Love Letters From the Heart

Hot Romance--Cool Valentine Story

Do you still write letters by hand? Once, letter writing was not only a form of communication but also an art. People took care in composing letters to make them an effective means of communication, and to also make them worth keeping because most people saved letters.

Old Letters

I have a box of letters dating back to the late 1800's. Some are love letters written by past generations, some are business correspondence. All are beautifully written with penmanship so lovely that the letter deserves to be framed like a piece of art.

As an author of romantic comedy, it's the old love letters that I cherish the most. I have the letter in which my grandmother, a spinster of forty, proposed to my grandfather, a bachelor in his forties. They married in the Roaring Twenties, and my mother, needless to say, an only child, was born a few years later.

Love Letters Are Handwritten

My grandmother's love letter and all the other old correspondence, treasured by my mother, and now by me, make me realize how lacking our modern world is in the art of letter writing. Do you have a bundle of love letters, tied with a satin ribbon and tucked away in a private place? Most women don't. Today, just about everyone get texts and emails that proclaim affection. You can't exactly bundle those up with a ribbon. Sure, you can print the emails, but how many of you actually do?

Make Love Connection

Since February is Cupid's month, I have a radical suggestion. Write a love letter to your beloved. Put your heart in it. Tell him or her how precious they are to you, how they changed your world, how much you look forward to spending time with them each day. Don't just settle for a Valentine card to which you sign your name. Express with words the love that you feel.

Handwritten notes and letters stand the test of time. It takes but a moment to dash off an email or text. Maybe handwritten letters are treasured because they represent a gift of time. That makes it even more of a luxury in today's busy world. When writing a letter by hand, one must gather paper, envelope, pen, and one's thoughts.

Takeaway Truth

In The Bible, Jeremiah 31:33 says: "I have written you in my heart." If you've written your beloved in your heart, then why not put it on paper too?

Post Script

Every Valentine's Day, I show appreciation to all who follow this blog. This year is no exception. If you are a SlingWords Follower, I have a present for you.

To claim your present, please email me: JoanReeves at Outlook dot com (new email addy I'm trying). In your email, give me your Smashwords registered email address. I'll send you a coupon good for a copy of my new nonfiction book, Little Book of Sunshine: For Readers and Writers (available at all ebook sellers by Feb. 22.)

By the way, today, I'm appearing on a couple of other blogs. Visit me at Authors of Main Street where I'm talking about Love at First Sight and an interview on Sarah Cass's Blog.

Happy Valentine's Day!