The "When You Care Enough To Write The Very Best!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a story written by a retired magazine editor telling that it's becoming a fad again to write letters and drop them into a physical mailbox.  It was back on December 12, 2011 that I wrote a story about the lost art of handwritten letters.  Well, it seems that the trend is beginning to be reversed and the fact that someone actually takes the time to handwrite a letter makes it more special.  For those receiving a hand-written letter, the fact that someone took the time to actually sit down and write you a message makes it even more special.  The hand-written letter is definitely better than an email or even a text, but then again it does take longer to compose and longer to reach the receiver, but that perhaps is what makes it so special.  If you take the time to hold a pen or pencil in your hand, you will more than likely express yourself with greater honesty.  Does writing a letter by hand make you old-fashioned?  Could it mean you are a forward thinker?  And, what should you use to write with?  Seems logical you should use a pen, but if you make a mistake you may have to start over again where if you used a pencil you could erase a mistake if you made one.  Then again, the receiver of your letter might notice you had erased something and wondered why you did that.  I also read that the writer should select the pen or pencil and the paper that fit your personality.  Colored paper is more personal, but maybe too frilly for a male to use.  Do you use blue ink or black ink?  Is this more involved than you first thought it might be?  Of course it is.

Practice sheets such as this can help with your cursive.

 Hey, you are expressing yourself in your own handwriting so you should take the time to choose the correct paper, writing utensil and color of ink.  But the big question is...can you actually write?  Were you ever taught how to write cursive in school or do you always print what you write?  Some hand-written letters may be so hard to decipher if your cursive is a mishmash of crazy strokes.  But with practice you may become an accomplished cursive writer.  

My wife's friend, Marg, always makes
hand drawn cards with cursive lettering.
Click on image to enlarge to see it better.

When I taught graphic arts in school, I had my classes spend a week of so of the year long course doing calligraphy.  I had then practice all the letters of the alphabet between rows of lines on the practice sheets.  I had them practice both cursive and printed letters.  It was one of the student's most favorite parts of my course.  After a week or two of practice each student would choose a quote or brief sentence and use their newly gained skills to write or print it.  Many chose cursive, since it was all new to them.  Many were displayed on the hallway bulletin board for all to see.  Writing a letter in cursive or even  printing it can be so powerful that it evokes true-life heartache or emotion that it captures the reader's attention more than any text or email ever could.  Try it sometime and see if your letter doesn't add that extra touch that makes the note so much more important than you might have imagined.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

A hand-written letter from my father to his mother when he was a child.

You can see how much he improved years later.