I haven't tried this in years
Jan. 31st, 2012 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swan_towerTrotting out the old Elizabeth icon for the occasion:
I had the wrong setting on my camera, so it's unfortunately blurry, but you get the idea. I am so. doomed. I haven't tried to write in cursive, except for that thing I laughably call my signature, for years.
Admittedly, my writing got better when I realized that a tiny notebook is a very bad choice for hand support and such. Practicing on better surfaces, and relaxing into it a bit, the result looks less awkward. Of course, if I relax into it, I'm prone to turning my n's into m's and my m's into some alien thing with far too many little humps . . . which is only the most common of my errors. There are others, too. The letters I send may have more than a few things crossed out and corrected. (Which is part of the whole handwritten letter thing, right? Not everybody bothered to send perfect copy. I guess it all depends on which character I'm writing as. Dead Rick probably doesn't worry much about errors. Delphia, however . . . .)
I had the wrong setting on my camera, so it's unfortunately blurry, but you get the idea. I am so. doomed. I haven't tried to write in cursive, except for that thing I laughably call my signature, for years.
Admittedly, my writing got better when I realized that a tiny notebook is a very bad choice for hand support and such. Practicing on better surfaces, and relaxing into it a bit, the result looks less awkward. Of course, if I relax into it, I'm prone to turning my n's into m's and my m's into some alien thing with far too many little humps . . . which is only the most common of my errors. There are others, too. The letters I send may have more than a few things crossed out and corrected. (Which is part of the whole handwritten letter thing, right? Not everybody bothered to send perfect copy. I guess it all depends on which character I'm writing as. Dead Rick probably doesn't worry much about errors. Delphia, however . . . .)
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Date: 2012-01-31 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-01 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 11:25 pm (UTC)I will act as secretary for you if you want. I have lovely penmanship.
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Date: 2012-02-01 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-01 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-01 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-31 11:43 pm (UTC)I mostly use cursive when writing out Portuguese verb conjugations longhand, something I haven't done for a while. It's a meditative sort of practice.
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Date: 2012-02-01 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-01 04:27 am (UTC)The plus side of calligraphy is that it's not really writing - it's more like drawing letters. I have execrable handwriting, but can do several passable calligraphy hands.
I haven't settled on who to write me letter to yet, but one will certainly be coming. Now I'm tempted to pull out a pen myself for my letter, although in my case it will have to be a metal nib.
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Date: 2012-02-01 04:47 am (UTC)Edited to add: also, the lines in the pic above misrepresent my choice of pen. It's a dip pen with a steel nib, not an actual quill pen. I just tend to think of it by that name because the body of the pen is a feather. (But for this exchange, I'm more likely to use my Venetian glass dip pen, because it's more comfortable and has a better nib on it.)
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Date: 2012-02-01 04:50 am (UTC)Of course when my friend presented that particular piece of art to its recipient, he did include a typed cheat sheet.
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Date: 2012-02-01 04:52 am (UTC)I've done calligraphy before, though I'm even rustier on that than I am on cursive. But it's slow enough that I think I'd prefer to go for something more natural.
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Date: 2012-02-01 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-01 06:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-01 05:43 am (UTC)Both men had been avid penpal correspondents as teens, so they had not anticipated the problem of their hands getting cramp from attempting to handwrite.
Who knew that muscles needed for handwriting can degenerate when not used just like any other muscles?!
May-be it would easier for you to rewrite the characters to have a bit more sloppy, tricky to understand handwriting?
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Date: 2012-02-01 06:09 am (UTC)You're right about the muscles degenerating. I still write enough by hand that I don't have a huge problem -- though I do cramp up if I go for too long -- it's just that most of my writing is print, not cursive.
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Date: 2012-02-04 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-05 09:27 pm (UTC)Lisa Jardine on letter-writing (BBC) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16871715)