Letters, explained in 7 steps

 I sense I am entering a letter-writing phase. 

This is brought on by newly acquired stamps (they've got pretty pictures!) and the most recent card from a friend in immaculate handwriting that, try as I may, I will never come close to replicating. Also, I haven't sent mail in weeks. I'm not very conscientious about it--if I got really desperate, I could always write to family, of all people--but I start getting twitchy when I realize I haven't used up any stationery in the last month (it means I'm not allowed to buy more. It's like yarn, that way--you know you're really not supposed to by another three skeins until you've finished that afghan, but they're so pretty...). 

Of course, it's hard to write letters into a void. The occasional word of encouragement works wonders. One friend I write to on a semi-annual basis has a reply rate of once a year, so we're even. It just has to translate as, "Yes please keep writing me letters", and not, "oh by the way I got another letter from you and feel compelled to let you know, but you Really Should Not Bother." I don't think I've encountered the latter

In classic go-to preparation, I googled "letter writing" to see what comes up. And---gosh, how-to websites seem to have cornered the market on this. Their average article goes like this:

Step 1: Dear ____
Step 2*: How are you? How is the weather? How is the family? How is the potted plant? How is the planning of ultimate doom coming along? (pick 2-3)
Step 3: I'm fine. The weather is sleeting. The family is blooming. The potted plant is coping. It is proceeding as I have foreseen.
Step 4: An interesting thing happened to me today. [Insert interesting thing]**
Step 5: Oh golly would you look at the time? 
Step 6: Please write. Or don't. I only put it in because ehow.com said I should.
Step 7: Find a more interesting link and follow away from the topic of letter writing. Your friends and family are safe for another week.



*Step 2 may be moved to follow step 4.

**When one of these letters is written by a medical professional, step 4 can get really weird--assuming you are able to wade through the acronyms. Having received one or two case studies-disguised-as-letters, I speak from experience.



Part II, (work in progress):

Not to knock the wikihows, I was hoping for something a little more substantive. Like examples of awesome letters written by famous writers. I found one reference to a book of Saul Bellow's letters. Aside from the enlightening influence of wikipedia, I have not idea who Saul Bellow was, except he evidently was a very highly esteemed writer who also wrote lots of letters, helpfully collected into a book. I read one of the excerpts. It was promising, entertaining and evocative, almost enough to convince me I should read one of his books before I read his letters.

Then I followed the wikipedia link to one of his books.
Oh, he's one of those writers.

I'm finding that the famous authors who receive all sorts of literary acclaim are less fun to read. I'm biased toward SciFi/Fantasy anyway, but I feel about famous works of literature the way I feel about most abstract art: vaguely annoyed that I have to read up on three hundred years of literary theory to know what the point was. Also, it seems to be a trope that if it wasn't deep enough, toss in disturbing treatment of children. Someday I maybe will get really into high literature and eat my words, but at the moment, I have seen this trend:

I like famous authors talking about the real world.
I do not like their books.

This so far has held true for Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Kurt Vonnegut, plus a few others who do not come to mind right now. Something about really good writers who then go and write groundbreaking treatises on the human condition fails to hold my attention, but I do love reading their missives.