Why do so many of us love snail mail so much? It's not convenient, it's not immediate, and it's not free. Email can be all of the above. So can IM and even SMS (depending on your plan). So what's so great about the mailbox?
A few years ago, we thought the digital age would end snail mail altogether. Like, video killing the radio star all over again. Yet today, the sight of a handwritten letter in the mail makes many people leap for joy. Letter writing projects and cooperatives are springing up all over the world, fuelled by folks who love to stay in touch.
Why?
Is it nostalgia? Do we yearn for the days when things were done slowly, carefully, and by hand?
Or is it the personal touch? Does the sight of pen-on-ink, wonky handwriting and lines through mistakes bring us closer to the writer than their spellcheckers, SMS shorthand and emoticons ever could?
Is it the tactile nature of snail mail? The crunch of autumn leaves underfoot as you walk to the letterbox, the creak as you lift the lid, the texture of that envelope as you hold it in your hand, weighing it without realising you're doing it, judging by thickness and shape what you might find inside.
Or is it as fundamental as novelty? Now that our key mode of written communication is digital, does good, old-fashioned mail simply represent the allure of the unusual?
I don't have the answers. But I can tell you I love receiving mail, AND sending it.
I am not fast. It takes me a while to write to my friends. To think about what I want to say to them and then write it down. To decide what to include with my little letter. To plan how I might make the envelope pretty, something special to receive. I put the 'snail' in snail mail.
These days, I even make snails look speedy. There are many people I want to write to right now, but the carpal tunnel syndrome that has dogged my pregnancy makes it even harder to hold a pen or pencil than it is to type. Soon, my friends, I promise to write to you. Or maybe I will succumb and type my letters for you. But that just wouldn't be the same. Would it?
These photographs are of a wonderful little package I received in the mail last week from my pen pal in Germany, Astrid. She sends the most glorious mail. I love unwrapping the surprises she sends me (so does Ruby the cat).
_ps. Astrid recently put her creativity to work and opened an Etsy shop. You can find her sweet, handmade items at Flora Likes Soap and if you buy something, tell Astrid I say hello. She is just a lovely person. Want to receive regular "messages in bottles" from me? Subscribe using one of the links in the right hand column, or follow my blog with Bloglovin
Lately I've been drawing pictures on the mail I'm sending. The ladies at my local post office seem to like it. Hopefully my friends will, too.
I was inspired to draw pictures on parcels by this wonderful book, posted to ME recently by my dear friend Ruby Blessing. I love Edward Gorey's little graphic stories, and already have two of them at home. How did she know? I can't wait to delve into the wonderful letters inside this book!
And look what else arrived in my mailbox last week, all the way from my lovely postal pal Hermine, in Belgium. She sends the sweetest, most creative little parcels, I just love getting them.
Then yesterday afternoon I answered the door to the postman and JUST LOOK what arrived, sent from my dear friends Michelle and Kevin in Sydney, who stayed with us just last weekend. I am incredibly spoiled.
How about you? What have you found in your mailbox lately? What are you sending to friends? (ps. As always, if you buy a copy of my novella Airmail, I promise to send you a personal letter in the mail. Just email me your address, or my other contact details are here.) Want to receive regular "messages in bottles" from me? Subscribe using one of the links in the right hand column, or follow my blog with Bloglovin
"Writing is not a job or activity. Nor do I sit at a desk waiting for inspiration to strike. Writing is like a different kind of existence. In my life, for some of the time, I am in an alternative world, which I enter through day-dreaming or imagination. That world seems as real to me as the more tangible one of relationships and work, cars and taxes. I don't know that they're much different to each other.
"However, I write about these alternative worlds because it helps to preserve them. I'm their historian, their geographer, their sociologist, their storyteller. I write them into being. I have to say I don't care whether this is a good thing to do or not; this is just the way I am and the way I live my life."
_These are the words of Australian author John Marsden, and today on the English Muse, I'm exploring the mental and emotional gymnastics that Marsden put me through when I read my way through his Tomorrow, When the War Began series these past weeks. My post is here if you're interested. When I first read this quote, I thought "Oh yeah, me too." But that's not strictly true. Those alternative worlds? Escaping into them is why I read, not necessarily why I write. And that got me thinking: why do I write? It surprised me that I had to think so hard to find my answer. After all, I've been writing since I was six or seven years old. Why did I write then? Why do I still write now? Being a writer is like being an explorer. Charting new territories. Forging new frontiers. Rewriting the maps. Here be dragons! I undertake this adventure in the company of people I love, the characters who populate my stories. They are my co-explorers, often drawing me into places I'd never have thought to go. It is exciting, invigorating, and utterly addictive. So tell me: why do you write? Want to receive regular "messages in bottles" from me? Subscribe using one of the links in the right hand column, or follow my blog with Bloglovin
A year and a week ago, this little novel about writing letters and owning your stories and recognising a touch of magic came out. _I wasn't prepared, there was no great fanfare. I was too busy getting married and changing jobs and moving interstate. But I am still proud of my strange little story. It is quirky and multi-layered, and I still feel a deep affection for the curmudgeonly old man, the neurotic young woman, the pink tracksuit villain and the ugly philosopher who populate its pages. One of the nicest and least expected outcomes of this book being published has been the international community of letter-writing friends that has opened up for me. Early on in the process, I promised to write a personal letter of thanks to anyone who bought a copy of Airmail (I still do). People would email me their addresses and I'd send them off little thank-you notes and letters. Some of them would write back, offering me snippets into their worlds from far away. Over time, the word spread and people began to know me as someone who sends old-fashioned mail. People asked me to be their pen pals. I can't tell you how precious this is. So, to everyone who has bought a copy of Airmail, written me a letter, read this blog, or supported my writing in so many other ways, thank you. Truly! I always thought that having your fiction published would be the ultimate, but it wasn't. It's the way we reach each other, through a mutual love of storytelling and the written word, that means the most. It's about you.
 __"Naomi Bulger's novella Airmail is a postmodern take on the connections between people, and the effects people can have on us... Airmail is a philosophical cupcake; perfect to enjoy in one go with a cup of tea on a rainy afternoon. This is a book that will leave its footprints in your mind for days." -- Spitpress magazine (Issue 8) >>"Part insider’s tour of downtown New York, part insider’s tour of a delusional brain, Airmail, the debut novella by Enmore author Naomi Bulger, is 'as illuminating and entertaining as a well-wrought parable,' according to Driftwood Manuscripts. I call it strange. And beautiful. Rollicking entertainment for the thinking reader."--Inner West Live >>
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_May 17, 1926. As McArdle rode his mare out through the morning fog, he turned his eyes away from his well defined and self-sufficient farm and looked inward, instead, to the places were there were still mysteries.
McArdle’s lids were closed as he allowed the mare to amble slowly that particular late-autumn morning, but his eyes were very much awake.
They were searching inside his mind, darting left and right, spinning in their sockets, seeking out the hotspots of emotion, the green and verdant ideas, even the dark places furthest hidden where waited the angry jealousies of which he was most ashamed.
He rode on the border, the very cliff’s edge between What Seems and What Is:
_To McArdle's right, sun rose through fog-pockets over well-managed fields.
To his left, darkness oozed and crept and whispered through the time-forgotten bush, a thousand rustling Somethings still clinging to night while the day yawned and stretched.
Straight ahead, yellow light glowing in the windows of the manager's house, warm with Mrs Anderson’s breakfast sizzling on the stove.
But inside and behind, mysteries. A vast and shadow-filled landscape-of-the-mind that, if ever it were unfolded, would spread and smother the breadth of this continent in its arteries and thoughts, as well as half of Antarctica and a goodly portion of Asia, then stretch and extend its eastern edges, slowly, island by island, towards the shores of Argentina.
_ Eventually, if left to its own devices, McArdle’s mind turned inside out would wrap itself over the entire globe. All its edges would meet and merge and smother the land until nothing of Earth would appear as it once was.
Space travellers would find in their journeys through our galaxy not a blue planet but a red-and-purple one, filled with blood and a visible pulse, electric thoughts sparking emotions and ideas across the surface with such startling frequency and force that our world would appear beset by deadly and impregnable storms. Text: McArdle's Mind, a fragment from a story I've been writing about a man who gets so lost in the world of his own thoughts that he becomes trapped, unable to return to the 'physical' world of action and community and time. Images: gorgeous, ghostly bush photos by Irene Suchocki of Eye Poetry, who kindly gave me permission to use them here. Irene's blog is linked above, and you can buy the stunning photographs at her print shop.
I need to rediscover the bravery I tapped to do this
_Disclaimer: this post started off as a private email to my good friend Deborah of Bright and Precious. Now I guess you could call it an open letter because, for my humiliation to be true, it must be shared. Right? Background: I’m off to DPCON12 tomorrow, the Digital Parents Conference about which, now that I am taking notice, I see half the blogging world is talking. I’m lucky to be going, because I'm benefitting from a last minute change. The program looks incredible, there are several speakers and delegates I’ve admired from blogland, and I know I will learn a ton. The actual email: So at first I was thinking “Yay, a conference. I get to sit with my friend Deb and meet nice people and learn heaps of stuff. Fun!”
But now I’ve made the mistake of looking online at what other people are saying, and their nerves are catching. Like what to wear, and being shy, and networking, and blog sponsorships, and blah blah blah. I've only been blogging for a year and I'm still learning how it all works. I know nothing about this community, I’m not a member of Digital Parents, I don’t blog about parenting and, for another three months, I’m not even a parent!
Plus, I’m the dodgy ring-in. Like, someone could ask “When did you book your ticket?” and I’d have to reply, “Oh, I didn’t really know this conference existed until my friend who was going told me someone else was giving away their ticket.” All these serious bloggers have spent months preparing, and saving, and seeking (and gaining) sponsors, and I just float in off someone else’s coat-tails. I feel like a cheapskate fraud.
I can't seem to stop trawling the Internet for what all these clever people are saying and planning and wearing. It's getting in the way of me doing actual writing work that earns me actual money (something I should be working even harder at today since I won't be able to earn any money tomorrow). I am like the dorky kid in class who can't tear their eyes away from the cool group, and gets told off by the teacher for inattention.
Then there’s my blog-anxiety. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been so incredibly busy that I’ve barely been updating my blog at all and, when I have, it’s been pretty basic. So tomorrow, if I meet anyone and they decide to look at my blog, they’ll see a freaking post on starlings. Starlings?? Deb, what was I thinking? These men and women blog about serious issues in their lives, and they do it with depth and humour and insight and vulnerability. I, on the other hand, bring you a video that most of the world saw last October, and a handbag with a picture of a bird on it.
_Result: I will be the DPCON12 delegate sitting by myself in a corner during cup-of-tea breaks, pretending to be engrossed in something extremely important on my iPhone, but actually just hanging my head in shame.
Have you ever felt this sense of inferiority and illegitimacy? How did you manage it? Have you ever been to a blogging conference? Any tips to help me survive?
Tell me this short video doesn't bring tears to your eyes, and warm your heart. Isn't it amazing? And isn't Tom adorable? All those creative ideas!
I have a new Facebook page and it's all about celebrating creative people. Writers, film-makers, artists, musicians, photographers, chefs... it's about the ancient arts of storytelling and imagination in old and new ways. For every like I receive on the page, I'll donate $1 to the Sydney Story Factory, helping kids like Tom. Now there's a good cause you can support without spending a cent! Will you come and join my community? Like my Facebook page here. Use this as a chance to show off what you've been working on: your latest book, your photography, a short film you've made, your Etsy shop... And then please tell your friends. Let's send me broke supporting this great charity! Yours truly,Naomi
Last week my friend Diana Murdock, an author from the We Are Not Alone blogger group* I joined last year, interviewed me about my book Airmail. She posted the interview on her own blog this morning (well, in the middle of the night my time) and it's there now if you'd like to have a read. She's also running an Airmail giveaway for anyone who leaves a comment. SO. If you would like a signed copy of my book sent to your door, quite possibly with a fancy wax seal on the envelope, visit Diana today. She'll be drawing a winner tomorrow, and I'll post the book off on Monday. Hooray for presents in the mail! I hope you win.*What is this blogger group of which I speak? It sprang from a course on 'blogging for writers' run by Kristen Lamb. It was fantastic.ps.1 - don't forget to go on over to Diana's blog and leave a commentps.2 - click "Like" if you like this - we can share the love on Facebook and give Diana some support
Hooray for creative people: writers, journalists, designers, photographers; who take the initiative to showcase their creative work on their own terms. Journalist Brittney Kleyn, for example, garnered her creative friends and produced a zine from her holidays in Europe. Called Around the World in 80 Pages, it's a celebration of travel, discovery, journey and destination. It's not a travel guide, but it does document the weird, wacky and wonderful discoveries made by Brittney and her friends. Think designers in London, librarians in Berlin, and baristas in Spain. Right up my alley! I can't wait to read this zine but, more than that, I applaud what Brittney has to say about taking her burgeoning career into her own hands.
I've got mail, actually. Two lovely surprise packages arrived for me in the post this week. It's amazing how much getting mail can make you smile. On Monday, mail arrived from blogger Katherine of Through My Looking Glass. Such a nice surprise to find a pretty green envelope in my postbox, it had been forwarded on to Melbourne from my old address in Adelaide. Katherine sent me a little packet of paper mementos from the Finders Keepers markets in Sydney, and guitar lessons. Yes, guitar lessons, for disadvantaged kids in Vanuatu, from the Oxfam Unwrapped project. I was so incredibly touched by her thoughtfulness. _Then today when I walked the dog to pick up the mail I discovered a little parcel from a sweet girl in Germany, Astrid. Astrid found me through my blog last year and invited me to be her pen pal. So I ordered dumplings for lunch and opened her latest envelope to explore its contents at leisure. I'm a lucky lass. What arrived for you in the mail lately? Anything good?
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