Most of us have one person we have been meaning to write to. We never do it because we cannot think of what to say. The blank paper makes us think we need something profound. We don't.

Letters that get read again are almost always the small ones. The ones that tell you what was in the kitchen, what the dog did, what is happening out the window. Big news is rare; small news is the whole point.

Here are eight small things to put in a letter when you don't know where to start. Pick two. Write four sentences. Post it on Monday.

1. The weather where you are

It is a cliché because it works. "It is raining here and the magnolia has dropped half its leaves overnight." Two sentences in and you have given the reader your day, your geography, your season. They feel like they have been there with you.

2. What you cooked yesterday

A casual food update is one of the warmest things you can put in a letter. "I made soup last night, the recipe Mum used to do with the bay leaves." It opens up a thread of conversation that has nothing to do with anything important, which is what people miss the most.

3. A small thing the dog did

Or the cat, or the kid, or the magpie out the back. A small observation. "Frank has discovered that he can sit on the windowsill if he tucks his back legs under." Stories like this are the texture of life. Nobody puts them in text messages because there is no room for things that don't have a point.

4. Something they used to say

A line you remember them saying. "I keep thinking about that thing you said about old houses being honest about their age." It lets them know you have been carrying them around in your head. It is one of the most generous things you can put on paper.

5. What is blooming out the window

Or what is dying. Or what came up in the garden that you did not plant. Botanical news always lands well. "The grevillea is going off, the rosellas are losing their minds." You are sending them their part of the world from your part of the world.

6. A question they would actually answer

Not "how are you", they will say "good." A real one. "What are you reading?" "Have you got a recipe for that pumpkin thing you used to make?" "When are you next coming up?" Questions are the part of a letter that travels back to you.

7. What you are reading

Books and letters belong together. Even one sentence: "I am rereading Sun Kil Moon's memoir and it is somehow worse and better than the first time." It opens a conversation. It tells them what kind of person you are at the moment.

8. Just: I was thinking of you

This is the secret one. Half the time, when you cannot think of what to write, the actual content of the letter is "I was thinking of you and wanted to put it on paper." Three sentences. Tell them you are thinking of them, tell them why (a song, a smell, a memory), sign your name. They will keep it.

A note at the end

Letters are not hard. They have just become rare. The post office sells postcards for a dollar and stamps for slightly more. The whole exercise: write four sentences, walk to the post office, drop it in the box, takes less than twenty minutes.