Yesterday I celebrated my 100th handwritten letter of the year. I use the term “celebrated” loosely – I had a small pour of bourbon and reflected on the past 100 days. Realizing that it had been almost two months since I updated the statistics page, I sat down and tallied the numbers on my letter-writing journey so far.
This is a very nice bourbon that my boss gave to me.
I’m averaging about one handwritten response for every ten letters I send out. While that sounds low, it’s a vast improvement over the numbers I reported earlier this year. One out of three letters I am sending out is acknowledged in some way – either by email, Facebook, a phone call or tweet. Friends and family make up about 34% of the recipients while celebrities and known individuals account for 20%.
I’ve been surprised about some of the people I have not heard back from. Usually when you write to someone holding a public office, you get a response. I didn’t receive even a standard form letter back from Muriel Bowser, our city’s new mayor. Equally silent were the CEO of Trader Joe’s, the folks at FitBit, the U.S. Postmaster General, Lazlo Toth and Teddy. That’s ok – I’ve received some very nice responses and even a handful of letters from people I’ve never met but who found inspiration in the blog to start writing more.
Speaking of inspiration – this beautiful weather is inspiring me to get outside. Enjoy your Sunday.