"[A] letter is like an email on paper, and paper is like a computer screen made of trees, for those who don’t know."
I've been giggling ever since I came across this line. I love how it acknowledges the transition we're facing with printed books and e-books, even if it is clearly leaning away from the printed books. But it's easy to imagine this conversation a few years ago, explaining to our parents and grandparents, about email: "It's like a letter, only on a computer screen."
The quote is from Craig Morgan Teicher, editor of PWxyz, a new blog from Publishers Weekly. It's a short piece about Saul Bellow's letters being published. Not many people write letters anymore, and it's easy to understand why. Email is so much easier, and there's the whole instantaneous gratification aspect, which is probably what sold all of us on it initially. None of us like to wait. Nowadays even email takes too long when we have texting and tweeting as instant communication tools.
What I find really fascinating is how many people devoted themselves to writing letters WHEN IT WAS REALLY HARD TO PHYSICALLY DO IT.
I mean, stone tablets? You'd spend half the day, at least, trying to find something small enough to carry around. And what do you use for whiteout when you make a typo, or I guess it's actually a carve-o? You had to plan ahead of time what you were gonna say, since it's not a medium that caters to pantsers. So where did you write down the stuff before you, well, carved it in stone?
Think what it must have been like to sharpen a quill every time you wanted to jot a note to a friend. You'd have to make sure you didn't slice off a fingertip or two. For one thing, there goes the penmanship, because clutching a quill in your fingerless fist isn't gonna make for the prettiest letters. And of course it's next to impossible to continue sharpening quills if you have no more digits. You would have plenty to write about to your friends though.
Still, I wouldn't be very far into either one of these letter-writing processes before I would lay down my utensil and say, "Yea verily, and forsooth. I shalt just holla at my peeps when next we meet."
So it's even more amazing when you think about letters written by AUTHORS. I'm talking about authors who either wrote their books by hand, or on a typewriter that is slower than a manual can opener. I get all twitchy when one of the keys gets stuck on my laptop and I have to press, EXTRA HARD, to get it to actually cooperate. But what they did had to be excruciating. We're lucky to even have books from way back when, in the literary Pleistocene era. I wouldn't have blamed them if they had just given up and decided to write one-word neon signs instead.
And on top of all that they wrote LETTERS.
Of course, maybe writing letters was the old-fashioned way of procrastinating, and "counting things as writing" that aren't really, even when we call them "research". Or maybe writing a letter was a warm-up, a way to get the words flowing when the author was stuck on a certain scene.
However, I suspect letter writing was another form of art, and they knew these would be preserved, and appreciated, and analyzed, along with their books. So it was worth the time, and the effort, they devoted to it.
Still, I'm glad I'm a writer now. I can document my words with technology that will probably make future generations giggle, but would cause past generations to gasp. Whatever challenges my laptop or the internet or other modern wizardry throw at me, it's still a wonderful way to write.
Plus I get to keep my fingertips.
____________________________________________________________________________
This is a repeat of a post I did last summer, and it's amazing how much technology has changed in that short time. What will it be like in another year's time?
I used to write letters. Lots of letters. My mom recently gave me a stack of the letters I had written. Some of these letters are more the 20 years old.
I'm interested in reading them, eventually. ;-)
I still write long and rambling e-mails, much as I used to write long and rambling letters. The difference? If I tried to handwrite a long and rambling letter my penmenship has gone to the dogs...
How Sr. Christina would cringe.
That's one major difference between letter and e-mails...it's much easier to read text...
Posted by: Maureen O. Betita | May 09, 2011 at 02:15 AM
Maureen, you're right about it being easier to read the text in an email!
I remember writing long letters to friends when I first got my computer -- it was so much easier to type those letters and then print them out.
I kinda miss doing that, although I do the same thing with emails -- I just don't print them out. Plus there's not as much waiting involved. :)
Posted by: Donna Cummings | May 09, 2011 at 08:11 AM
Plus, the bad thing is, paper burns up in fires. You can back up computer files in ways that wouldn't "get got" if something that awful happened!
Posted by: colbymarshall | May 10, 2011 at 12:36 AM
I'm a total e-mail hoarder and never delete anything... I have the evidence to back up every e-mail I send and was sent to me...
Bwah ha ha!
Posted by: Maureen O. Betita | May 10, 2011 at 02:07 AM
Colby, excellent point! I try to use a few different methods of backup, so that I backup my backups, just in case. :)
Posted by: Donna Cummings | May 10, 2011 at 09:38 AM
Maureen, I guess it's my legal background, but I like to have email as "evidence" too. It's also the basis of my memoirs. LOL I can just go back in and see what happened WHEN it happened!
Posted by: Donna Cummings | May 10, 2011 at 09:40 AM
I've never been a letter writer, but I do love to write little notes in notecards and send those often. A little known fact about me is that I LOVE notecards and collect them. I have tons of sets in my office and always try to pick up anu cute ones I can find.
When I was going through my mom's things I found a few letters she had kept over the years and one in particular raised so many questions for me that I'm seriously contemplating researching it.
It is from a man friend my mom had in high school who is writing to her from being station somewhere in the military. In it, (while he's not trying to hit on her and get her to date him) he talks about a man my mother had been with and "that horrible thing that happened" and how much he knows she must be hurting.
Basically, it came across like my mother had been in love with a man she was about to marry who died. I've never heard a word about this part of her history.
It makes me realize what a treasure trove old letters can be - even with things we wouldn't tell our families out loud, but that we can share "in secret" on paper.
That is one thing letters have that emails don't - a feeling of intimacy and the idea of a secret shared.
Posted by: Sabrina Shields | May 10, 2011 at 01:13 PM
Sabrina, that story made me a little misty! I want to know what happened too. I'm sorry for the loss of your mom -- I've gone through that too, and it makes the things that belonged to them even more precious.
I think you are so right about the intimacy of a letter, and that is really what we're losing with our transition to email, isn't it? An email can be typed out in relatively no time, and it can be sent to many people at once, decreasing its individuality as well as its sense of being special.
I don't regret very many things, BUT once when I was moving from an apartment, I threw away letters I'd written to my mom when I was in college, ones that she had saved and given back to me. I was embarrassed to read them, and tossed them, and now I wish I had been more mature about that decision!
Posted by: Donna Cummings | May 10, 2011 at 01:33 PM
I love the IDEA of writing things down longhand. My hands don't. I wonder if they had carpal tunnel back then? Would writers pay other people to come in and take dictation when their hands hurt?
There are some things that lend themselves well to being handwritten - like Sabrina mentioned. But maybe that's only because writing these days takes TIME. We never seem to have enough time. So when someone slows down to hand write you a thank you card or address an envelope rather than slapping a label on it? It means something more. Personally, I get a handwritten note, and I pause before ripping open the envelope. See who it's from and with a smirk, I'll open carefully. Why? Because to me, it means someone else cares.
Posted by: Kari Marie | May 11, 2011 at 09:13 PM
Kari Marie, excellent point about the carpal tunnel. I imagine the more well-to-do writers would have had someone take dictation for them. I like to write longhand, since it stirs my brain up differently, so I take my pens and notepads to Starbucks. (That also makes me leave my laptop--and internet connection--at home!) But it is hard on the wrist and arm after a while.
I smiled at the thought of you pausing before ripping open the envelope. :) That's the way it should be, since someone has taken a great deal of time to send something handwritten. It's such a treat, isn't it?
Posted by: Donna Cummings | May 12, 2011 at 09:11 AM
As someone who has always been self-conscious about her penmanship, I'm very grateful for email. I don't think I could write a novel if I knew the editor wasn't going to be able to read my handwriting.
Posted by: Clarissa Southwick | May 16, 2011 at 10:28 PM
Clarissa, I used to have lovely penmanship, but too many years of taking notes for school pretty much took away the prettiness. I think it's still legible--well, *I* can still read it. LOL And I love being able to keep up with my thoughts by typing on my laptop. I don't think I could give that up!
Posted by: Donna Cummings | May 17, 2011 at 12:58 AM
I still love receiving letters in an envelope, for years i been used to this..these days every thing has gone binary..click on send and you receive..anyways old is gold!@bose
Posted by: Letters | June 18, 2011 at 04:37 AM