Author thread: Letters - Does anyone bother writing anymore?

[CharleyH]

I've read some great "letters"stories on Lit, mainly one by Shanglan and one by Lauren Hynde. But who the hell actually writes letters, any more? It's a lost art. If you were to write a letter for the history books, who would it be to and what would it look and read like?

 

[kendo1]

Mine tend to be invoices asking for money.

 

[CharleyH]

Mine tend to be invoices asking for money.

How creative, Ken.

 

[kendo1]

How creative, Ken.

They may become collector's items in years to come.

 

[TxRad]

I never wrote letters before the Internet so why should I bother with them now?

I know the post office has always like the idea of me not writing. My handwriting sucks big time so they had to always go by the zip code.

 

[cloudy]

I still write letters.

I can express myself better, put thoughts into words easier, in a letter.

 

[Boxlicker101]

I used to write letters before the advent of the internet. Because my parents never had a computer, I wrote to them occasionally. If they were still alive, my brothers and I might have bought them a computer by now. I write business letter occasionally because I consider them to be much weightier than emails, and better able to be kept in a file of other paper documents.

When I send cards, I include a short letter, because I consider it to be more personal than a plain card, but even there, I write on a word-processor. It may be less personal, but it's also more legible.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

The actual handwritten letter may be becoming a lost art, but I don't think the letter itself is. Personally, I still write long letters on a regular basis; I have to budget a lot of time to check e-mail because I tend to write seriously long responses.

It could be argued, in fact, that in that sense the letter form is being revived. Letters got lost during the era of the phone call, but with the event of e-mail written correspondence is back, at least until everyone in the world has live webcam.

I've often thought about turning excerpts from letters into various sorts of poems and short essays. Have done so, once or twice, even. It's a good way to have an automatic concrete audience, too, and that often inspires me.

bijou

 

[CharleyH]

The actual handwritten letter may be becoming a lost art, but I don't think the letter itself is. Personally, I still write long letters on a regular basis; I have to budget a lot of time to check e-mail because I tend to write seriously long responses.

It could be argued, in fact, that in that sense the letter form is being revived. Letters got lost during the era of the phone call, but with the event of e-mail written correspondence is back, at least until everyone in the world has live webcam.

I've often thought about turning excerpts from letters into various sorts of poems and short essays. Have done so, once or twice, even. It's a good way to have an automatic concrete audience, too, and that often inspires me.

bijou

Interesting and true, yet a hand written letter has a personal touch that an email and a copy of a word file just don't seem to have (may as well just be a form letter). When I look in my snailmail box these days, I keep hoping for a letter or even a measly postcard. All I get are bills. A handwritten anything makes me feel a little more human.

 

[SeaCat]

For those very few people who matter to me, I always write, by hand, letters.

For me a handwritten letter says so much more than just the words.

The few letters I have received in the past decade are stored in a small box.

E-Mails, while informative are less personal.

Cat

Oh and I write with a Fountain Pen so you know I have to take care while writing.

 

[CharleyH]

For those very few people who matter to me, I always write, by hand, letters.

For me a handwritten letter says so much more than just the words.

The few letters I have received in the past decade are stored in a small box.

E-Mails, while informative are less personal.

Cat

Oh and I write with a Fountain Pen so you know I have to take care while writing.

Thank you, Cat. First I am still wondering about the ideal letter and second? Well. I am wondering if your fountain pen drips? :-o

Seriously, I am more interested in letter writing as I initially asked.

 

[SeaCat]

Thank you, Cat. First I am still wondering about the ideal letter and second? Well. I am wondering if your fountain pen drips? :-o

Seriously, I am more interested in letter writing as I initially asked.

Who would I write a letter to?

I write letters to family and friends, which is a very short list. (Recently shortened.) My parents receive hand written letters as do my friends. (One of whom is quite well known in Europe.) Mainly I write about every day things, which is what they write about.

Now as to my fountain pen. Yes, upon occasion they do drip. (I have several, all Pelicans from Germany.) The biggest problem though is the paper. It isn't easy getting a tight weave paper. Most papers here in America are loose weave paper which acts like a spong to ink. (Never, never try writing on a legal pad with a fountain pen. You can hear it sucking the ink out of the pen.)

Writing a letter is an artform. Not only do you have to have legible writing but you have to think out what you wish to say before you put it down on paper.

Cat

 

[The_Fool]

Interesting and true, yet a hand written letter has a personal touch that an email and a copy of a word file just don't seem to have (may as well just be a form letter). When I look in my snailmail box these days, I keep hoping for a letter or even a measly postcard. All I get are bills. A handwritten anything makes me feel a little more human.

You? Human?

 

[The_Fool]

For those very few people who matter to me, I always write, by hand, letters.

For me a handwritten letter says so much more than just the words.

The few letters I have received in the past decade are stored in a small box.

E-Mails, while informative are less personal.

Cat

Oh and I write with a Fountain Pen so you know I have to take care while writing.

Fountain pens are a lefties bane. Especially if you write upsidedown.

 

[Remec]

Interesting and true, yet a hand written letter has a personal touch that an email and a copy of a word file just don't seem to have (may as well just be a form letter). When I look in my snailmail box these days, I keep hoping for a letter or even a measly postcard. All I get are bills. A handwritten anything makes me feel a little more human.

Yeah, I know the feeling. When I was in college, once or twice someone I knew would leave me a note on my door and, while not exactly the same as something in the mail, getting something handwritten and personally seen to made my day that much brighter.

btw, PM an address and I'll write you.

 

[matriarch]

I still write letters, I've always written letters, in the past by hand, but my handwriting sucks big time unless I write slowly, and that's something I've not been able to do, so now I use the computer - that way I can keep up with my thoughts.

I do personalise the letters, by using a hand-writing font, I know it's not the same but rather that than no letter at all.

For small notes that go with gifts, or thank you cards, things like that, I will always write by hand.

As for who I'd write that special letter to.........phew, what a question. My special letters in the past, have always been to the important people in my life at the time, very close friends, loved ones. I think the one that means the most to me was sent to a university friend who was going through a really bad time of personal worry, and after talking to her on the phone, I wrote her a supportive letter. She wrote to me a while later telling me how much the letter meant to her and her then partner (now husband), and that she put it in a box where they kept all their letters and tapes (she's blind) to each other when they were separated. She said it helped enormously when she was in a state of indecision, and often takes it out to read when she feels things are getting on top of her.

I was hugely complimented and I don't think I'll ever be able to write a letter to top that one.

 

[Vermilion]

When my best friend and I were both at university we used to write letters back and forth so we'd get some post, great long letters full of silliness, they were wonderful. Whenever the fiance and I are apart for more than two weeks we write letters. It made me feel so loved to open a letter, black ink on cream paper and his funny spiky writing and know that, even though he finds writing his feelings down hard, he'd made the effort to send me a letter telling me how much he loved me.

My mum and I tend to send cards and postcards, or packages with little notes in. I love seeing her handwriting, it's pretty distinctive and just makes me feel all choked up to see it, I suppose because some day I would give anything to get a letter from her again and will treasure every scrappy note I can find that she wrote.

e-mails are great for keeping in touch, but a letter says you really give a shit.

x
V

 

[reignophelia]

Love letters to unsuspecting victims.
Seriously, I do!
So if you find some pretty card in the mail with a poem on it, or some elaborately written love letter ( and you have absolutely no idea who sent it); it was most likely me.

Thankyou cards for most occasions, although this past year I've had all sorts of drama going on, and I haven't been particularly good about it.

My best friend and I will occasionally peruse the fancy card section of a store and if we see something that we like, we'll find some reason to send it.

 

[angelicminx]

I've read some great "letters"stories on Lit, mainly one by Shanglan and one by Lauren Hynde. But who the hell actually writes letters, any more? It's a lost art. If you were to write a letter for the history books, who would it be to and what would it look and read like?

I don't write letters anymore. I've sent notes in packages, but it's been a long, long time since I've sent someone a letter. My letters always sound a little cheesy to me.

A letter for the history books? Interesting question, and one I can't answer. I can't imagine anyone wanting a letter I've written to smuge the pages of history.

 

[Liar]

If I were to send a hand written letter, there's a big risk the person in the other end couold not see what I wrote.

But hand written or not, letters as a communication form is, to me, a scource of frustration. There are different types of people, when it comes to how they want to interact with other people. My professor in rhethorics wrote a rather interresting piece on it.

Here's a summary:

Stereotypically...

Letter writers are multi-topical. They have an easy time keeping several subjects of conversation in their head at the same time. They sum them up in a letter, and send it away. And can, several days later, pick up where they left off.

Letter writers have cairos perception. Cairos is (ancient?) greek for experienced time (as opposed to chronos, actual time). If it takes a week between question an answer, they don't experience it as a week when they read the reply. It feels as if they just asked the question.

Letterwriters are monologistic. They want time and space to fully collect their thoughts and find the right words to express them, and they can get frustrated by pressure to blurt out quick replies in conversations, or by people in a group interrupting each other, not finish sentences, et al. They want to have their space, and say their piece, completely.

I'm a monotopic, chronos perceptive and dialogistic guy. Meaning I'm the opposite of all those things that people who like to write letters are. I need to finish a back-forth-back-forth chat about one topic before I get to the next. I need the reply right away, or else I tend to let it go and I feel disconnected to the topic if I get a reply two days later. And I thrive on the blurts and sentence fragments that a fast, spoken conversation is shock full of, while lengthy chunks of text lose me.

Case in point, political threads on Lit. When Pure, Shang, Rox and others start to hurl novel sized posts at each other, you'll see me, now and then quoting a fragment of a gigantic post and leave an even shorter remark.

 

[avasogently]

I still write good old-fashioned letters, but most of them are to relatives, which means each tends to be at least two manuscript pages long and contains one gripe or another that is beyond healing.

However, the kind of missive that I would want to be preserved in a book of literature, as opposed to a history book, would be an eloquent lament to a long lost love.

 

[Pure]

there are some not bad 'script' [handwriting, 'cursive'] programs around and they really do have a different feel.

it is also possible to have one's own script, given all the technology around these days.

here is one for price from 10-200 dollars

http://www.quantumenterprises.co.uk/fonts/

 

[Liar]

there are some not bad 'script' programs around and they really do have a different feel.

it seems to me that it is, or should be, possible to have one's own script, given all the technology around these days.

Ahem.

 

[Pure]

thanks liar,
i'm looking around.

the 'fontifier' url you gave--'examples'-- suggests that it's closer to [hand] printing. i.e. it does not attempt the 'joining' [of letters] problem for which there are a number of fair-to-decent approximations.

 

[Liar]

thanks liar,
i'm looking around.

the 'fontifier' url you gave--'examples'-- suggests that it's closer to [hand] printing. i.e. it does not attempt the 'joining' [of letters] problem for which there are a number of fair-to-decent approximations.

Indeeed. But I've seen other, more expensive software, in which you write a certain number of words which contains all those possible combinations of, um, joints (?). Not sure if a normal word processor can use the fonts it makes, or if you need a special program to write with too.