Thank you Maggie for igniting such a lively discussion with your comment on Breaking News: Thank You Notes (4 blogs below). I have a lot to say. Too much for the comment section! So I’ll respond up here. I’ve pulled part of Maggie’s comment:

My problem lately is how to write a letter to someone you KNOW is not going to take the time to respond. I write several friends who don’t have email, or don’t depend on email to keep in touch with others, and it’s hard to keep writing these friends when I know they will not respond. Hardly anyone takes the time to sit down to write a letter these days. And, that is reinforced by the fact that one is usually hard pressed to find letter writing stationery at even the stationery stores, or at least the stores around where I live.

I know it can be disheartening when you take the time to write to people and they don’t take the time to respond, but that doesn’t mean your letter wasn’t appreciated. I think Hope made a great point in saying, “You have no idea what kind of reaction your letters receive.” Masa and Rodney expressed similarly encouraging sentiments.

One of my friend’s tells this great story about a guy and a letter. She had volunteered with him for a year—eventually the program ended and the time came to go their separate ways. She wrote him a goodbye letter encapsulating the year they had spent together and going on about how great the work they were doing was. Now, she had romantic feelings for him, but she did not reveal that in the letter. Perhaps he it read it between the lines. He never wrote back.

More than a year later, the two of them found themselves in a bar—talking about old times and catching each other up on what was presently going on in their lives. At one point he said, “You wrote me a wonderful letter, didn’t you?” She’s funny. When she tells the story it goes something like: My heart fell on the floor. I know it sounds impossible. I know that there’s a rib cage and lots of skin to prevent such a thing from happening. But I’m not kidding. My heart fell on the floor.

I, too, have written many letters that received no written response, but that are brought up in conversation years later. This is one (of the many) things I love about letter writing. People remember it! Remember when I wrote a-letter-a-day for the month of April? Do you know how many responses I got—via letter. One. Yup one. Now, my friend Heddy e-mailed me yesterday to say she sent a letter. So when I receive her letter I will have received two responses. It was still worth it! It was a challenge I issued to myself, and I met it.

I think the safest thing to do when you write someone a letter is assume that you won’t get a response. If the person is worth writing to knowing that, then write away. Enjoy the process. Hide from your computer with a cup of tea and a piece of paper (that how I do it). Don’t fear sounding too self-absorbed by talking about what’s going on in your life. As long as you invite the other person to talk about him or herself with a Now tell me what’s been going on with you! (or something of the sort) at then end, then you’re fine.

With regards to paper: My thoughts, like Rodney’s, went straight to Papyrus. Their greeting cards are very expensive, but their bundles of writing paper are affordable and last forever. I have a stack of blue letter-paper—I’ve had it for months—and it’s what I write all of my letters (that aren’t thank you notes) on. But any old piece of paper will do. Honestly! Computer paper. Even notebook paper. What matters are the words.

I hope this helps, Maggie.

Happy July everyone!