Forget extended correspondence – I can barely manage limited correspondence.
We all have enough obligations.
Extended letter writing does not need to be added to the list too.
And the trade-off is pretty simple: For every second I spend here, I can’t spend there.
Of course, I do write letters to some people – but that’s private.
Personal and vocational writing is one thing. I get it. But practical correspondence should be short and simple.
I quickly supplied him with a nice copy of Every Day Is Saturday and tried to initiate a bit of a correspondence, which, after only two letters, he politely cut off. Considering the vastness of his output in a number of genres, plus the fact that he made his living writing, it is no wonder that he had no time for extended correspondence with someone he would probably never see again. I think, as in the case of his friend Joyce Carol Oates, Updike’s very output worked against him a little. He wrote so much that even nominally keeping up was a full-time job.
-Larry McMurtry, Literary Life (Amazon)