with no skin was a horror novel.

In your new young adult novel Lifesphere Inc, one of the two main characters is in a wheelchair. Are her experiences a reflection of your experiences?

Squall is by far the most vivacious and optimistic of the characters. She’s capable, funny, kind and well educated. She’s also in a wheelchair, which gives her a lot of obstacles to overcome–usually literally–however it’s not her defining feature. If anything, she uses it to her advantage, cheekily getting sympathy for her condition to keep herself and Eli out of trouble.

The second book in the Lifesphere Inc series, Duplicity, is from Squall’s perspective instead of Eli’s. We get to see a lot more of what makes her tick and what she’s willing to sacrifice to save someone else’s life.

I love all my characters, but she is my favourite. The experiences I write for her are very different to my experiences, but we share the same outlook and both try and make the best of everything.

How do you manage to fit writing into your schedule?

Between the occasional flesh eating disease and trying to stop my horrible dingo-dog hybird from destroying the house, you mean? Being chronically ill I have to fight for every coherent second. Sometimes being sick wins and I spend the day watching back to back horror films and hoping someone will show up and feed me, because I can’t stand up long enough to cook.

However most excuses people have for not writing (including mine) are bollocks. My hands were one of the worst affected places when my Steven Johnson’s was in its acute stage. I wrote a novel with no skin on my fingers. I was pounding away on a keyboard slick with paraffin with raw flesh and you’re telling me you can’t write 500 words in your lunch break? You can’t give up a few TV shows and write in the evening? You can’t get up a half hour earlier? No? Catch public transport to work and write on the train then.

Writing is my schedule. I treat it like a full time job or a home business. At the very least you have to take it seriously, because if you don’t, no one will.

What triggers your creativity?

I assume it was passing through the birth canal. To say I was precocious is somewhat of an understatement. By 12 months I was putting on my own cloth and safety pin diapers. I wasn’t toilet trained, but goddamnit, I was going to dress myself.

Shortly after that I started telling stories. That’s a nice way of putting it. Really, I was just a spectacularly accomplished liar. I would approach strangers and make up outlandish stories which people would inevitably believe because then they’d come up to my mother and ask if they could help her with the injured kangaroo she had in the back seat of the car.

I also use to sell things to people, like handfuls of sand, rocks or leaves and was always showing up with pockets of change I’d conned out of baffled passersby.

I recorded my first oral stories on a cassette player around four. I finished my first written story at age six. But in truth I probably started making up crazy nonsense somewhere around two and a half. I just keep doing it, every day, and hope people keep buying rocks off me.

In your opinion how important are writer’s groups to you, pros and cons etc?

A great writer’s group is one of the best supports a writer can have. A bad one will do more harm than good.

Every group needs someone who is good at organising. There is a lot of hassle involved, even in an online group and a common way groups fail is when that person gets burnt-out and there is no one to take their place.

Another huge problem groups can have is bullying. One bad egg can sour everyone else and petty infighting can quickly turn a group from a literary resource into a malicious gossip circle. Often it is people who succeed who are the targets. Jealousy is a cruel mistress.

I am in an amazing writers group and I will tell you why it works:

1. We have an amazing organiser and leader whom the core group supports implicitly.

2. Everyone understands that a rising tide floats all boats. We work toward our own achievements, but we also support and promote everyone else in the group. The more success my fellow writers have, the more they can help me and visa versa.

3. Honest, kind and thoughtful feedback. Give the feedback you want to receive. We all genuinely want everyone else’s books to be the best they can. All feedback is given with the aim of improving the work in question.

Lifesphere Inc: Acquisition has just been released, but when can we expect to see book 2?

When do you want it? Book 1 will always be available for free anywhere I can list at that price (and if things changed and I couldn’t list it free anywhere, it would be free on my website) and the following books will be released when book 1 has reached certain download thresholds.

Even if no one buys book 2, or subsequent books, I’ll keep releasing them as long as book 1 reaches the required downloads. So if you’re keen to read the rest of the series, just keep encouraging people to download the free book.

So where can we get book 1 for free?

Right now it’s free on smashwords. Hopefully when you are reading this, it will also be free on Apple’s ibookstore, kobo and all the other retailers smashwords distributes to.

It’s also on Amazon for 99c, however Amazon don’t want people listing books for free. Sometimes they will price match though, so I am hoping it will be free on Amazon soon too when it starts getting downloaded at Kobo and Apple.

Wherever you get it, feel free to email book 1 to anyone you think might like it. Or recommend they download it themselves, if you want their download to count toward the next book.

Smashwords (free):

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/318159

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Lifesphere-INC-Acquisition-ebook/dp/B00CXGD8PS

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Welcome to Life with Lisa!

Recently I saw this post on a few different blogs that I followed and decided to make my own, and share it here on Burn Bright. Feel free, as always, to comment down below with the ten books that you just HAD to have, and still haven’t read them.

1. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray.

“Survival. Of the fittest.

The fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream Pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea, crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner.
What’s a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program – or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan – or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up?

Welcome to the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Your tour guide? None other than Libba Bray, the hilarious, sensational, Printz Award-winning author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine. The result is a novel that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you never see beauty the same way again.”

2. The Replacement, by Brenna Yovanoff.

“Mackie Doyle is not one of us. Though he lives in the small town of Gentry, he comes from a world of tunnels and black murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattooed princess. He is a Replacement-left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood, and consecrated ground, Mackie is fighting to survive in the human world.

Mackie would give anything to live among us, to practice on his bass or spend time with his crush, Tate. But when Tate’s baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem. He must face the dark creatures of the Slag Heaps and find his rightful place, in our world, or theirs.”

3. Angel Burn, by L.A. Weatherly.

“Willow knows she’s different from other girls, and not just because she loves tinkering with cars. Willow has a gift. She can look into the future and know people’s dreams and hopes, their sorrows and regrets, just by touching them. She has no idea where this power comes from. But the assassin, Alex, does. Gorgeous, mysterious Alex knows more about Willow than Willow herself. He knows that her powers link to dark and dangerous forces, and that he’s one of the few humans left who can fight them. When Alex finds himself falling in love with his sworn enemy, he discovers that nothing is as it seems, least of all good and evil. In the first book in an action-packed, romantic trilogy, L..A. Weatherly sends readers on a thrill-ride of a road trip – and depicts the human race at the brink of a future as catastrophic as it is deceptively beautiful.

They’re out for your soul . . . and they don’t have heaven in mind.”

4. Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children.

“A mysterious island.
An abandoned orphanage.

A strange collection of very curious photographs.

”

5. Firelight, by Sophie Jordan.

“A hidden truth.

Mortal enemies.
Doomed love.

Marked as special at an early age, Jacinda knows her every move is watched. But she longs for freedom to make her own choices. When she breaks the most sacred tenet among her kind, she nearly pays with her life. Until a beautiful stranger saves her. A stranger who was sent to hunt those like her. For Jacinda is a draki, a descendant of dragons whose greatest defense is her secret ability to shift into human form.

Forced to flee into the mortal world with her family, Jacinda struggles to adapt to her new surroundings. The only bright light is Will. Gorgeous, elusive Will who stirs her inner draki to life. Although she is irresistibly drawn to him, Jacinda knows Will’s dark secret: He and his family are hunters. She should avoid him at all costs. But her inner draki is slowly slipping away;if it dies she will be left as a human forever. She’ll do anything to prevent that. Even if it means getting closer to her most dangerous enemy.

Mythical powers and breathtaking romance ignite in this story of a girl who defies all expectations and whose love crosses an ancient divide.”

6. Wither, by Lauren DeStefano.

“By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children. When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape–before her time runs out?

Together with one of Linden’s servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?”

7. Fever, by Lauren DeStefano.

“Rhine and Gabriel have escaped the mansion, but danger is never far behind.
Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago – surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness.

The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous – and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion…by any means necessary.”

8. Fat Vampire, by Adam Rex.

“Doug Lee is undead quite by accident–attacked by a desperate vampire, he finds himself cursed with being fat and fifteen forever. When he has no luck finding some goth chick with a vampire fetish, he resorts to sucking the blood of cows under cover of the night. But it’s just not the same.

Then he meets the new Indian exchange student and falls for her–hard. Yeah, he wants to bite her, but he also wants to prove himself to her. But like the laws of life, love, and high school, the laws of vampire existence are complicated–it’s not as easy as studying Dracula. Especially when the star of Vampire Hunters is hot on your trail in an attempt to boost ratings. . . .”

9. Halo, by Alexandra Adornetto.

An angel is sent to Earth on a mission. But falling in love is not part of the plan.

Three angels – Gabriel, the warrior; Ivy, the healer; and Bethany, the youngest and most human – are sent by Heaven to bring good to a world falling under the influence of darkness. They work hard to conceal their luminous glow, superhuman powers, and, most dangerous of all, their wings, all the while avoiding all human attachments.

Then Bethany meets Xavier Woods, and neither of them is able to resist the attraction between them. Gabriel and Ivy do everything in their power to intervene, but the bond between Xavier and Bethany seems too strong.

The angel’s mission is urgent, and dark forces are threatening. Will love ruin Bethany or save her?”

10. Starcrossed, by Josephine Angelini.

“How do you defy destiny?
Helen Hamilton has spent her entire sixteen years trying to hide how different she is—no easy task on an island as small and sheltered as Nantucket. And it’s getting harder. Nightmares of a desperate desert journey have Helen waking parched, only to find her sheets damaged by dirt and dust. At school she’s haunted by hallucinations of three women weeping tears of blood . . . and when Helen first crosses paths with Lucas Delos, she has no way of knowing they’re destined to play the leading roles in a tragedy the Fates insist on repeating throughout history.

As Helen unlocks the secrets of her ancestry, she realizes that some myths are more than just legend. But even demigod powers might not be enough to defy the forces that are both drawing her and Lucas together—and trying to tear them apart.”

Thanks for stopping by!

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Author, speaker, consultant and media expert, Sarah’s expertise is working with gifted and talented young people who have the capacity to become high achievers.  She has an ability to raise expectations and aspirations of all young people she comes into contact with.  Sarah Newton has shared her wisdom with millions who have tuned into her TV and radio shows, followed her writing and listened to her thought-provoking talks.

Hailed as “The Supernanny for Teens” by TV Times Sarah has worked in this field now for over 19 years of her life. Sarah is also the founder of Talented Teens, Teenage Dr Love and the editor and creator of Celebrity Parent Advice. Sarah is also leading the way forward in personality led parenting and youth coaching.

What set you along this life path, working with teens?

I worked with young offenders and children at risk of offending for 10 years as a police officer in London. When one of the young people I worked with took their own life, it made me think there had to be a different way to deal with youth and I started on the track I am on nowadays.

A catch phrase when speaking about trolling (online bullying) is, “You can’t troll a troll”, which boils down to an eye for an eye. As a global community, how do you suggest young adults approach trolling?

As a global community, I think we need to see “trolling” as a crime and label it as such. If you said these things in public they would be, so why is it different on-line? I think all social networks should stop anonymous accounts and be on top of this more than they are.

Young adults themselves need to think more before they start these accounts and turn comments off on YouTube, for example if it upsets them too much, then have some else manage their account so they can field some of the offensive comments. I see so many young people engage with the trolls and this only puts fuel to the fire. Never answer anonymous comments on Ask FM, etc. It really isn’t worth it. Always think what a potential college/employer might think if they saw your comments back to these people. A girl in the UK has just had to pull out of a very prestigious job because of comments she made on twitter 4 years earlier. Be careful what you write; it may come back to bite you.

In your opinion do parents place too much emphasis on the academic achievements of their young adults rather than their hobbies or personal life goals?

In my opinion No they don’t. While I recognise the importance of hobbies and life goals, I also know that education is the key to opening doors and I believe that we should always have high expectations for our children when it comes to education. I have never heard an adult saying they wished that they had tried less at school.

Do you believe in the generation gap, and how much of an issue do you think it plays in the effective communication between young adults and their parents?

I think the gap has gone and we have more of a generation lap now, with young people lapping their parents in their knowledge of such important thing such as the Internet. A lot of the study results coming out about this are showing that parents and young adults are becoming closer than ever, with young people looking to their parents more than ever before for advice and guidance and most of them citing parents as role models. I think young people will always feel misunderstood; I think that is the nature of things, but I feel communication is better and different than it was when I was a teenager.

What can young adults gain from visiting your website www.sarahnewton.com?

They will find someone who understands them, the world they live in and offers different perspectives to the adults in their lives.

The majority of my site is aimed at parents and adults who work with youth, however one of my projects, Talented Teens, http://sarahnewton.com/talented-teens/ shares inspirational stories and advice about young people for young people and we do have a very cool little gadget which allows young people to discover their talent. You can find it in the left hand column on this page http://sarahnewton.com/c/blog/

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I think my taste in music is contagious. My daughter (who is a self-confessed Japan-o-holic) now enjoys sitting down with me to watch Pop Asia.  We have a giggle over some of the dance sequences and we still snicker over the thought of Girls Generation having ‘a boy chicken’ in their song ‘I got a boy’. (At least that’s what it sounds like they’re saying)

Lets make a long story short, today we’re heading to Taiwan.

To kick things off I give you an oldie but a goodie from F.I.R called Fly Away. This video reminds me of the style many Music Videos took on in the 1990’s and a this one has a sound to match. Careful of the gunshots sounding at the beginning, they’re a tad loud.

I find humour very appealing when life is getting a little too serious, so this number from Jay Chou fits the build. Gong Gong With a Headache… Yup that’s the name of the song. The ‘lady’ in the bath, yikes!

Where’s the girl group I can hear you all demanding… So how about the band S.H.E with their girl power song called Shero. Who needs to wait for a hero when you can save yourself? I agree ladies. Nice touches of gold glitter, diamonds and computer graphics. This may be from 2010, but it stands the test of time. Makes me want to pump my fist in the air and spell words in a loud, cranky voice.

These last two are from the same guy, Wang Lee Hom. Two totally different offerings and yet they’re both pretty cool. From 2010’ish comes Bo Ya Cuts the Strings

This has the best Gu-Zheng solo EVER!

Then we have the most recent song to be released by this philanthropic guy, and this one got my attention because it has a guest appearance by none other than Jackie Chan. I dare you to sit still while watching 12 Zodiacs. Oooooweeeeee!

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