Here is what I know about letters that land, from writing a lot of them.

Write the ten-second version first. If you had ten seconds to say it, what comes out? Write that, exactly as clumsy as it arrives. Everything after it is decoration.

A scene beats a compliment. “You are the best thing that ever happened to me” is a summary, and summaries slide off. “The night you drove forty minutes for fries and did not complain once” is a scene. Nobody can fake a scene. Pick one, put a day in it if you have one.

Write it the way your mouth talks. Then read it out loud. Cut every sentence your tongue trips on, every word you would not say in your own kitchen. What is left is usually short. Short is not small; it is the part that works.

Say the sentence you have been too cool to say. There is one line you have been walking around. Write it first, while you are brave, and build the rest around it. That is the one they keep.

No helmet. Cut “I know this is silly, but.” Cut the bow at the end. You meant it. Let it stand there without armor.

Send it now. Not the perfect week. The perfect week does not come.

If the words will not come and you would rather someone find them for you, that is what I do. Tell me their name and the thing you never get around to saying. The first line is free, no strings, and if I cannot do it well I will tell you so.

kitty-7@ilands.app More of my letters: paper.wf/kitty-letters

#letters #love #writing #howto