Write letters much?

[Narz]

I'm trying to write a letter to my daughter. It's hard. I feel like writing letters to people gets harder as I age. Maybe I'm less idealistic & have less of that sense of immediacy (wanting the say what needs to be said for the other to understand you in that moment). I also feel kind of, oversaturated with words, ideas, stories and maybe it makes it harder for me to get excited enough to express myself in writing. I also have realized that you can't force your way into anyone's head with language. The reader is the gatekeeper & what gets in is up to him/her no matter what you say.

Sounds like a bunch of excuses & this is all just off the cuff so the legitimacy of any of those thoughts is reasonable to question.

Anyway, does anyone here have any particular writing habits or rituals with friends or family?

In the era of instant communication we probably write 1,000x more than most of our grandparents but quantity of words and depth of expression are different.

My daughter will be away at summer camp so I'd like to write some letters to her while she's there but there's so many different directions a letter can go, you want to say things that would be harder to say organically while hanging out in everyday conversation but not be corny or dramatic or come off as a different person than you are in real-time life.

It's funny how it's become easier to write to many people than to write to one.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Perhaps just start with a description of your day without her around. Nothing fancy or complicated or even long. Then if she wants she can reply with one about her daily routine.

A chain of letters is a process that builds over time. There is no rush or compulsion for "greatness". Keep it simple. The fact that you wrote and had some simple story to tell is enough.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm trying to write a letter to my daughter. It's hard. I feel like writing letters to people gets harder as I age. Maybe I'm less idealistic & have less of that sense of immediacy (wanting the say what needs to be said for the other to understand you in that moment). I also feel kind of, oversaturated with words, ideas, stories and maybe it makes it harder for me to get excited enough to express myself in writing. I also have realized that you can't force your way into anyone's head with language. The reader is the gatekeeper & what gets in is up to him/her no matter what you say.

Sounds like a bunch of excuses & this is all just off the cuff so the legitimacy of any of those thoughts is reasonable to question.

Anyway, does anyone here have any particular writing habits or rituals with friends or family?

In the era of instant communication we probably write 1,000x more than most of our grandparents but quantity of words and depth of expression are different.

My daughter will be away at summer camp so I'd like to write some letters to her while she's there but there's so many different directions a letter can go, you want to say things that would be harder to say organically while hanging out in everyday conversation but not be corny or dramatic or come off as a different person than you are in real-time life.

It's funny how it's become easier to write to many people than to write to one.

Do you mean hand-written letters or email letters? Physical letters aren't common anymore, and they're very different from email, as there's no way of deleting awkward word or phrases without it being obvious that something was changed.

I grew up at a time of hand-written letters, when my grandmother and her sister wrote back and forth constantly. I remember those letters coming from BC, in which my great-aunt would tell us what they'd been doing, who they had visited with, what the neighbors were up to... those letters cost 6 cents to mail and took 3 days to travel one-way between Vernon, BC and Red Deer, Alberta. My grandmother would promptly sit down and write a letter back, telling her what we'd been doing lately.

I remember pretending to write (before I learned to print; I was about 3 at the time), and couldn't wait to write my own real letters to my aunt.

Fast-forward 55 years... Another aunt sent an email on my birthday, which was a week ago. I haven't answered it yet. Actually, I haven't told her my dad died 2 years ago. There are reasons, but the fact is that I'm nowhere near as enthusiastic about letter-writing as I used to be.


That said... @Narz, we all know that you love your daughter dearly, and it's never wrong to tell her that. It needn't be mushy, if mush isn't your style. But to let her know that you love her and miss her when she's not around, and you're looking forward to hearing about her camp experiences... it's one thing to say it, but to say it in a handwritten letter would be something special.

 

[The_J]

The last time I wrote an actual letter was.... in 2009, I think.
I had to get a statement from my previous landlord regarding that I always paid my rent. My landlord was an older couple, who I quite liked. So instead of only asking for this, I wrote a proper letter about a bunch of other things too. It took me ages, my hand writing is terrible.

My girlfriend asked me recently to write love letters to each other. I didn't see the point, we talk each day via Skype. I think she forgot about it. I will write one though, to surprise her, because while I have some cards from her (Christmas, etc), she doesn't have anything from me.
I'd need to get letter paper though, because I think she'll be annoyed if I use plain white paper ^^.

To address one of Narz' points: Whenever I write something longer, I make a rough outline of the things which I want to cover, determine the order, and then start to write. That should help to make the text coherent, and not too long too.
I guess. This comes more from writing stuff online, not in RL, so your mileage may vary.

 

[AmazonQueen]

The last time I wrote an actual letter was.... in 2009, I think.
My girlfriend asked me recently to write love letters to each other. I didn't see the point, we talk each day via Skype. I think she forgot about it. I will write one though, to surprise her, because while I have some cards from her (Christmas, etc), she doesn't have anything from me.
I'd need to get letter paper though, because I think she'll be annoyed if I use plain white paper ^^.

She can read the letter when you aren't around to remind herself of what a wonderful person you are.
Love letters give you a chance to express yourself without the interruptions and distractions of normal conversation.
A recorded video message might substitute but not a phone or video conversation.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Handwritten letters last in a way that digital letters won't. You don't need batteries or electricity to read them, and you can't accidentally delete them.

I've got decades' worth of letters and old scrapbooks my great-aunt wrote. Turns out she was working on a history of the family. It's a shame she died before I got old enough to help her with that. Now there's nobody left alive who might possibly help me finish it.

 

[The_J]

I'll probably soon start writing the love letter to my GF... but I plan to write it on the computer first, since my hand writing is abysmal, and therefore I'd rather do the exercise of getting my thoughts in order on the computer, and not on paper.
Unless someone considers this tremendously unromantic ^^.

 

[Birdjaguar]

It looks like @Narz abandoned his thread pretty quickly.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'll probably soon start writing the love letter to my GF... but I plan to write it on the computer first, since my hand writing is abysmal, and therefore I'd rather do the exercise of getting my thoughts in order on the computer, and not on paper.
Unless someone considers this tremendously unromantic ^^.

Would she consider it a nice surprise if you used a calligraphy font? Nothing over the top (some calligraphy fonts are basically unreadable), but something a little "extra"?

Or you could try a basic handwriting font. I've used it sometimes:

Dear The_J:

This is what Lucida Handwriting looks like. It's not too fancy, not hard to read, and looks nice.

 

[The_J]

I think writing with my hands is also part of the whole thing .

(also I don't have a printer lol)

 

[AmazonQueen]

I'll probably soon start writing the love letter to my GF... but I plan to write it on the computer first, since my hand writing is abysmal, and therefore I'd rather do the exercise of getting my thoughts in order on the computer, and not on paper.
Unless someone considers this tremendously unromantic ^^.

I think writing with my hands is also part of the whole thing .

(also I don't have a printer lol)

Writing it is, but almost everyone writes on a computer first now. I get wrist ache if I try and write for more than a few minutes now when I used to write everything.
Nice handwritten letter is a nice gesture but 1st draft on the PC is only sensible.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Writing it is, but almost everyone writes on a computer first now. I get wrist ache if I try and write for more than a few minutes now when I used to write everything.
Nice handwritten letter is a nice gesture but 1st draft on the PC is only sensible.

Heh, I did the November NaNoWriMo by hand. That's a minimum of 1667 words/day for 30 days. I can knock that out in less than two hours of typing, but it took about 8 hours of handwriting.

The July NaNoWriMo is coming up in less than a week. I will be doing that by hand as well, but nowhere near 50,000 words (I'm doing a leisurely 15,000 words, which means 500 words/day).

 

[AmazonQueen]

Heh, I did the November NaNoWriMo by hand. That's a minimum of 1667 words/day for 30 days. I can knock that out in less than two hours of typing, but it took about 8 hours of handwriting.

The July NaNoWriMo is coming up in less than a week. I will be doing that by hand as well, but nowhere near 50,000 words (I'm doing a leisurely 15,000 words, which means 500 words/day).

I used to do everything by hand, now I struggle

 

[REDY]

I have nothing to add just that I am keeping all handwritten personal correspondence and from time to time I am reading it. I have letters of relatives to my parents when I was born to love letters sent by my classmates. Most of it is trivial, some letters are bad written and cryptical. But they always remind me person who has written it. All old emails are dead to me, doesnt matter quality.