"I'm going to go back there someday"

As part of the Month of Letters I have mailed and written 37 postcards in the month of February. I have seen it said multiple places that if a letter is an old school e-mail, then a postcard is a tweet. I'll admit that there are similarities.

Tweets are short messages of 140 characters
My postcards messages ranged in length from 75 characters to 220 (with an average of 130 characters). So while most messages would fit a single tweet not all would. In addition writing gave me a flexibility of font and spacing that is rarely available online.

This doesn't include, the image on the back of the postcard, the stamps used, stickers attached, address sending, address receiving, date, or signature.

Admittedly tweets often include links & hashtags which can add images or information to the message.

I did find that there was space on the postcard to include website addresses, which is not as interactive as a link, but it still gets the job done.

The major benefit of tweets is that they are real-time communication where a single message reaches multiple people.

The major benefit of postcards is that it is a physical object sent to a single address.

I have already written out my first couple of postcards they will be brought to the post office tomorrow. I am starting to plan what I write on next weeks cards.

As some other people have mentioned, "If an e-mail is a letter, then a postcard is a tweet". I will admit that on one postcard I managed to fit 181 characters (including spaces, not including address info) which is more than the 140 character tweet length. On most of my cards I seem to write about 100 characters.

It is an exercise in brevity, figuring how much to say in the space allotted. There is also the freedom of the unlined space. I can make my writing large or small. I can make certain words bigger without resorting to CAPS LOCK.

Postal pen-pals is how I got into fandom in the first place. It will be nice to try it again.

For more info on A Month of Letters click the preceding link.

If you would like to get a postcard from me click Here