Letters Project with Jarrod: The first letter and its response

In the post Seeking Letters Project Correspondents! Jarrod searched for correspondents for his “letters” writing project. A project which I find quite interesting, so I asked to take part in it.

So what follows is my first mail (we don’t write actual letters) to Jarrod:

Hey Jarrod,

June has arrived, and with it, the letters project for me started. Thanks that I can join in this experiment. I was unsure if this already counts as the first week, but I thought it better to be safe than sorry :-).

It is an exciting month of the year for me. With my birthday coming up, and this June also marks a new part of my life – I’m switching my job, and right now, I’m on a short break between employment. I’m not yet completely free of my old job as I still support them this and next week as we have the big summer release. And I would not have felt good to leave my teammates to finish the job for me. So as I’m writing these words, I still have some days at my old employer in front of me. But it already feels different somehow.

It feels strange writing this letter – especially knowing it will be published. How did you handle that so far when writing your responses? I try not to overthink it right now, but I feel that my writing has some reserve, which is an interesting observation. And don’t get me wrong, I’m ok with it being published. I think I have the concept that a letter is personal and not something you write to a bigger audience – not sure if this makes much sense.

The Ticket to Ride ride game you wrote about in your last response to Jose sounds fun. I think I need to check it out at some point. I’m not playing board games regularly, but when the right people are there, and I’m in the mood, I like them. But most of the time when I can youse the game, I would go for a card game, something like UNO or Speed. The shorter a single round, the better.

I’m surprised at how well the writing works right now. In the morning, I could not create much due to a headache. And unfortunately, it was with me the whole day, which was not fun. But at the moment, it receded a bit – giving me the focus I need to write. Something I love to do. One of the reasons I have a blog and why I started journaling and writing morning pages. How much you get out of your head when you write regularly is fantastic. And how fast it becomes a habit. I would love to write more long-form blog posts, but that is something that cannot be forced. I’ve had the experience that the post will get written when the time is right for them.

I hope this was not too rambly and unstructured. I hold myself back from editing this letter too much – but the text will go through Grammarly to fix the worst of my spelling errors ;-) Spelling is not a strong suit of mine.

Looking forward to your response,

Cheers

V

And here is the response I got.

Hey V,

Pleased to meet you! I’m so glad that you jumped aboard this project, and thank you for your prompt first letter – it’s much appreciated.

Congratulations on your new job! Making a big transition like that has always brought out the jitters in me, so I hope that you’re more excited than nervous. What kind of position are you leaving, and what are you stepping into? I’m always curious about how folks’ day-to-day compares and contrasts with mine. Oh, and happy early birthday!

Publishing what would typically be a private message out to the public internet is somewhat nerve-wracking. I’m glad that I’m not the only one who feels that way. I’m, likewise, trying not to censor myself, but I know that it’s impossible to ignore completely. I guess one thing that should bring us both solace is that my site, at least, has a relatively small audience. But the internet is a permanent sort of place, and you never know if or when that audience size could change. Luckily, I don’t think either of us are assholes, and shouldn’t have much to fear of people reading these letters over our shoulders. 😜

Honestly, the more of these I write, the more embolden I feel to express myself more freely and to push the edges of what I’d normally write about. That is, after all, the goal of this project!

Your preference for shorter, single-round games is how I approach video games. Probably around entering high school is when I stopped having the necessary time or attention that I wanted to spend on story-based video games. My wife loves them, and says they’re akin to reading a good book or watching a good show, but more because you get to be part of the story. But for me, if I’m ever playing a video game that is not part of some friend get-together, then I want it to be as easy-in, easy-out as possible. I’ve been working on Alto’s Adventure for several years now, and it’s perfect in that way because I don’t have to put a lot of time into it and even if I don’t play for months, it’s easy to jump back in for a few rounds.

I’m somewhat jealous of your morning-prone writing flow. I never leave myself enough time in the mornings before my commitments to do much besides jump out of bed, dress, and grab some food. A calmer morning routine that includes quiet reading and writing time is something that I aspire to. I’m right there with you about the magic when a blog post flows out of you. Sometimes the words feel ready-made in my mind and almost tumble their way out. This post felt that way. It’s a great feeling, and I hope you feel it often!

This week has been pretty busy brain-space-wise for me. I had a lot to catch up on in the way of articles, podcasts, and videos before WWDC. Spoiler: I didn’t get caught up. And now the deluge of announcements, reviews, and tidbits has begun. I’m loving it, but it’s a bit overwhelming to keep up with. It sounds like you felt a bit of that yourself leading up to WWDC. Did you have a favorite announcement? What’s something they announced that you think you’ll use every day?

I was astounded by Vision Pro. But it’s all the little quality-of-life updates to iOS and watchOS that I think will have the biggest impact for me, at least for now.

Anyway, I hope you’re having a good week, that your headache has resolved to a distant memory, and that your big birthday and job transition month continues smoothly. Can’t wait to hear back!

Take care,

Jarrod

P.S. I’m also a Grammarly user. But I’ll follow your lead and not do a fine-grained edit to keep things casual. 😉

You can find all the letters from Jarrod over on his page: Entries tagged “Letters”.

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