There is a small thrill of possibility every time I open a blank greetings card. Like committing pen strokes to that first crisp page of a new notebook, I let the words tumble out in the neatest loops and lines, dots and dashes my handwriting can manage.
Since the UK first entered lockdown in March 2020, I’ve rediscovered the joy of sending—and receiving—letters. Exchanging postcards, notes, and letters with friends and family has become an unexpected lifeline; a simple way to catch a breath while checking in with my nearest and dearest.
A handful of the cards I’ve received this past year.
It’s a habit I held onto as a kid, writing to school friends when my family moved from one place I’d call home to another. Never a fan of talking on the phone, I enjoyed using brightly coloured pens, stickers, and clippings from comics and magazines to decorate the notepaper I scribbled my latest news onto. We would share stories from school, weekend plans, what music we were listening to, books we were reading, and TV shows we were watching. When friends went on holiday, postcards featuring photographs of beaches, dolphins, or Disney characters would inevitably land on our doormat. I would dutifully return the favour when it was my turn to venture away, carefully selecting a variety of cards from a tall spinning rack.
The tradition died as e-mail gradually replaced pen and paper. Then social media came along: why write a letter when you could get an instant reply on MSN Messenger or leave a heart on their Bebo page? It wasn’t long after the digital switch that I fell out of touch with those friends from my first school. I knew what they were up to thanks to social updates; I didn’t really have to check in anymore. The insights we would have once shared in a carefully crafted note were now posted as public statuses which could be responded to with a quick thumbs-up.
The pandemic has breathed new life into letter writing. By creating a sense of genuine human connection, it’s an excellent measure to combat loneliness and boost mental wellbeing, and our nation’s posties have been busier than ever. With a growing desire to feel connected without the anxieties which go hand-in-hand with digital communication, letter exchange schemes quickly started sprouting up to fill our human need for social contact.
Rachel Syme’s lockdown project Penpalooza has proven we all have an insatiable appetite for making connections, with more than 13,000 people from 75 countries signing up to be matched with a new pen pal. It has even spurred a popular hashtag where writers are showing off their creative ideas to send to their new friends—from beautifully decorated envelopes to entire scrapbooks—while others rejoice in the delight of receiving something exciting in the mail from friendly scribes across the globe. With the clear mood-boosting benefits, it’s easy to see why mental health charities have been using pen pal schemes for years.
I’ve felt these advantages myself in writing to friends and family this past year. The little jolt of excitement when an envelope that doesn’t contain a bill arrives at the front door. The mystery of trying to match the handwriting to the sender before opening it. The stories people are eager to share. The time they’re willing to spend committing their news to paper before venturing to a postbox to send it. My flat has been significantly brightened with an array of lovely artwork printed on the cards I’ve received, which I proudly display on any bare surface I can find. It’s a nice reminder that, for a few moments, someone wanted to share their thoughts and ideas with you. This newfound connectivity through writing has led me to remove almost all social media apps from my phone (Instagram, I could never leave you).
While writing letters has left me feeling closer to friends and family, it has had another surprising benefit: enhanced creativity. Recently, after sealing the envelope around a card to a friend, I tore through 650 words of a writing project I’ve been chipping away at before launching into a surprisingly productive planning session for another project. It felt easy, effortless. Perhaps a quick dose of letter-writing had primed my brain: I was already in the creative zone.
Writing by hand has long been linked to creative thinking. Controlling a pencil and the physical act of drawing letters create a sensory experience that engages the right side of our brains. It uses a totally separate brain network than other methods of writing, like typing or texting, aligning handwriting more closely with playful hobbies such as colouring or doodling. This neural pathway is only activated when we write words by putting pen to paper. The very act of writing longhand actively counterbalances the structured, analytical, logical left-side of the brain: the side we tend to use more frequently for our daily tasks in this digital, corporate-driven world.
Freeform handwriting is the complete antithesis of the digital age. A recent survey revealed that UK residents typically spend 59 hours per week online. While that includes streaming film, TV, games, and music, a substantial portion of that time is dedicated to social media usage. With digital modes of communication becoming our go-to method during the pandemic, contributing to Zoom fatigue and digital burnout, it has become increasingly difficult to step away from our screens, even if we want to.
The act of writing forces us to slow down. The empty page isn’t just another open tab on the screen. The absence of the blinking text cursor at the top of a blank page allows the writer time to think. It’s a reflective and purposeful experience that doesn’t demand an immediate reaction. There’s no room for rapid task switching: it holds our attention as we concentrate on sharing our stories and filling the page by drawing each word, one letter at a time.
The combination of the slow process, allowing room for thought, and the activation of different areas of the brain ultimately help to spark new ideas. Journaling has long been heralded as a useful practice, particularly for creatives. While morning pages have been a staple part of my daily routine for quite some time, I find their primary function is to clear my head: an outpouring of nonsense to set me up for the day ahead. Letter writing engages my brain and encourages me to connect with my emotions. It’s a task where I’m entirely present. The combination of deliberate mind and motor skills has led me to uncover stronger ideas than the spontaneous daily scribbles which help me clear the morning fuzz.
Perhaps the most valuable thing about writing good old-fashioned letters is the confidence it creates in one’s own writing ability. When noting down latest events, briefly sharing worries, hopes and plans, or asking how a friend is doing—how’s the dog, is your garden starting to bloom—I rarely second guess what I’m writing or judge it too harshly. There’s a comforting finality to it: the ink hitting the page can’t be unwritten. There’s no backspace to remove or edit, though I’m no stranger to Tipp-Ex. It’s a relaxed creative space where I can believe in the work I’m putting on the page.
We often view letter writing as something primitive: a necessity of circumstance in ye olde times due to the lack of technology. But perhaps the great creatives knew the secret benefits letter writing held. The Brontë sisters, Zelda and F Scott Fitzgerald, Frida Kahlo, John Steinbeck, Charles Dickens, and Vincent van Gogh (to name but a few) were all prolific letter writers; so much so that many of their letters have been preserved and published in collections. We have learned so much about these notable figures through their correspondence: their letters documenting crucial history. Perhaps their greatest lesson of all lies in the very act of writing: their willingness to embrace a habit that keeps us connected to each other and our creativity.