Letters = Pain in the Post-erity

I spent most of yesterday on letters. To be exact, it was actually one letter, customized and reproduced many times.  

And considering that the text fit on a single sheet of paper, I sure did agonize over it. The worst part was trying to make sure the computer file printed out properly on my company stationery (I’m a writer, not a skilled secretary). But the wordcraft wasn’t much fun, either - not so much because this letter was a marketing tool, but because writing letters has always made me a little uneasy.

I  worry: Do I sound fake? Arch and cutesy? Dry and humorless? Hopelessly inane? …Smarmy? If I work too hard at it, it won’t sound conversational, but if I go with what comes naturally, it’s probably going to sound flip. Flip is fine for close friends. Dry is fine for strangers plying me with unwanted magazine subscriptions. But make me correspond with anybody in between, and I develop tonal stage fright.

It’s not just that I’m out of practice, although I guess I am – most of us almost never write letters anymore and composing e-mails doesn’t offer quite the same exercise. It’s just different to commit something to paper – what you put down has a permanence that demands more attention from the reader and more respect, too, whether it’s a love letter or just a hasty thank-you note for the peanut brittle. 

Once paper has had words marked on it, it becomes a cultural artifact. You just can’t say or feel that about something you can make disappear by clicking delete.  (Even though it never - ever - truly leaves… .) 

Can you imagine a published volume called “E-Mail to My Daughter” by Maya Angelou? or “The Selected E-Mails of Arthur Miller” ? (And yes, he did write some. I got one, once, and “The Crucible” it wasn’t.)

So what’s my point here? That letter-writing is a pain, but you have to do it well because people remember how you sound on cream vellum. Or even on 20-lb.-weight copy paper. That can be to your advantage if clients and customers like what they read. Just don’t let your charming and effective words get ink-jetted all over your company logo.