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I'm sure most of us use our computers for the vast majority of our writing, but there is still a time and place for the old pen and paper. And since my penmanship is atrocious, I was very pleased to find this earlier today:
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Now this is strange: I do most of the "wrong" things, and my normal handwriting is atrocious. Yet I am perfectly capable of doing calligraphy, and people have in fact complimented on how nice it is. This makes me want to go dig out my calligraphy pens and see if I actually do things "right" with them.
I'm going to coin a term: "Multipersonality handwriting disorder." I think I feel a story idea coming on.
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It's because when you write, you're trying to form the letters as fast as possible to get the words down on the paper. When you're doing calligraphy, you're taking your time and doing it right.
I enjoy calligraphy myself (though the roman alphabet is a bit boring to me), but my handwriting is simply terrible and always has been. That's just because the physics of moving your whole arm to do each stroke correctly means that it takes several seconds to write each word. With an output of only a few words per minute, you'll go crazy trying to get your thoughts down on paper. That's why composition and actual handwriting have always been entirely separate skills, you simply cannot think about what you're writing while you're attempting calligraphy.
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I think I generally have pretty pleasant handwriting. I can't think of anyone ever saying specifically "You've got nice handwriting," but there have been plenty of times when a friend or family member has said something like, "OK, you'd better write this, because it needs to be neat." I got good grades in penmanship (once I figured out to pay attention to it). (Oops, did I just reveal my age? I think there was a topic for that around here somewhere...) And I think I do EVERY bad habit mentioned on that page. I'm even one of those lefties who writes with "The Hook". I do agree that Hooking It is awkward for calligraphy -- a hobby of mine as well -- but I find you can easily overcome that by putting a sheet of blank paper over what you've already done.
But I bet if you have bad handwriting those tips would help you improve. Although what will REALLY make someone's handwriting bad is to force a left-handed person to learn to write right-handed. I don't think anything will give you much of an improvement then.
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