Adventure #1: kicking off the year-long adventures

Greetings friends!

This week I worked on two year-long adventures:

6. Write down one sentence everyday.

27. Write letters to friends on their birthdays.

Adventure No. 6 was inspired by McSweeney’s Issue No. 22. This issue contains three slim volumes cleverly stored in a leather bound cover with a magnetic binding. One of the volumes is titled, “From the Notebook: The Unwritten Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald.” Fitzgerald, inspired by novelist Samuel Butler, began keeping a notebook filled with inspiration and ideas for future stories. Fitzgerald kept a list of ideas, a few words here and there to inspire him later. Some of the entries include: The Dancer Who Found She Could Fly, Driving over the rooftops on a bet, and my personal favorite, Girl and giraffe. McSweeneys selected 17 writers to use Fitzgerald’s ideas as jumping off points for their own stories. The stories are included in the issue. Such a brilliant idea!

So this week I began my own notebook. On Monday and each day since I have jotted down a sentence when feeling inspired. Perhaps at the end of a month I will share some of them. In any case, I thought the notebook would prove useful on writing days when I feel uninspired and the words form slowly.

Adventure No. 27 is something I’ve done for some time, but this year I hope to be on top of things and send my letters out to friends and family on time. Growing up, birthdays were never a huge deal in my family. As an adult they often become even less important. But letters are amazing little treasures. They are a joy to write and receive. And birthdays are the perfect occasion to celebrate the important people in your life. So I hope my friends and family enjoy the letters I send this year.

I made a list and each month I have between 2 and 6 letters to write. For this week’s letter I pulled out the typewriter and typed away until I had filled two pages. I sealed it up and mailed it off to the birthday girl. Nothing compares to composing letters on the typewriter. The sound and feel are so refreshing after sitting in front of a laptop all day. I was the lucky enough to receive the lovely Swiss Hermes Rocket (pictured here) for Christmas. It’s a manual beauty. I can’t wait to take it out into the world when it warms up outside.

Enjoy the weekend!

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