...and I love it.
On Friday morning I met a lovely old man. Full Australian farmer nearing eighty. Has never used a computer in his life, had two 170 page notebooks filled back-to-back with a handwritten novel and needed someone to type it up, edit it, and print it out for him.
I live in a small regional town. One of those towns where everyone knows everyone else and people are aware of what everyone's up to. My name was offered to him and I'm so glad it was!
The novel offered a glimpse into how Australia was back in the mid 1900s through the eyes of a teenage boy who runs away from home to escape an abusive environment. The boy experiences life on the road as a sheep drover, manages to collect a rag-tag bunch of people to follow at his back, then finally settles down once he hits eighteen. The story follows his life throughout the years until reaching the modern day -- today -- and makes several comments about our terrible drought and bushfire crisis.
It was incredibly interesting and I feel grateful that I got to type the entire thing onto my laptop, experience the story a good five or six times as I re-read and tidied it up, and finally printed it out for him to do as he wishes with it.
He was talking about possibly self-publishing it and I hope he finds a way to do it.
He's coming by to pick up his notebooks and freshly typed manuscript tomorrow morning. I worked on it for 21 and a half hours over the weekend so I'm getting a tidy sum just in time to finish the remainder of Back To School shopping. My son needs new school uniforms. He's 6 and a half years old and a size 12! The school shirt he wore last year was a size 8. He hasn't gotten fat over the holidays. He has just grown, is muscular, and is not built like a little 6yr old at all.
But I'm really happy. I just partook in my first paid work in a long time, it was something I wanted to do (write), both the story and the client it belongs to are wonderful, and I really hope that I can do this again some time.
I think Charlie liked the experience too:
Either the client grows a catnip field or has a pet cat of his own because Charlie was obsessed with these notebooks. Was sniffing them for hours, hugging them, biting me each time I dared touch them...👀
...crazy kitten.🙄
Until next time,
Thank you for stopping by! 😊
Charlie Kitten photo courtesy of me, 