Who Do You Know

Back a few years ago when I was a book editor, I wrote a hardcover book for Prentice Hall about the home office revolution, called The 60-Second Commute. I wrote it with one of my best friends, and we were well-qualified to write it. I had worked from home since the (gulp!) 1980s, and she is a family therapist who also made a conscious choice to start a home office. Then I sold my first novel, and my home office became much more about writing fiction and less about running a publishing consulting business and editing.

But one thing that was very clear in my book was how technology had changed us. I think most of us thought email and gadgets like the Crackberry were going to make our lives easier. But in truth, while it has helped us, it's also made us "wired" 24/7, thus making it harder, in many ways, to get away from our workload.

However, one thing the home office revolution and technology has done is bring us closer in some ways. Hence this blog entry. When I count my blessings, I have to count the many, many people whom I kn0w ONLY in the context of cyberspace. Karmela, for instance, who drops by here, has a blog. She lost her mom today and I read about it on her blog and cried. Karm is a treasure.

I have met people like Jude, who drop by here often. And writers I only know from eharlequin (Elaine sometimes drops by here, too). I have visited blogs and learned about writing . . . and life . . . from a wide variety of people. I met author Mary Castillo entirely online. I follow these threads through cyberspace and my world is a little smaller.

I pray for friends when they suffer losses, and light candles and, like Mai in Invisible Girl, cover the Buddhist bases of people in mourning and people who struggle with various problems, like we all do. I cheer my unpublished friends as they get agents and contracts, and cross my fingers for them and my other writer friends as new proposals make the rounds.

I definitely work too hard (something Heather Brewer tells me to knock off--walk and take a break, she reminds me). But cyberspace has really, in some ways, made my world better and brighter and more supportive.

So I had to share . . . the world is a little smaller because of my blog and my site. Who do you know?