As I sit writing a quick note to some awesome folks who are being honored by Sales & Marketing Executives here in Baton Rouge, I am struck with why I haven't blogged before.

Writing is something I've always loved to do. However, it's always been very personal. From hand written notes of thanks or congratulations, to dozens of journals full of scribbled observations and moments, writing has always been a very private affair for me.

Facebook isn't writing, it's notifying, sharing. Twitter, even less so. And yet, how quickly social media, even for an intimate writer like me, has changed what writing is.

When was the last time you sent a handwritten birthday card? Compare that to the last time you made a Happy Birthday Facebook post. Guiltily, I admit the latter was yesterday and the handwritten variety, well, it's been a hectic few months.

While this blog is a meatier narrative than my timeline, it still shortcuts the real beauty of a hand written note, the handwritten part.

In his new book, The Missing Ink, Philip Hensher laments our departure from hand writing far more eloquently than I ever could.

"We have surrendered our handwriting for something more mechanical, less distinctively human, less telling about ourselves and less present in our moments of the highest happiness and the deepest emotion. Ink runs in our veins, and shows the world what we are like. The shaping of thought and written language by a pen, moved by a hand to register marks of ink on paper, has for centuries, millennia, been regarded as key to our existence as human beings."

Surrendered? Ouch. That's convicting. You should read more of his book, he makes the art and act of writing sexy, intimate, familiar and intense. He has reminded me why I LOVE WRITING.

In fact, eerily, I have said for years that I love my work in print advertising so much because I have ink and paper in my veins.

If you need anymore proof that your handwritten notes, even short ones, will mean more to others than any facebooked Happy Birthday, then ask a Baton Rouge advertising professional if they remember Ralph Sims.

Ralph was arguably one of the last great gentlemen of our industry. He was beautiful, and strong and courageous and kind. And he wrote the most amazing handwritten letters.

I fell in love with Ralph while serving on the board of directors of AAF Baton Rouge in 2006. I called Ralph to ask him to email me a brief write up of why he had been active in our club for more than 40 years.

Ralph replied that he could not email the statement I asked for. He didn't have a computer. Fine, easy enough, I asked that he fax it to me. Once again, he politely declined my request. He didn't have a fax machine. He requested that I come by his house the next day to pick up his statement. Really? Drive over and pick up his statement?

Long story short, the beautiful hand written letter he handed me, on his personal stationary, sits in my desk to this day, long after Ralph himself has left us.

Boom! There it is. This amazing man's words, and spirit, will live on long after an email would have been archived or deleted, a fax would have been thrown away. Ralph's grace is the perfect example of why writing should always be, well, writing.

I've already broken my first thought on how this blogging thing will turn out - yesterday I thought I'd only blog once every four years. I wouldn't dare search for the technology that would let my blog be handwritten, that would be pure torture.

Instead, I will promise to send at least one handwritten note for every post I make here. That should slow me down some, and hopefully stymie the draining of my soul into the keyboard used to compose these musings.

And you? Can you be seduced with an embossed or gilded or brightly colored note card to write someone? I hope so. And I'd love to hear who you wrote and why.