The Art of Letter Writing

well they're federal here from fellas Polycom I'm an author and I learned my craft and I found my passion for writing through the art of letter writing now this was in the days before email or text messages or instant messaging even before fax machines this was the 1980s when letters were written by hand using a pen onto paper quite an envelope popped in the post and sent to the recipient it was always one-to-one intimate personal meaningful correspondence and because it was written by hand it was written using a proper pen never a biro the thought of sending a letter that Haslam has meaning using a disposable pen was just wrong so he always used a fountain pen like this one didn't use a cartridge inside I used proper writing ink that came in a bottle and I've got one of them here so this one is dated July 1987 I made this up while I was at school and I've been doing so ever since I just love the art I've been out of stop pause with my writing unscrew the pen dip it in extract the ink it and start it's just a wonderful act but proper writing ink that comes in a bottle allows you to be a little bit more creative with your writing and what I do given that I'm an angler and an outdoorsman ever I'm near water rivers lakes I will take some of that water and if I'm writing about an experience near that water such as dear friend I've been fishing I like to have in there a few drops of the water from that Lake or that River now this one here July 1987 this has probably got water in it from if you where I fished it sort of replenishes itself every few years and it's just nice been out to send a letter knowing that the recipient will open it they'll read a story about somewhere that has actually got that place on the page the lesson in the writing water from that location now back in the spring I was able to get hold of some water from a famous fishing Lake here in the UK called red mire pool and I made some writing it with it and from that ink or with the ink I wrote 20 letters to my friends much as I'd done 20 30 years ago I wrote 20 letters about fishing it read by Paul what my what my friends who received the letters didn't know it's actually I filmed myself writing them and I'd like to share with you the footage of me writing one of those letters I'll do an overdub so you can hear what I'm writing just to cement the process and encourage you to do the same sort of thing so if you're having an adventure and you find some water near behind you want to write about that adventure pop some of that water just a few drops into the ink and then share the letters so sit back and enjoy me writing one of those 20 read my Paul letters okay writing is allegedly act so it's inevitable that I'll talk quicker than I can write so to get myself a happy up a head start I'll talk about the paper the pen the ink and where I'm writing and why I'm writing it and then we'll start talking about actually what I'm writing so you can see me there writing with my Priory red fountain pen I use Pakistan it's they're not overly expensive but they're great I think I've got three of them at the moment have them in a variety of bags and when I'm out and about writing and then I have some nicer pens I use in the study I like writing on custom nice writing paper this one here is a custom lifo print Golden's go to a club letterhead myself being a member of the ghazals girl club it's a fishing club and it's a laid paper so it's slightly rich has a gentle texture which are particularly like the ink here is the red mark all ink that I've made it's in one of my old I think I called it a slate blue ink bottle you can see there on the right it was one that I made at school and the first batch of ink I ever made was taking it actually from Koch geez I had a big bag of these cheap cartridges I think I bought for about a pound and I cut them all open scissors and poured them into a bottle and then started messing around with colors over the years it's evolved from a slate blue ink color to a dark burgundy brown and that's deliberate so I just love old-style copperplate writing I'm not using my glasses here I should be somehow I think I must have been vain even though I'm out of sight but normally I'd be writing the glasses okay so let's start reading this letter for you and it reads a Fennell journal special edition first of February 2017 this letter is number 10 of 20 I always like to personalize my letters and on this one I did it by drawing a fishing floats being pulled through the water by an unseen monster fish help set the tone I think it fee and the letter reads dear friend follow the wind said Chris as he gave me instructions of how to fish at red maple and you'll find the carp wise words from the current record-holder but what I actually heard and felt in my heart was I should follow the wind that blows in order to fulfill my dreams and I did follow the wind to the famous willow pitch and as fortune would have it I caught my first ever 20 pounder on my very first cast into the legendary pool weighing 20 pounds 2 ounces the common carp proved that read my magic really does exist and that's a special memory for me I included it in the letter because if it wasn't for the guidance I had from Chris Yates I probably wouldn't have caught that fish as quickly as I did yes I was a bit of beginner's luck in there but I had inside information Chris gave me loads of fishing tips but as it's an author he also gave me some writing tips as well things like you likely to be there in September so have a look through the hedgerows collect blackberries and make some writing in from those also collect leaves and on the subject - leaves if you're there and you're drinking tea using loose leaf tea leaves keep them collect them because sometime someday in the future you may be producing a book and you might want to use those leaves within the endpapers of your books we can do things like that as authors it helps to make the experience more complete for our readers helps to bring the event to them in a very immediate fashion now you'll see that my handwriting is just starting to slow here and that's because the pain is actually running out of ink it starts getting a bit dry and a bit scratchy so what I decide to do at the end of this paragraph is just to stop pause and top the pen up and this is an act that I've always enjoyed right from the early days when I used to use vintage fountain pens at school which used to have a little toggle style lever on the sides of them which is great actually because if you flicked it the wrong way you could spurt ink at your schoolmates but with this pen which is a Parker it has a nice syringe inside it that helps you to extract the ink a little bit more delicately with more precision you just turn it and it screws and it's 16 cup but it's an act that means that it's slower opportunities to pause and reflect a great and sometimes join those pause moments I will think of different things to say in the next letter how to evolve the letter how to perhaps change some inflections within it as well in this instance I'm simply copying one letter to the next so the letter which is about red more magic obviously because that magic is there inside the ink I've put a few drops of water into the into the ink so it's they're inside the ink on the page that split people can run the fingers I've written actually touch read mark all so that magic as the letter continues it exists here too it's contained within these words in this very ink I made this ink today from water collected from red mark Paul I'm sending you this letter to ensure that you will always own a little piece of red mark and this was topical back in February because there's some news that read my Paul might be put up for sale I did a YouTube video actually was a spoof I hadn't heard some people loved it some people didn't but it was a spoof that implied that I bought the water and obviously all I'd done was bought a little jar of water that enabled me to make the ink it would have been nice to buy the whole pool but haven't won the lottery yet so as the letter continues it says the lake itself is up for sale so who knows whether we'll ever be able to fish there again but you'll always have this letter as proof that dreams exist for our well-being and safekeeping and that's the important thing for me as an author I'm always trying to share my passions with my readers it helps us to connect at a better level and I find a thing as I've grown older that many of the things that I do are all about fulfilling dreams that existed earlier in my life so any adventures I have it's always in search of something some sort of connection or escapism that enables me to find it a degree of freedom and satisfaction that perhaps son didn't have earlier in my life it was what I wished for and then I'm fulfilling those dreams by the things that I do so there was a time when I used to go fishing thinking that I was going to catch fish that was the goal of fishing not so anymore definitely not so anymore it's more about following my heart and my dreams to places and adventures that result in a heightened sense happiness and really as an author it's in sharing that happiness with my readers that makes the experience complete no point just doing it and being selfish and keeping that to myself much better to share it with others and that's why I perhaps have a particular style of writing born of letter-writing because for 10 20 years maybe before my books came out and my writing was in published and pretty proper print I was a prolific letter writer and I was always capturing my adventures in letters and sending them to my friends and sometimes I'd be up all night writing letters and today I can perhaps enjoy writing about an event more than actually experiencing the event I think it's just cuz I love writing and I captured that passion in the conclusion to the letter which said it's always a red letter day at red Mar I think that's playing that read my red ink red letter days dreams can't come true signed it fondest fishes fennel and on the back I drew a picture of red Mar with a huge carp leaping clear of the water and then I put the inscription a salute to the king I signed it fennel 2017 and there we have it the art of letter writing you

Channel: Fennel's Priory Outdoors

Views: 44,758

Keywords: author, letter writing, handwritten letter, writing ink, letters, fennel hudson, redmire pool

Id: LKOU4AzMGd0

Length: 13min 3sec (783 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 29 2017