Dear_____,
Look, what can I tell you? Your decidedly off-center friend in New England has discovered his favorite activity is letter writing. This means that he needs to write these letters to someone he enjoys writing to. You're one of those people.
By no means do I expect you to write back, and if you do, I certainly don’t expect anywhere near the volume of mail you receive. These letters, for me, are like Robert Crumb with his sketchpad: I just have to do it.
A long time ago, I was watching an interview with Jeremy Irons, and he paraphrased a piece of advice that Boris Karloff gave to a young acting student: find something you do very well that no one else does. To that, of course, I'd add: and make sure you enjoy doing it.
And with my writing, that's what I've been doing for the past couple of years, during which you've been awfully good about being my guinea pig beta tester. At times, I've been manic, coming across like Owen Wilson at the beginning of Bottle Rocket, sharing his plans for success with Luke, all written out in his compositions notebook.
I messed around with various digital formats. I experimented with various ways to lay out text on a piece of paper.
And all the while, I tried different kinds of writing, and never was comfortable enough with any of them to finish anything. Short stories, novels, plays, screenplays….so many scraps of things.
But then, there was that comment from you about letters being the best writing of mine you read. Then there was the slow realization that writing in longhand on cardstock was something I loved. And then I noticed the whole way my handwriting looks. It looks like…me.
I spend virtually no money. The only things I buy with any regularity are ink cartridges–I go through so many of them that it's more economical to buy them in bulk instead of buying another set of pens–cardstock, envelopes, and stamps.
Now letters to friends are often rough drafts of things that I publish. And now, instead of spending so much time thinking about merchandising and packaging my writing, I just spend my time…writing.
I read it aloud into a transcriber, copy it into Google Docs, and if any of it seems like something worth publishing, I go for it. I couldn't do it this way because there was no way to get handwritten words to digital editable text except by painstakingly typing it up. Dictation software was not that great until recently, and now Chat GPT doubles as a great transcriber…so no more typing.
While watching The Bear lately, I keep thinking to myself that after I recover from my hip surgery, I want to wash dishes in a restaurant. I just started reading Pete Jordan's Dishwasher, his chronicle of washing dishes in all 50 states.
I don't want to be a slacker about it, though. I want to be very zen about it. I want to do it so well that I just blend into the background, getting along with everyone to the degree that I can practically hear Bruce Lee saying, “be water, friend,” when I work.
And while I'm there in my dish pit womb, I want to keep my eyes and ears open. I want to watch the cooks, watch the waitstaff.
Then during a break, reach into the side pocket of my cargo pants, take out a folded sheet of cardstock, grab my pen, and write.
Be well, pal.
Written March 24, 2026