I've gotten really busy lately, unfortunately.
Well, it's fortunate. I actually obtained a job, which is seriously cutting into my time. You can expect this blog to be dormant until I've settled into my new schedule.
In the meantime, pick up Four Letter Word. It's a collection of fictional love letters written by a smorgasbord of authors from around the world. It's alternately sweet, funny, tragic, and so on. The introduction by the editor Rosalind Porter was inspiring enough for me to start up another blog to share letters I've written. I've placed a link to that new blog in the right-hand column, if you're interested. It's called "Anostrophe," the explanation of which is in its first post.
I've always enjoyed writing letters (anyone who knew me in high school knows that I took the whole "note passed in class" concept to another level), but I never get a chance to enjoy reading them. I've been told I'm most intimidating through writing, which is a much nicer explanation for why I've received so few letters during my life thus far than the one I like to fall back on: you're all lazy punks.
Anyway, as much as I loved composing and coveting the receiving of letters, I never really considered them an art unto themselves until reading this book. I knew that we could recognize the personal letters of already established authors as art, but I never felt as though one's writing ability could stand upon letters alone. I really responded to this collection, because it made me feel that I can cultivate letter-writing as an authentic and worthwhile form of writing. That may seem obvious, but in a world of not only e-mail but Facebook and MySpace wall posts, the concept of an actual "letter" is practically akin to myth.
I'd like to bring it back down to reality, if I might. If you don't read my letters, then at least read the letters in this book. They are better than anything I could ever write. The first one is from Mars to Earth, although there are more traditional love letters as well. Many have to do with family, and there is far more sadness than I expected, so if you're one of those "I'm not a sap, I'm not reading a mushy book of mindless cooings" kind of people, drop the bitterness and pick up the book instead. It covers all the bases.
Just read the first half or so (as far as I've gotten at the time of this writing) and try to tell me you don't wish you could either compose or receive such powerful condensed direct statements of emotion from one human to another. And even if you can tell me that, I won't believe you.
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