The Lost Art of Letter Writing

I love letters.

There’s a romance to them that manages to capture a little slither of you within the pages. There is no rationality, no logic, just words and raw emotion.

For anyone who knows me well, I’m cynical. The unromantic girl who would rather sit in than go out. Uncomfortable with social interactions especially if it’s speaking about emotions then stay the hell away from me or my gaze will avoid you like the plague.

But as a writer, I love romance. I’m fascinated by the people and their strange interactions. They baffle me and they amaze me. And their words encapsulate me.

Call me old-fashioned but I love the essence of letter writing. If I had grew up in the era when letters were all the rage I would have written many. I would have been like the disciples in the gospel; countless letters to everyone!

Now-a-days writing is in the form of e-mail and is too quick and far too impersonal. There are no scribbles or crumple marks where the sender has hastily shoved the letter in to its envelope in order to meet the post deadline. There are no tear stains when writing about a sad moment, reminiscing or just letting their emotions show. Most importantly, there  is no rawness to an email like there is in a letter. In a letter each part of you and your personality is captured in the words to produce a magical form of love and appreciation.

I love words.

The Real Magicians

I stopped taking English at GCSE level to the dismay of my teacher and myself. The reason I didn’t take it further wasn’t because  I didn’t like it but because the whole story telling aspect that was involved at GCSE which had enthralled me was lost. I loved creating bizarre stories about exploding birds because the whole ‘it was a nice sunny day and all the birds were singing their beautiful song’ was all too mainstream for my teacher to handle.

On reflection, it was the right choice to make. The structured syllabus allowed no space to create and explore English for what it truly is; fun. And now that I have created a WordPress and have run it for almost a year I’ve began to unravel the mystery that language holds.

Its first mystery are words. They are the real magicians in life; able to promote thought and debate, able to change the most strongest of opinions and most extravagant of all, are able to transform emotion from happy to sad (or vice versa) in a matter of seconds.

When joined together to structure the most intricate of sentences or the most snappiest phrases that begin to form songs and poems and stories that ultimately become best-sellers; that’s when the real magic begins. That’s when words and language create that precious communication which ultimately creates the escapism that we all experience.

The pounding of your heart on your chest as you open the newly bought book, take a deep breath and smell the newly printed pages. You read the first line and it has the power to emerge you slap bang in to the centre of the story; fighting the events along with the main character. Until you come to the end, where words play the biggest magic of all. You feel that sadness that no-one else around you can experience, where only you know that it’s over and you have to face reality again.

And then when words create music its a whole different board game. The mesmorisation of your whole body as it not only reads the music but feels every note. When the melody starts and the words float into your ears, it is those first few words that instantly connect you. Allowing you to experience what the artist is trying to accomplish and leaving you wanting more so you listen to it again and again until your ears can take no more and your brain continues to sing the song into the dead of night as you try to sleep.

That’s when English and language becomes this powerful magician. They will entice you and keep enticing you until you can hear and see and feel no more.