Saturday, April 13, 2013

Letters and Letter Writing




I have a box of letters under my bed. They’re folded neatly in creased envelopes, colourful stamps still attached, the product of months of letter writing between myself and a friend. They sit there, waiting for me to pick them up, read them through and remember when we wrote letters.

It’s been a long time since I wrote a real letter. I write messages to people over Facebook messenger. I write emails. Occasionally I talk over the phone to people. But I don’t write or receive letters, real letters written on paper and sealed in an envelope.

My sisters write letters sometimes. They write them on special paper and stick them all over with colourful stickers. It’s a big event, writing and sending a letter. They run out to the post box to check if the main man has brought them anything, and there are squeals of excitement when there are letters.

But letter writing seems to be so rare now. Most people seem to write emails, or text messages. Letter writing doesn’t happen very much any more. To me, that’s a great pity. It was a big job to write a letter and get a stamp and send it, and it took a few days to get a letter back, but there was always something so special about getting a physical letter. Having an email pop into my inbox doesn’t have the same thrill as ripping open the back of an envelope.

There’s something special about writing a letter. There’s something special about receiving a letter. Letter writing is special art. I hope it doesn’t die out completely.

12 comments:

  1. Letter writing is indeed a dying form of communication. I wrote a three-page letter to my great aunt a few months back. And as any good letter writer does, rewrote it for brevity and clarity. I had forgotten the hand cramps that can occur when doing such things. :)

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    1. Hand cramps are one of the biggest problems with writing by hand, isn't it? My other big problem is that I have terrible handwriting. I bet your great-aunt appreciated the letter though.

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  2. I don't write letters anymore, but I do send thank you cards with a handwritten note. Those are rare as well.

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    1. Handwritten thank you cards are definitely dying out too, though those my family still write. We think it's the best way to say thank you, to take the time to handwrite a note in a nice card.

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  3. I agree. Getting a letter is soooo awesome! I love getting letters and writing them, but not many people do that now, why? I don't know. Maybe it is because they are lazy and want get off their silly computers for one moment. I love letter writing. Go letters!!!

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    1. Go letters! It is a pity that so few people write letters any more. They're so much more personal than an email. And so much more special. Thanks for visiting Anne.

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  4. I haven't written a letter by hand in ages, and I don't count writing out a card to say hi to a friend who hasn't been online in awhile. There was a time I had tons of foreign penpals, plus wrote to lots of friends and family. Thank god for computers; I type way faster.

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    1. Computers are good that way. my friend wrote her letters by hand, but most of mine were written on the computer and then printed out. My handwriting is terrible, so it's probably better I did it that way. Thanks for visiting JoJo.

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  5. I'm a member of the A-Z team just checking in. Glad to see that everything is going smoothly for you during the Challenge! :)

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    1. Hi DL. Thanks for checking in. Thanks for being part of the team hosting this. It's great fun.

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  6. Hey Imogen! I'm a Go Teen Writer, which is how I found your blog. I'm also doing the 100 for 100 contest and from what you've said there, you've written over 270K since the beginning of February. How do you write so much? That's almost 4K a day!
    Your blog is gorgeous!
    ~Sarah Faulkner

    www.inklinedwriters.blogspot.com

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    1. Hey Sarah. Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to answering this comment. I'm very behind in all things blogging at the moment.

      I'm not quite sure how I write so much. I think it's a combination of a daily word count goal (something I've found makes me work well), stubbornness through the hard bits, and a love to do better than I set out to do. Plus I always have a lot of ideas to write about so I never run out of things to say when I'm writing.

      Thanks for visiting!

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