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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Inspire: To Pen a Pal

I've had one pen-pal in my life.  And it was in school.  Each class got teamed up with another class in another elementary school in town.  We swapped letters then we went to meet our penpals and share lunch with them.  I never really thought much of it, and I don't remember anything that we wrote about. 

But every once in awhile, I really like sending mail. 

Email is one thing.  You can send a note quickly and know that they probably will read it in a few hours or days.  With mail, you have to get a stamp, hope they can decipher your writing, and wait for the mail to make it through. 

But yet, it's great to have something in the mail that isn't bills.

I recently joined Swap-bot and just signed up for a writers penpal swap.  It's, you'll never be able to guess, a swap about hooking up writers with penpals!  I've gotten a message from one of my penpals asking a question before she sends out the actual letter and I'm excited!  I think this is going to not only help my writing by sharing it, but it will be a place of support and friendship.

I'm also going back and forth on joining the Letter Writers Alliance.  I think I should make sure the pen-pal thing works for me before I spend money on a membership.  But the lure of stationary is hard to avoid.  Some people get stuck in the shoe aisle, I get stuck in stationary. 

So this week I am inspired by pen-pals.  The joy of getting something in the mail, learning about something new, having a long talk with a new friend.   Do you have pen-pals?  Have you ever wanted any?  Do you do anything with mail art?

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