Chris Verbree

From: Christiaan Verbree
To: Jarrod Blundy
Subject: Letters Project
Date: June 1, 2023

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

From: Jarrod Blundy
To: Christiaan Verbree
Subject: Re: Letters Project
Date: June 6, 2023

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. 😉

From: Christiaan Verbree
To: Jarrod Blundy
Subject: Re: June 11, 2023
Date: Letters Project

Good morning Jarrod,

Thanks a lot for the reply. Getting such emails (or letters) and glimpses into another person’s life is fun. And one motivation for me to participate is to expand my writing horizon and push my edges. Another factor is that I’m not writing in my mother’s [tongue], so blogging is a way to keep my English skills.

Yes, the new job. At the moment, it is part nervous and part sad. Leaving the current place was hard. I was there for a long time (nearly ten years of my life). And it was only my second employer in my adult life. My old job was in a project-based “agency” where we tailor-made software. It was a startup that some of my friends founded ten years ago, and I was their first employee. That was a fantastic experience being in a company so early on. Initially, it was Rails coding and iOS, but I have been working mostly on React Projects lately. And now, with my new employer, I am going back to iOS but in the AR space. This time around, I’m employee number three ;-) And the best feature of the new place: 100% remote work.

I’m not much into computer games. When I game something, it is real time strategy (I love the old Age of Empires). Modern games I consume as movies — I love story-based games so that I can watch somebody play them on Youtube. I played a bit of Alto’s Adventure when my wife was playing it (she’s the gamer in our family). But I get nervous within a split second and can’t play it for too long. I think that is also the reason I like the more story-based ones. But then again, I want to go into world-building mode and code a game myself. I spent quite some of my younger years trying to code an MMORPG.

My morning writing habits came not from nothing. I spent some time changing my mornings around. Especially stop directly starting with work the moment I fall out of bed in the morning. And the bigger factor is that I can gamify the experience as well. So when I can get a streak going, I have high motivation to keep it going. Not sure whether this is a good trait to have. But knowing about it and being able to exploit it myself knowingly is undoubtedly helpful.

Unfortunately, I need to be careful that I do it knowingly and not unknowingly, as this can lead to a lot of stress. Something I was able to learn over the past three years about myself. What also helped was that I don’t write for a specific word count. Morning pages should be 750 words by the official definition. But for me is that I write something. So I also have some which are only 20 words, which is fine.

I’ve read your post about the 70$ app and enjoyed it a lot. It was interesting on multiple levels to me. As a consumer of apps, I’m not fond of subscriptions. Although, as a software developer, I love subscriptions, and it is the only way for a serious iOS business to work. And then the thoughts behind giving a higher price point to catch the subscription-averse app users like me with a very high price point so they don’t need to pay a subscription is interesting. Product pricing is an interesting topic  – and not only for software products. I’m mostly thinking about it in terms of educational books.

I don’t have it often that the words just flow for a blog post. But I know the feeling from my morning pages. And when I’m writing fiction. This week I wrote six short story pieces in three days. I plan to finish the editing soon to publish them on my homepage to have some actual long-form posts again. But right now, I also have the words flowing out of me while writing this response.

WWDC was a blast, or better, the Keynote was. I also did not manage to get up to speed before it happened. But in the end, it was alright. While watching the keynote, I was surprised at how the reality distortion field got me again this year. The Vision Pro was certainly the highlight of the show. But I don’t expect to own one anytime soon. I would love to have one. But I don’t want to spend 3.5k on such a product right now. Perhaps with generation five when it is below 1k? But it being an Apple product, I wonder if the price will dip so low soon. It must get below the 1k boundary as quickly as possible for mass market adoption.

The most surprising announcement was the rack-mounted Mac Pro and that you don’t need to pay 500$ surcharge for the drawer rails — I think they missed an opportunity here:-D.

I’m not sure what I will regularly use off smaller the day-to-day changes, as my computer is way too old for the new operating system. I will need to discover them when I get my new work Mac later this year. I will certainly not use the improvements in the notes app as I’m all in on Obsidian.

Looking forward to your answer and wish you a successful week,

Cheers
Chris

From: Jarrod Blundy
To: Christiaan Verbree
Subject: Re: Letters Project
Date: June 23, 2023

Hey Chris,

Here we are 12 days since you sent your letter and I’m so sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you! The last couple of weeks has flown by, not the least of which because I spent some time out in the woods, away from tech and cell service, guiding a client on a multi-day hike. Oh, and my wife and I bought a house in that time. But we’ll get to that. 😉

I was surprised to learn that English isn’t your first language — your prose is great! Where did you grow up, and what language did you first learn? Do you know any other second languages, in addition to English? I took a couple of semesters of Spanish while in college, but all but the basics have left me since then. If I were to go after another language, I think I would choose to learn American Sign Language. My family has a history with sign language (my Grandma used to teach it in her work with students with speech challenges), and my nephew uses it now to communicate a lot of the time.

I saw someone speculate that the hand-tracking and spatial nature of Vision Pro could be a boon for teaching and learning sign language, and I have to agree. It makes me even more excited about that product. Maybe you’ll be building things in that same vein in your new work on AR projects for iOS? I have a feeling that expertise in the AR field is going to be very valuable over the next few years.

But I can totally see how moving on from your previous employer would be an emotional process. So much history there with friends and seeing it grow from the very beginning. But it also sounds like you’ll get to experience a lot of that all over again with this new venture. It must be so invigorating to be one of the first employees. You’ll get to influence so much of the direction for the foundation of what you’re building together. I’ve been thinking about that concept a bit lately regarding the products I use and the communities I’m a part of. For example, I love using Micro.blog for my social networking fix because it’s small enough that I can have real conversations with the folks building it — and sometimes my opinions actually help drive changes in the products. Similarly with Shoutouts.lol and Tinylytics by Vincent Ritter. Using, or building, something from the beginning is a pretty cool privilege.

You are so right about streaks affecting the motivation to write. On the weeks that I have time and plentiful topics, I wonder how I ever get out of the habit of writing. But as soon as I break the streak — like this past week or so — it takes a lot of effort to start typing again. I guess, like anything, getting in a true habit of setting regular time aside for it and sticking to that commitment would make all the difference. It’s the same for me with fitness. When I’ve got it in my schedule and routine, it’s easy. But irregular weeks can really throw me off. I like your idea of just writing something. I should give that a try. There — I’ve added it to my Challenge! list. I’ll write about making a habit of writing. Very meta.

How did you get into writing fiction? I haven’t had to do that since high school and while I love reading fiction, I don’t know that I’d be particularly good at writing it. Do you have a particular genre or style that you like best?

Thanks for the praise on that app subscription article! I can see how it would be dissonant to be on both sides of the developer and consumer coin. I’m fascinated by behavioral psychology and the intersection of price and purchase is a huge part of that field. Haha, speaking of pricing things, yeah, the Vision Pro is way up there. I’m going to do all I can to get my hands on one next year sometime. Saving up tips, maybe doing some DoorDashing. It helps that my wife was also intrigued by the idea of such a thing — which doesn’t always happen with new tech gadgets! I’m enthralled by the idea of getting in at the beginning of this new “spatial computing”.

Ah, you’re an Obsidian guy! I tried it out, but haven’t ever gotten into the idea of backlinking. It’s cool and I’m glad it works for other people, but I’m good with my writing flow using Drafts and 1Writer. For now.

I suppose I should expand on the house-buying thing before signing off here. To make a long story short, we’re in the process of buying a house that we lost out on about a month ago. The long story is that we’ve been looking for a year (though more seriously for the last three or four months), and found a house in a great location that met many, if not all, our wants and needs and was within our budget. We put in an offer, then we upped the offer, and everything looked promising. Then at the last minute, someone matched our offer but in all cash. So the seller went with the cash offer. We were super disappointed and took a few weeks off searching. After we started touring other houses again, we found one that was super nice and checked all our boxes. The only problems were that it was a stretch for our budget and we just didn’t feel like it felt like “us”. We decided to put in a low offer anyway, just to see what happened. But the day we were working on our offer, our realtor called to say that the house we’d previously wanted was back on the market because the other buyers walked away. After some soul-searching, we decided to put another offer on the old one…and it was accepted the next day! Thus began the whirlwind of mortgages, contracts, inspections, and everything else. But we can see the end of the tunnel and it comes with a house!

We’re pretty excited.

I hope that the first few weeks in your new job have brought a lot of excitement, too. I can’t wait to hear back.

Take care,

Jarrod

From: Christiaan Verbree
To: Jarrod Blundy
Subject: Re: Letters Project
Date: June 26, 2023

Hi Jarrod,

Congratulation on the house buy! Is that the first house you bought?

We went through this process three years around (ok, we did not buy a house, only a condominium apartment. We loved it and were very lucky to be at there right time when it came to the market. We loosely knew the previous owners, which also gave us a leg up.

Interestingly, the house-buying process differs between Switzerland and the US, especially on the price side. Here it is unheard of that you make cash-only offers at all. Houses are so expensive that buying them in cash is impossible. I get jealous when I see these Youtube Flipper Uppers, which cost 40k - 60k. Here apartments or houses start around $600k.

So enough money talk :-D As I wrote, we were lucky and are very happy with our flat. At the moment we are planning a kitchen renovation. Initially, I wanted to do it myself. But we switched to a contractor—too much stress and work doing it myself. We just finished the selection of the appliances on the weekend. I love being able to change the flat to what we need/want as a family—and not having a landlord.

Regarding language, I have a thing here with English. I’m trying to reprogram my brain to think in English. I’m not there yet and unsure if I’ll ever manage that.

I started reading books in English around the age of 20. And then my first employer was English-speaking, so I used it all the time and needed to write everything in English as well. And when I moved on, I wanted to keep my English skill. So I slowly started to write my stuff in English. And then on top of that, I also have some dislike for the German language.

I always had trouble with spelling, and subconsciously, I’ve taken the feedback from the school about my writing that I can’t do that. I know this is not true, and it does not matter much whether I make spelling mistakes (and it is not like I don’t make any in English :-D). Still, when I write in English, I don’t have all the mental baggage of past German teachers’ voices reprimanding me for all the spelling mistakes I made.

I’ve grown up and still live in Switzerland, and my mother tongue is “Swiss German,” a German dialect. But I have Dutch roots from my father’s side, so I also speak and read Dutch (but not good nowadays as I’m missing the vocabulary and exposure. I’m better at English nowadays than Dutch).

How much do you know about Switzerland? We have four official languages: German, French, Italian, and Rhaeto-Romanic. And we are required to learn at least one other language in school. In the area I live, we learn French. But I’m not fluent in that language - as I never use it. And it is easier to speak English with any French-speaking person.

Sadly, we spend so much time learning a language; in the end, we still can’t speak it well enough to use it daily (I had eight years of French lessons).

I also attended two semesters of Japanese and one semester of Spanish language classes later at university (or was it college — it’s the place where you end with the bachelor’s degree). Unfortunately, I can’t learn languages in a school setting. So I did not keep much of it. I mostly kept feeling for the language and how sentences and word sounds (does this make sense?).

Is ASL an entirely different language, or is it more of a different alphabet to sign the regular English words with? Coming from a position where I was not much exposed to it, apart from knowing that it exists and that there are also different versions. I imagine it would also be like learning a language that does not use our alphabet (like Japanese).

And I’m with you regarding Vision Pro helping to learn ASL. Having a camera able to track your hand gives so much possibility for new applications in the teaching field. I’m also thinking about learning instruments like guitars. Not sure how it would work seeing the instrument through the video feed, though.

Regarding the new job. Yep, I’m very happy with going into a position where I’m exposed to AR and getting paid for it. I wanted to look at this topic for so long and never had the energy to do it next to the job. And now, it is certainly good to have the know-how. And you directly speak about the points I find important and motivating to work in a startup. Being there early and helping shape it. And from it. And the most critical point: little red tape. I hate red tape :-) And another important part is that it is something I can speak about in public (i.e., not something which is secret or used as an internal tool). I love talking with the humans using the code I write. It gives such a different perspective on what you do. And it also gives me a lot of motivation.

I love that Micro.blog is so tiny, but it is also sad, on the other hand, that it makes it so hard to convince others to join it. I usually don’t get much interest when I speak about it in real life. But generally, smaller communities are better — especially when you want to make deep connections and are not only there to sell something. I made a Twitter account two years ago (yes, I know I was late) — I needed it for a project, but I did not feel comfortable on that platform. Everybody was trying to sell you something. I did not find any “real” humans.

I think I got into writing by starting my blog. I like talking about stuff that interests me. And the blog gives an outlet for this. I had my current blog since around 2002 (but with multiple breaks). And initially, when I revived it, I started wiring book reviews. It was an easy way to get something regular to write without too high stakes.

And that is the thing which, in the end, also makes the connection to fiction writing. I love reading fiction but have yet to find all the stories I want to read. So I need to write them myself. My favorite genres are fantasy and science fiction. But I’ve also discovered other genres around the human connections theme — something I would never have thought possible I was able to write a year ago. I guess it is a part love story but also the love between a father and his child. I can’t link to these stories as I have them not published and edited. And not sure I will ever post them.

This new style came from my process of learning how stories work. Two years ago, I was at the point of I had a scenario of what I wanted to read. Now how do you write that so it is interesting? How do stories work? And that triggered a process of reading books about writing. I’m currently in a place where I understand how to do such projects. At least, I hope it. But I also learned how hard they are to write :-D.

So I’m working on story outlines and experimenting with short-form fiction writing to practice the craft. And when an experiment is good, I have a blog where I can publish them. I hope to get feedback on my writing at some point. And grow from the feedback.

Another factor is that I must have the time and energy to write fiction. I’m not working at the moment (I start a new job in August), so I have a lot of mental space and energy, which helps a lot with ideas. And I’ve also read some books about writing, which are more philosophical, which also helped a lot (Bird by Bird is one of them).

And I’m still unsure if I will ever write an entire book — I would love to. Currently, I have fun exploring it and getting some of my stories in my head out onto “paper.” And sometimes into the wider world when I publish them on my page.

I have seen Vincent’s new product as well. And I was tempted to add it to my homepage. But I don’t want to track my users, and I fear I would start trying to optimize the numbers. And it would take away from the fun of having a blog. I would love to know how many page visits I have—writing on Micro.blog (or a blog) does feel like shouting into the void a lot of the time. But again, I always remind myself that I’m not writing for others; I’m writing for myself. I write the stories I want to read. It is the cherry on the cake if somebody else reads them and likes them.

I know the fear about not starting a habit up again after breaking a streak all too well. So I try not to break it :-D But when I’ve managed to get the whole year of morning pages, I will permit myself to break it for holidays as it makes family holidays a lot more complex (and stressful) when I need two hours to write a morning page each day.

And it also means I can only make holidays with a computer or phone. And breaking the streak and ignoring the compulsion not to break it and make the number bigger is also good training for my mental health. I also benefit so much from writing each day that I can trust my brain to return to the habit after a break.

You mentioned saving tips and DoorDashing. Am I right in the conclusion that you don’t work a regular 9 to 5? I find this style of living very alluring, but I fear the freedom of not getting a steady income. I considered freelancing instead of another job but ultimately decided against it.

I took the first step towards a different future for me by only working four days in my new job. So I have one day to work on personal growth and writing. I hope I also have time for a break on the weekend for my brain. It took me a lot of time to understand that you can’t work 100% (or more) and then still expect your body to have brain capacity left on the weekends for more head work.

And speaking of spending time in the woods. My daughter and I have planned some camping in the forest in July. I’m looking forward to it. It will be her first time sleeping outside in the woods without a tent. I’m just hoping it will not be too dry so we can make a real fire for cooking. I loved to make these camping trips as a child (we did them once a year), just outside next to a creek, and the adults cooked something on the fire. And we children built treehouses or dams.

This letter got a bit out of hand I hope it was not too long OO
Cheers
Chris

From: Jarrod Blundy
To: Christiaan Verbree
Subject: Re: Letters Project
Date: July 1, 2023

Hey Chris,

Thanks, buddy! Yes, this is our first house purchase. We’ve only done rented apartments and homes up until now. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone comes up with that wild amount of cash either. Unless they’re taking from retirement funds or something that’s better left alone, but even still. LOL, sounds like Switzerland and Lake Placid in New York State have similar home markets. It’s been very challenging to find something within our budget.

That’s awesome that you’re working on a kitchen renovation! Having the ability to make changes and improvements without having to ask permission is something we’re very much looking forward to. And I feel you on the switching to a contractor. There have been a lot of times when I’ve decided my time and sanity were worth saving by switching to a professional. Hiring movers has been one of them and it’s been our best decision during our last few moves.

Holy smokes! That’s so many languages to keep in your mind at once. I’ve heard once you start learning new languages, it’s easier to learn others. I wonder if that’s been your experience as well. I’m always so amazed by folks who speak and write in languages that weren’t their first. It makes your blog all the more impressive!

I know embarrassingly little about Switzerland. I’ve heard wonderful things about the backcountry and mountains there, so it’s definitely on my travel list. But I don’t know any of those official languages, so I think I’ll have to travel with a translation app in hand. Keeping a feel for sentences and words of a language, even if you can’t speak it, sounds like it’d give you a leg up if you ever were to study it again.

ASL is kind of a mixture of both. You can certainly sign letters to spell words and make sentences that way. But fluent signers know the given signs for whole words and phrases, and it has a “dialect” of its own. As it happens, I just watched the Marvel ‘Eternals’ movie yesterday, and one of the main characters uses sign language. It’s a beautiful thing to see. One of my favorite book series, ‘The Kingkiller Chronicles’, has a community of people who use hand gestures to signify emotion and tone alongside their spoken words, rather than using voice intonation to convey them. It’s a fascinating idea.

I’m glad to hear that you’ll be able to share more about what you do at work. Secretiveness has its place — I’m game for an exciting product reveal — but it does seem like it would isolate you from other people and really cut back on working through a problem. I always think best when I can brainstorm verbally with others.

You’ve got it exactly right about Micro.blog and how smallness can be a double-edged sword. But that’s why I’m so optimistic for a more open social web with technologies like ActivityPub coming into the spotlight, and possibly being adopted by bigger companies. It’s going to be really cool if big silos like Instagram and Tumblr become interoperable with more niche communities like Mastodon and Micro.blog. If my Mom can reply to one of my blog posts from her Instagram account, I’ll consider it a huge win for everyone.

Your blog has almost 20 years on mine! Congrats on such a long-standing home on the web. I regret not starting one sooner, but, as they say, the best time to start was yesterday and the second best time to start is today. I think it’s super cool that you’re writing the books you want to read. It sounds like a massive undertaking. You’re going about it the same way I would: by reading a book about the writing process. I love learning how other people think and work. I think that’s why I like workflow and setup articles so much. A book on someone’s writing process is next level! Good for you for using your time off to work on personal projects. I hope that 4-day workweek will allow you the opportunity to continue!

My job is a little different, schedule-wise. I work for a gear shop and guiding company. The gear shop is open every day, 9 to 5, so when I’m not out guiding trips I work in there. But since trips can be booked whenever — half day, full day, overnight, and quite sporadically — I never have a consistent schedule. I don’t usually know when I’ll be working for a week until the weekend before. For example, I’m hoping to find out today or tomorrow the days I’ll be working next week. I try to make the most of my days off with personal adventures, reading, writing, and catching up on housework — but I might have to dedicate that time to a second job if I want to much such a big purchase. If a freelance writing gig presented itself, I might consider trying that, too.

Aw, I’m so excited for you and your daughter to experience that camping trip together! My favorite childhood memories are the ones where my family was camping together. That, along with being in the Boy Scouts, really cemented my path in life. Not to put pressure on the trip, I just hope she enjoys it as much as you! There’s something very special about getting outside and adapting to live with nature instead of despite it.

Hey, thanks so much for writing to me this month. It’s a little scary to be so open about personal life, but it’s also been very freeing. I’ve very much enjoyed getting to know you a little better, and I’m sure that will continue back on the socials, plus my email is always open. 😉 I wish you the best of luck with your camping trip, your new job, and that kitchen renovation.

Catch you later,

Jarrod

From: Christiaan Verbree
To: Jarrod Blundy
Subject: Re: Letters Project
Date: July 4, 2023

Hi Jarrod,

I finally found some time to answer again. I enjoyed this experiment quite a lot, and it was scary to write these emails — but only for the first. After I got your first response, I was no longer thinking much about it and just wrote. And I think that is how it should be.

By the way, I love ‘The Kingkiller Chronicles,’ as well. But it has been some time since I’ve read them — I don’t remember that culture anymore; I need to schedule it for a reread. And talking about cultures using sign languages to communicate, there are also the Far Dareis Mai (Maidens of the Spear) from the Wheel of Time, which also have such a language to communicate between themselves.

I’m hoping that my daughter will enjoy the nights outside. And it will be a good experience for us both as we are both more of the couch potato type :-).

And regarding the book project. I’m not yet sure whether I will be able to pull this off. I feel the same as you — hence why I’m in research and learn mode. It is such a daunting task to think about. But it got a lot better after working on it for a year or closer to two years.

So thanks a lot for taking the time to organize this experiment and letting me join. I’m already looking to do my month with Jason at the end of the year. And the most surprising thing is that these letters have triggered some thinking about how I use language and were the reason for the first “public” text in German in ages.

So keeping this email shorter today. And I wish you all the best, and we will see us.

Cheers
Chris