This month — as I did 2 years ago — I am participating in A Month of Letters / International Correspondence Writing Month.

The goals of these two remarkably similar things are, respectively:

• Mail something every day the post runs in February; reply to every letter you get.
• handwrite a letter every day in February.

For me, this is a combination of postcards, cards, stationery (there’s a lot of print-your-own stationery available online; there’s a bunch pinned on my Pinterest page Printables (Snail Mail Love is also awesome.).), and… well, a bit of notebook paper when, uh, writing where I don’t have anything else.

Have I mentioned that I love office supplies? The hard part of LetterMo for me is not buying All The Supplies. The printable stationary helps with that, because I can just print like 2 pages and an envelope.

…I think I want to visit a stationary store.  Anyone know any good ones? Online is fine.

Back to the actual letter writing.  When I first started, I found it was tricky to write letters to people who I talked to daily online.

This time, I’ve been letting my mind wander based on the cards or the weather or… anything, really.

I find I like it.  It makes me focus on questions, which is nice.  I practice my handwriting, which sorely needs the work.  I have an excuse to buy paper things!! And fancy pens… and STAMPS! Some of the current USPS stamps are super awesome.   And then there’s mail art.

Mail art! Have you encountered mail art? OMG I love it.  Banners! Flowers! Boats! A barn! Anything you can fit an address in the middle of in vaguely the right spot.  Envelopes drawn on or printed out or made out reused paper — magazines, calendars…. Anything.

There’s a pinboard for that, too. (There’s a pinboard for everything…)

I mean, on top of all of that, there’s **getting awesome things in your mail!**  Getting letters and post-cards is *so much more awesome* than getting e-mail, although I can’t even begin to explain why.  I mean, things like mail art, inserts, pretty cards, that seriously helps, but just a handwritten letter from a friend (or typewritten; when I was in college my mom would type and print out letters and mail them to me) in the mailbox instead of just bills… awesome.

So, letterMo, InCoWriMo, they’re awesome. It’s, granted, almost halfway through the month, but you could still play along late!

And if you’d like me to send YOU a letter or local/pretty (or Grand Canyon, oops) postcard (and, as I said on Mastodon & Twitter, is there is a non-zero chance that you will write back, or if *cough* I owe you a letter anyway), e-mail me or drop me a line with your mailing address and I will do so.