Why I write letters (and don’t send them)
This afternoon I was going through my Notes app on my phone, looking for some nugget, a turn of phrase, the perfect word for a description in my non-fiction book proposal.
(Somewhat ironically, the term itself was “elusive” — as a replacement for “unattainable”, but I digress.)
Mid-hunt, I came across a letter penned to my writing group’s facilitator. In brief, I was concerned my concept wasn’t strong enough to sustain a solid 50,000–70,000 words:
I’ve made a significant dent in the draft chapter summary, HOWEVER, I’m struggling to decide whether my idea is actually strong enough to be a book. Yes, I have something to say and am passionate about it…
I wrote this about two weeks ago. It was in an email format, but instead of sending it, I saved it into my notes and let it be.
Since then, I’ve changed my book’s focus in two ways: firstly, I narrowed the audience and broadened the topic for that audience. It’s a lot stronger and can certainly hold its own for a dozen chapters. I got there without needing to ask someone for advice. I got all my questions down and found the answers myself.
This unsent letter is a form of rubber-ducking. In software engineering, it’s a method of debugging code by articulating a problem in plain language to someone else. The name comes from the story of a programmer carrying around a rubber duck (The Pragmatic Programmer, 1999). When problems arise, they explain their code, line by line, to the duck.
My version of the process also draws inspiration from writer Natalie Goldberg, who describes composting in her book Writing Down the Bones. This article goes into more detail, but the premise of composting is that we have many garbage thoughts. By writing them down and holding onto them “through our consciousness and our bodies”, we can extract the valuable nutrients from them: voilà, compost.
Saying it aloud or getting it down on paper allows you to articulate the problem better. Potential answers become more apparent. Hence the unsent letter. And, as therapists often suggest, leaving letters unsent allows you to have freedom in your opinions, language and truth.
Unsent letters are my form of rubber ducking or composting. It gives me clarity and space from a situation and allows me to see it from another’s perspective.
