Thursday, June 12, 2008
This website is very inspiring: http://creativewritingprompts.com/
I've got a good writing prompt I just made up myself. I just saw an ad on tv for life insurance. One of the conditions was that "suicide is not covered for the first thirteen months".
Ok, so are there actually people out there who take out life insurance before they commit suicide? Why 13 months? Is 13 months the average amount of time that it takes to change your mind, worked out by an evil genius-like actuary professional?
That is all.
Otherwise, life is grand and I took a day off work today and really relaxed. Finally sent Kuba the photos I had been meaning to send him, and wrote back to my German penpal. Experienced nostalgia for penpalling. Remembered my passionate letter-writing. I used to receive up to 5 every afternoon. Used to go down to the letter box and check, knowing there'd be letters for me from Americans, Germans, French, Italians.
Fantasised that I would become the next Virginia Woolf (the full package, of course) and my detailed and heart-felt recounts of my day to day life at age 15 would be auctioned off for millions long after my death! Actually I wouldn't mind reading all those letters I sent out week by week. I wonder where they are right now. In a little shoe box under someone's bed in a caravan on a property in Virginia (not unlikely - I had such a penpal.)
But email killed the penpalling star.
I met two of my German penpals during my trip to Germany. Last year, one of them sent me a letter after a 7-year hiatus. She is currently studying graphic design and living at home. I don't think she's ever had a full time job yet. I reflected on how I have changed while writing in my letter today that my trip to Asia wasn't successful, I was down, and was rethinking my career. Age 24. This is what we write letters about now. At least, what I write letters about now. My penpalling hobby peaked at a time of 'social failure' during my first year at Gossy High. If breaking into a new crowd is hit or miss, I missed, and it took me a year and half to make some genuine friends. My friends were my penpals, and I explained my life to them in lots of detail. My penpals liked my letters. It's true. Writing again today, it all flooded back. The passion is gone, but I at least realised that I had once had it.
I kept a stash of girly stationery, a supply of stamps, girly stickers to stick at various positions around the envelope, postcards and even aerogrammes and other miscellaneous letter-writing goods. I was a full-time letter writer. I would sit at my desk writing a letter to a penpal in France, and Mel, standing in the hallway looking in to my room while on the phone to a friend, would tell them that her little sister was reading the French dictionary again. (By the HSC French exam, it had been a long time since I had written a letter in French. The inspiration was gone!)
Could I take up letter writing again? What about turning up to parties and telling people your favourite hobby is penpalling?
So if I started again... Are there people out there who still do it? How do I 'break' back into it? As a 14 year old, there's no harm in writing someone a letter introducing yourself to them and asking them if you want to be their penpal. It was just fun. But as adults, is there a different etiquette involved? I think I should look into it. And if I do turn up to parties and tell people that my biggest hobby is writing to penpals, well, so be it. ¶ 17:28
I've got a good writing prompt I just made up myself. I just saw an ad on tv for life insurance. One of the conditions was that "suicide is not covered for the first thirteen months".
Ok, so are there actually people out there who take out life insurance before they commit suicide? Why 13 months? Is 13 months the average amount of time that it takes to change your mind, worked out by an evil genius-like actuary professional?
That is all.
Otherwise, life is grand and I took a day off work today and really relaxed. Finally sent Kuba the photos I had been meaning to send him, and wrote back to my German penpal. Experienced nostalgia for penpalling. Remembered my passionate letter-writing. I used to receive up to 5 every afternoon. Used to go down to the letter box and check, knowing there'd be letters for me from Americans, Germans, French, Italians.
Fantasised that I would become the next Virginia Woolf (the full package, of course) and my detailed and heart-felt recounts of my day to day life at age 15 would be auctioned off for millions long after my death! Actually I wouldn't mind reading all those letters I sent out week by week. I wonder where they are right now. In a little shoe box under someone's bed in a caravan on a property in Virginia (not unlikely - I had such a penpal.)
But email killed the penpalling star.
I met two of my German penpals during my trip to Germany. Last year, one of them sent me a letter after a 7-year hiatus. She is currently studying graphic design and living at home. I don't think she's ever had a full time job yet. I reflected on how I have changed while writing in my letter today that my trip to Asia wasn't successful, I was down, and was rethinking my career. Age 24. This is what we write letters about now. At least, what I write letters about now. My penpalling hobby peaked at a time of 'social failure' during my first year at Gossy High. If breaking into a new crowd is hit or miss, I missed, and it took me a year and half to make some genuine friends. My friends were my penpals, and I explained my life to them in lots of detail. My penpals liked my letters. It's true. Writing again today, it all flooded back. The passion is gone, but I at least realised that I had once had it.
I kept a stash of girly stationery, a supply of stamps, girly stickers to stick at various positions around the envelope, postcards and even aerogrammes and other miscellaneous letter-writing goods. I was a full-time letter writer. I would sit at my desk writing a letter to a penpal in France, and Mel, standing in the hallway looking in to my room while on the phone to a friend, would tell them that her little sister was reading the French dictionary again. (By the HSC French exam, it had been a long time since I had written a letter in French. The inspiration was gone!)
Could I take up letter writing again? What about turning up to parties and telling people your favourite hobby is penpalling?
So if I started again... Are there people out there who still do it? How do I 'break' back into it? As a 14 year old, there's no harm in writing someone a letter introducing yourself to them and asking them if you want to be their penpal. It was just fun. But as adults, is there a different etiquette involved? I think I should look into it. And if I do turn up to parties and tell people that my biggest hobby is writing to penpals, well, so be it. ¶ 17:28
