Postcrossing Blog

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

I spend a lot of my time with fictional characters, as someone who reads a lot of fiction and plays video games that have stories. But there’s one question I always struggle to answer… If I could be any fictional character, who would I like to be?

The thing is that I mostly like my life as it is: job, hobbies, abilities, friends and all. It’s hard to imagine wanting to be characters in the murder mysteries I read, or in the often tumultuous worlds of fantasy and sci-fi novels. I enjoy reading about Breq and Seivarden (from Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice), but I definitely wouldn’t want to be them. I enjoy Maia’s court in The Goblin Emperor (by Katherine Addison), but it sounds too formal, cold and uncomfortable to live in. And while I would love to hark back to my childhood and hang out with Benton Fraser and Diefenbaker (Due South) for a little while, I don’t have the courage to be a police officer.

But I don’t want to spoil the fun, and there are some really cool things that characters in these books can do that I’d love to join in with… so after some significant thought, I have to say I’d like to be Irene, from Genevieve Cogman's The Invisible Library (and sequels). Being able to travel between worlds via an interdimensional library sounds amazing, and having access to books from all those worlds sounds even better.

Sure, I’d have to have some harrowing adventures along the way, but the books might just be enough to make it worth it! (Let’s not kid ourselves. The books would definitely be enough for me.)

What about you? Do you have a fictional character you’d like to be? You can tell us here in the comments if you like, and if you aren’t sure what to write about on your postcards this month, you can write about it there too!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

22nd July is the United Nations’ International Day of Friendship, so what better time for Postcrossing to ask about a topic near to everyone’s heart: friendship!

At the moment my friends from university are scattered all over the UK, but every so often we like to meet up and have a meal. I’m very lucky to live close to the friend I’ve known all my life, though. We were born in the same hospital, went to the same nursery, and then to the same junior school. We’ve been there through thick and thin, and it was her wedding I wrote about on the blog for May’s writing prompt. As you might expect, over the years we haven’t always had the same interests, and we’re almost more like siblings than anything else, so generally we keep our relationship healthy by meeting up often and chatting, rather than shared activities. Lately we’ve been going for walks around a local country park, at Newmillerdam. It’s a lot of fun watching the changes through the year. It’s my turn to buy us ice cream this weekend, too!

Mostly, though, my day-to-day interactions with friends are with online friends who I met through the massively-multiplayer online game, Final Fantasy XIV—I’ve been having incredible fun over the last couple of years meeting up with them in the game and doing things together, like playing hide-and-seek (I’m not very good at it), doing the game’s treasure hunts, and doing “raids” (difficult fights that require a lot of coordination). A large part of the game is made to be experienced with 3–23 other people, so there are lots of opportunities to team up.

Plus I’ve ended up meeting one of them (so far) in person! Over the last year and a half I’ve dragged my new friend “Prof” to several bookshops, a zoo, and a surprise trip to a botanical garden (because he loves plants). Perhaps in July we should start planning our next adventure, in honour of International Day of Friendship! Do you have any special plans to hang out with your friends in July? We’d love to hear about it here, and you can write about it on your postcards if you’re stumped for what to say!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

It’s June already, and many people in the UK (and I’m sure other countries as well!) are doing end-of-year exams, which made this topic jump out to me. Over in the forum, Miriam (Facella) suggested we ask about what people’s dream jobs might be. If money, skills, education, etc, didn’t matter (e.g. you could magically become qualified), what would you like to work as?

Whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never really knew how to answer, and I guess I still don’t. I’m basically a perpetual student. I started out in English literature, then moved into science, and am currently trying to finish up my MSc in infectious diseases, via distance learning. Next year will be my last year, and then… Well, then most likely I’ll take a break for a year or two, and then study something new.

It’s not that I don’t love the subject—I’ve loved many subjects! And it’s not that I haven’t been good at the subjects I have studied. I just thrive best when I’m learning new things. So if I could get paid to do that, to just accumulate knowledge, that’d be really nice. But if we’re being more realistic, then the actual job I’m most interested in is science communication. It’d weld together a lot of the skills I do have: communication, research, and the ability to understand the science. (As long as it’s biology or closely related, anyway.) Something like writing for New Scientist would be very cool—or writing books like the Object Lessons series or Bloomsbury Sigma…

Anyway, that’s enough daydreaming from me—what about you? What would you do, if you could snap your fingers and make it happen now? We’d love to hear from you in the comments, but you can also write about that on the postcards you write this month!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

This March, I had the honour of attending my childhood best friend’s wedding, which got me wondering about different wedding customs around the world. Sometimes weddings are religious, and sometimes they’re more like big parties, and they can vary a lot with local customs and traditions. So that’s the prompt for this month: tell us about weddings!

My own wedding was pretty non-traditional. I did wear a white dress which wasn’t a world away from being a wedding dress, but it didn’t cost thousands of pounds (which is pretty common for wedding dresses in the UK). I also didn’t have a train or a veil, though I did carry a bouquet… though my bouquet was pretty non-traditional as well, since it was made of daffodils (the national flower of Wales), and the daffodils had been made of paper for me by my partner. It meant I could keep my bouquet forever, though it’s been battered around a bit when we moved. We got married in the town hall in Leuven, and exchanged rings in front of just a few friends (and the interpreter who was there for me, since I don’t speak Flemish!)… and afterwards we went back to our flat and had a picnic, followed by going out that evening to introduce my friends to Belgian chips.

My best friend’s wedding was a bit more typical: full-length white dress, veil, etc, and with a lot of family present. It wasn’t a religious ceremony, so it wasn’t in a church, but it was in a dedicated wedding venue and there was a procession down the aisle. Afterwards there was a photography session, and then sit-down meal with speeches and toasts. It was all a lot more fuss than my wedding, with both families present along with the bride and groom’s friends.

My best friend did make all the flowers for her wedding out of paper, though, so we had that in common!

I think all the weddings I’ve attended have been a bit different, really… British weddings can be all kinds of things, depending on the bride and groom’s backgrounds. What’s it like in your country? Is there a traditional sort of wedding? Are they large or small occasions? We’d love to hear more, either in the comments to this post, or your postcards in May!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

I know quite a few people for whom English isn’t a first language—in Postcrossing, in the massively multiplayer online game I play, from various forums I’ve been part of over the years, and of course my wife and in-laws. My language skills are sorely lacking, though I can read French quite well, so I always speak and write in English with them. Every so often, we run into a communication barrier, and it’s usually because I’ve dropped some kind of slang into the conversation (often without even realising). Which got me curious about everyone else’s local slang!

I know I usually talk a lot about being Welsh, but I grew up in Yorkshire, and most of the time that’s the kind of slang that comes most naturally. So I offer two slang/dialect words for you: “maungy” and “chuffed”. They’re pretty much opposites, which makes them a nice pair to share.

To be “maungy” is to be whiny or sulky. I really wasn’t sure how to spell it, so I had to guess and look it up. You can hear the pronounciation on the Collins Dictionary site! “Maungy” is often used of a fretful child, old enough to be expected to behave themselves, moping around and dragging their feet and making a whole excursion into a painful ordeal. The word sounds so expressive to me, and I definitely feel a bit maungy sometimes myself… especially about having work in the morning.

“Chuffed” is a much more positive word, and one I use a bit more often (and I think is a bit less specifically Yorkshire?). You can hear how it’s pronounced from the dictionary. It means pleased, so you might be “chuffed” about good exam results or winning a competition, or finding just what you wanted in the shop. You might say you’re “dead chuffed” if you got top marks or won something really good. You’re definitely not going to be chuffed about someone being maungy, though…

How about you? Do you use slang a lot? Do you know any good local words? It’s a fun thing to share on the postcards you send this month—but we’d love to hear about it the comments here as well!