Exuberance mingled with melancholy as our Junior and Senior Dragons traipsed across the carpeted floor of the Bundaberg Library for their final writing class of 2012.

For the past few months, we have stepped into the fascinating personas of fictional heroes and heroines – we have harboured Chosen Ones, grappled with unwanted gifts, fought off demons, sobered drunk relatives and dated Boy Bands.

We fastened our seatbelts as our spaceships destroyed empires, our young bodies took bullets and we lay listless in hospital, enabling us to add introspection to our plight 🙂

We learnt how to describe our senses and how to show not tell, and we discovered the wickedly slippery interrobang while crash-coursing into punctuation (I’m not sure how “wickedly” slipped in there when we know not to use “ly” adverbs).

Three-dimensional daleks rocked our meeting room with “Exterminate“, birthday cake left no crumbs at all (absolutely not on the floor) and we discovered that not all Freddo Frogs arrive perfectly formed.

We analysed the importance of false teeth and lasagne. We screamed, cried and shapeshifted – we even had tissues for those days when we laughed or cried too hard (and Ysa never led the laughter fray).

But most of all (and of course we never start a sentence with “but”), we crafted solid friendships with other young writers who will be there for us throughout the good and the bad of future rough (and polished?) drafts.

As your 2012 teacher, I thoroughly enjoyed this creative and joyful term. I feel honoured to have shared your dreams and writing (and laughter) with you and I’m looking forward to 2013 filling the Bundaberg Library with lots more fun and laughter – just don’t tell the librarians! After all… Shhsh! We’re meant to be quiet in there! Cherie 🙂