Category Archives: writing

Reviving the Art of Letter Writing

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One of my favorite books in high school was The Lazlo Letters: The amazing, real-life correspondence of Lazlo Toth, American! I still have my original, well-worn copy. Written by Don Novello, better known as Father Guido Sarducci and a fixture on Saturday Night Live in its early days, the book is a compilation of the letters written and received by the fictional character Lazlo Toth. Like Stephen Colbert in The Colbert Report, Novello adopts a conservative persona that was funny at the time, but now seems almost commonplace and maybe not so funny.

The Halifax Examiner, in its celebration of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the book, provides a sample of letters Toth wrote to everyone from Richard Nixon about how badly the media mistreated him to the CEO of RJ Reynolds on their shared disdain for the anti-smoking lobby. He received earnest replies that were often funnier than the original letter. Benjamin Errett at Get Wit Quick provides more background on Toth’s work, calling it “epistolary trolling.” On the Media recorded a fun interview with Novello on the 30th anniversary of the first volume. You can borrow the original book with a free Internet Archive subscription.

Letter writing, in general, is coming back in fashion. The Sunday Letter Writing Project, begun by a British stationary shop in 2023, encourages the practice, suggesting generally quiet Sunday afternoons as the perfect time to pen a missive to a friend. If you don’t have a ready correspondent, they provide a list of pen pals.

I was an avid letter writer in my early days. I loved the whole ritual: pouring a beverage, putting on music, pulling out the good stationary and the fountain pens and settling in to talk with my friends and family via the written word. We exchanged letters so I would also have their most recent correspondence and always started by responding to what they had written, answering questions and commenting on their news. I continue the practice to some extent, sending handmade cards for holidays, usually with a short note to the recipient. Not quite the same as a letter but at least a foundation for a larger practice.

My book group recently read The Correspondent, Virginia Evans’ debut epistolary novel that features Sybil, an elderly woman who has spent her life writing letters to friends, family and luminaries. It was a wonderful story but also an homage to what was considered a dying art. One woman in the group shared that she still writes letters, even exchanging notes with her neighbor down the street. When I got home from the meeting, I knew I would write her a letter. I received a lovely reply and plan to send her another note soon. I have written to a young friend who recently relocated to another state. I am hoping to continue, starting with my former correspondents. We text and email and message in social media Words with Friends, but I imagine they would welcome a letter, both for the news and the nostalgia.

Grumpy Old Lady: Proofreading Edition

Artificial Intelligence, writing, ,

I always hesitate to post about poor proofreading because I know my own blog posts are probably riddled with errors. But I am not a professional journalist, nor do I play one on TV. And, according to Grammar Bitch, I can blame my old age for those errors.

I am, however, a lifelong member of the English major’s club who has grown increasingly frustrated with the utter lack of concern for proofreading—especially in an age when AI is readily available to check spelling and grammar for you. This isn’t about style or substance or rhetoric; these are silly punctuation, spelling and missed words that a simple read aloud would have picked up.

I generally just roll my eyes and move on, but today I was annoyed because the writer was so busy being snarky about Selena Gomez (I’m a fan!) that she, a professional journalist, overlooked her own misses:

We can all be honest about the fact that Selena Gomez has had some catastrophic red carpet misses over the years. But her style has drastically improved in recent months–and she looked incredibly (sic) tonight in this off-the-shoulder Prada gown.

I ran the quote through ChatGPT, which suggested the following revisions, including hyphenating “red carpet” when used as an adjective:

We can all agree that Selena Gomez has had some catastrophic red-carpet misses over the years. However, her style has drastically improved in recent months—and she looked incredible tonight in this off-the-shoulder Prada gown.

The bot adopts a more professional tone and streamlines the prose. While it may not align with the writer’s intended style, at least it gets the words right. To her credit, she did hyphenate “off-the-shoulder” correctly, but—not to be too snarky myself—it was probably written that way in the press release.

I suspect part of the issue is that proofreaders no longer exist so there is no second reader. Many decades ago, when I worked in public relations, my boss, a founding member of the grammar police, required extensive proofreading prior to printed publication. We read it alone, together, forwards and backwards. Every so often, an error crept in. It happens to the best of us. But errors were very rare in the four years I worked there, probably because we knew we would find ourselves on our own sort of red carpet when it was discovered. Today, it seems errors abound from headlines to first paragraphs to captions. Maybe we just have bigger things to worry about?

I promise this blog is not going to become an extension of the grammar police state but if you come for Selena, you better get it right. Plus, she did look incredible.

I Thought It Was Just Me

writing,
Singer songwriter Cindy Walker’s Typewriter at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

As I write this blog post, an episode of the long-running British murder mystery show Midsomer Murders is streaming on my iPad. I have seen this one before, probably multiple times. Actually, I have seen all of them but don’t always remember them. This one is familiar although I am not sure I could name the killer.

Meanwhile, I digress. I am only half or maybe a quarter paying attention. It is entertaining the part of my brain that would prefer to be doing anything except writing a blog post. Food TV, the old version where people cooked rather than competed, was a favorite while I wrote my doctoral dissertation. I always felt a little guilty about this practice, as though I wasn’t fully concentrating on the writing, but it worked for me.

So, I felt a little vindicated when Brené Brown, in the section on boredom in Atlas of the Heart, described her writing process:

A big part of my book writing routine is watching super predictable, formulaic mysteries–even ones I’ve seen ten times. These shows would bore me to tears if were in a normal mental space. But when I’m coding data and writing, something weird happens. It’s like the shows lull the easily distracted part of my brain into a rhythmic stupor, setting free the deeper meaning-making part of my brain to engage and start making connections between things that don’t seem connectable. I actually sit on my couch with a notepad next to me because the more bored I get, the more ideas bubble to the surface (p. 40).

Atlas of the Heart: mapping meaningful connection and the language of human experience, brené Brown

Early January has had moments of boredom for me as I few commitments compared to the busyness of the fall. Life is a little dull, frankly. And yet, my writing and other creative pursuits seem to be thriving. Ideas, as Brown describes, are bubbling up and I am taking time to pursue them. So, while boredom opens the door to creativity, I am giving myself permission to write about what interests me, in a way that I hope connects with others, sharing larger lessons learned from my experiences.

Who knows? I may even write about Midsomer Murders.

Writing for Rights

advocacy, writing

In 1988, when I told people I had joined AI, they did not think of Artificial Intelligence. Instead, they probably knew I had joined the international human rights organization, Amnesty International. Like many of people, I became aware of the organization (it had begun in 1961) because of the musicians who headlined the Human Rights Now tour in 1988, especially Peter Gabriel.

I wa part of a local group that met at a Quaker Church and wrote lots of letters for Amnesty International over the years as part of their Write for Rights program. I haven’t been involved in recent years beyond making a donation. So, when I stumbled on this year’s membership card, I wondered if, in this day of AI and online forms, letter writing was still part of the mission.

Amnesty continues the tradition with a focused event related to Human Rights Day on December 10. They haven’t posted anything about this year’s event but you can learn more about the power of letter writing at the website. They continue to encourage us to handwrite our letters along with personalizing the recommended language. In this day of AI and copy/paste, a handwritten letter makes a personal connection between writer, reader, and, in this case, the person who is the subject of the appeal.

Finding Balance

thinking out loud, writing,

I don’t make specific resolutions anymore. I set some general intentions and goals for the year related to what I would like to accomplish in various areas of my life from reading to gardening to creating. None of them require the kinds of immediate and sometimes radical changes associated with resolutions.

I do like the idea of choosing a word for the year. I think the last time I did it publicly was in 2016 and I even blogged about it! It’s interesting that the title implied finding a balance between intention and intentional drift and included a couple Twitter conversations. I don’t remember having those kinds of dialogs on Twitter and it is nice to be reminded of the space when it was at least a little more civil.

Balance

That’s my goal: balance. I sorted through the Woodland Wardens Oracle Cards by Jessica Roux and found that Balance was represented by a dragonfly, a personal favorite of mine, and pansies, those lovely flowers that bloom in the winter. The dragonfly pendant in the picture was a gift from my mother and sister. The card and pendant sit on a filmy scarf that belonged to my fraternal grandmother. I use it for an altar cloth.

So, what do I mean by balance? I shared a meme from Tiny Buddha Official on Instagram that helps a bit:

Extremes, whether too many cupcakes or too many minutes on the treadmill, are no good for us. Reasonable goals with attainable goals are more likely to lead to success, and an attitude of balance may keep us from beating ourselves up. This goes along with my idea of daily-ish practices borrowed from Dan Harris.

Speaking of Dan Harris and Ten Percent Happier: they are sponsoring a free challenge starting on Monday, January 9, that will feature the Dalai Lama and focus on happiness. I encourage you to sign up and participate in some way. I was fortunate to hear the Dalai Lama speak and just being in the same auditorium with him instilled a sense of peace and joy.