Down East meets Down Under

Here I am, at the ripe old age of… well, let's just say I dent when you squeeze me and leave it at that, hmmm? Anyway! Here I am, on the back side of my prime, and I am experiencing a new phenomenon for the first time in my life.

I have a pen-pal! Already, it seems, I must qualify that statement. See, I haven't used a pen in years. I PLAY with them all the time… I chew on the ends, and I bend the caps and twist them through my fingers while talking. That action earns me exasperated looks from my companions, as I've been known to lose control of the pen-and-cap assemblies and shoot them through the air like missiles with faulty guidance systems. It's one way to make sure I keep my fellow conversationalists engaged in my repartee. They are so worried about losing an eye that they must pay very close attention to me as I expound on the topic of the day… just so they can duck and weave in a timely manner!

Okay, so there's no pen involved in my correspondence. There IS a keyboard, and a computer, and Al Gore's great invention, the Internet. I have no idea how these three contraptions work, I only know that they DO -—unless I really, REALLY need them to. Not knowing the science behind computers doesn't change the fact that they can be useful, though, as I have recently discovered. Once I had a novel published, it became imperative (to my publisher's way of thinking) that I, the new author, begin "networking." I know, I know… that sounds like a dirty word. Something you might utter in the heat of the moment, just before high-tailing it out the front door and away from your mother and that bar of soap. But I've discovered that networking is really just talking —something I've a fondness for— only without the sound. It consists of telling others about my book, associating with like-minded people who care about the same things I do, or who love to write, like I do. People who might be able to give me a hand, or a leg-up, or any other body part they can spare on a temporary basis. And the hope is, of course, that I can return the favor some day, and donate a limb or organ to THEIR good cause.

In the course of marketing my novel, I have "met" some really awesome, kind and generous people. And the person who has thus far made the biggest impression on me is another writer from half-way 'round the world. Jack and his lovely wife, Alison Claire, live outside of Brisbane, Australia. Down-Under. Oz. A world of koalas and kookaburras. A land of cockatoos and curlews. A place I've always dreamed of visiting, but will most likely never really see.

Jack read an excerpt from "Grumble Bluff" on an online authors' site, and wrote to tell me how much he enjoyed that portion of my tale that was available to him. He went out of his way to quote portions of Grumble that he especially liked, and gave my faltering self-confidence a tremendous boost. Jack was a complete stranger, and yet he took the time to be kind and encouraging to this woman he had never met, and whom he most likely never would meet.

Well, of course, you know me… I HAD to respond. That's what I do! I talk! Or, when there is no one near enough to hear me… I write.

And oh, what fun it's been!

I am on the receiving end of an abundance of new knowledge. This gal from the western woods of Maine is getting first-hand stories from a land that is not only in a different time zone, but in a completely different hemisphere, too! While I am impatiently waiting for spring, Jack's summer is winding down. When I am rising from bed in the morning, Jack and Alison are getting ready to turn in for the night. When Jack sends a note saying "Happy Wednesday!" I am reading it on Tuesday… a day that he's already lived through! Which is kind of nice, when you think about it… because he can clue me in on what to expect from my day.

Jack and Alison live in Australia, but they are from Scotland. For those of you who don't get out much, like me, that's a small country to the north of England. Trust me, I looked it up in the encyclopedia, and those things are never wrong. Think kilts, bagpipes, moors and highlands, and you'll get the picture. An old country, with lots of history and great booze-making abilities. Not that I drink booze, mind you. I'm simply relaying a fact from a friend with insider information. Who might himself be qualified as an expert, if I had to make a bet. Not that I would bet, mind you. I've got a reputation to uphold.

Anyhoo (and I've never said "anyhoo" until I had a Scots-Aussie friend who says it all the time! See what a world-wide influence can do to a country girl? Anyhoo! Imagine!) I am enjoying my Down East to Down Under friendship, and have learned to appreciate my new computer for gifts such as this.

Now, if I could only figure out that little postage-stamp-sized-doohickey-thingy that came with it, I could even back up my files. And save my stories. And store digital photos. Or so they tell me. —Those mates in the know.