A Week and a half of letters

I’m sure I mentioned either here or on Facebook that I was participating in A Month of Letters last month. The idea was to send a letter on each day of February that the mail service was running (ie. 23 days). So how did I do?

I bombed.

I sent nine letters during the month, if you don’t count paying bills. Then life got in the way, I ran out of ideas on who to send to, I got distracted into other things, and so on. Mary Robinette Kowal, author and founder of the idea, tries to make me and others like me feel better by pointing out that if you wrote to people more than you usually do, that’s a victory in itself. But actually, I believe here.

I wrote a lot of Thank You notes. Most disappeared into the void, never to reveal if anyone had received and read them, but at least one inspired a kind note in return (via email, though). I know I brightened at least one person’s day. One in nine is not exactly great odds, but if you’re the one…well, how can I say it was not worth it? I may never know just how much good came of it, but good did come of it.

To help me achieve the goal that I didn’t achieve I bought a box of Thank You notes and generic cards, along with some stamps, to keep near me so I could write to someone when the idea struck me. I intend to keep that up so that I can send a note to someone at any time during the year. I don’t think Kowal’s intent was to get us to save up all our correspondence for one month of the year. I think she wanted to help us recapture the idea of connecting with another person on a more personal level.

I did that, and I should continue to do that throughout the year.