The Letter

02 Aug 2017 Comments Off

Dear Fellow Journalers,

When I was much younger, if I wanted to share good news with someone I wrote a letter. To write a letter you needed nice stationery, a pen and a postage stamp. Now the preferred method of communication is via email, tweet, face-book message, Skype, and other methods I’ve never heard of.

The age-old problems remain however- how to start your message, how to communicate exactly what you want to convey and how to end your message. Our teachers always used to say “Remember the 5 W’s” (who. what, when, where and why) and then apply them in the first paragraph. For instance, can you finish the following:

Dear Grandma,

Thank you so much for my new book ___. It was very nice of you to think of me. I really liked the part about _____. We had a nice time at my party.———–

See what I mean? The end of the letter is also difficult. The traditional “Love” is over-used and Sincerely, Very Truly Yours sound so antiquated.

All those letters/notes/postcards almost always were received by the person we sent them to but sometimes you heard about the letter that “got lost in the mail.” All that “work” and your recipient never got the message! All this brings me to the theme of this month’s journal topic – the Unsent Letter. This letter is written but never intends to see the light of day. Next week we’ll explore this topic in depth.

~Sallie