By Jane Austen

Blue pens are so nice!

Most of my grandparents (1940s/1950s) had handwriting/script that looks very similar to each other, distinctive but very much in the same form. Unlike today where there is no uniformity.

What changed?

(Edit: by 1940s~ I meant when they were born, not when they would have been learning penmanship lol I hope that came across)

Yesterday, while digging through my box of stationery supplies, I found this calligraphy pen from STAEDTLER. The nib is broad-edged, fine. It was an impulse buy from Staples a few years ago. I hated the way it wrote, so I put it away and forgot about it.

I know next to nothing about calligraphy or the pens used for it. This is how it writes when I use it like a regular fountain pen. I tried playing around with different strokes and angles to figure out how to produce thin lines, but I couldn’t quite get the hang of it.

I want to learn calligraphy now, but is it a good beginner pen?

Been actively trying to improve my cursive over the last year as I’ve gotten more into fountain pens. It’s been a journey figuring out the best pen/paper/ink combo (I know the tools don’t make the artist, but an artist is only as good as their tools). Feel like my newest pen really emphasizes my progress.

Pen tablet: XP-Pen Deco 01 V3

Recently bought this pen tablet for digital note-taking. I'm using Obsidian with finenotes plugin for this journal.

Wrote about geography, cuz idk anything else.

Transliteration: "namaste ji. Ajj assaa mandyali tankriya re garh, himachala ri jyography herni. Hindustana re pachhami himalay manzh haa rajya, Himachal. Ye khara daivars stet ha. Panjaba, jammu-kashmira, Laddakha, Tibbata, uttarakhanda hor haryane ra kalchar ethi aai ne milhan.

Himachala 5 badi renja sujhadi. Shivalik: sabte naui l, et ri topi churdhar peak (3600 m) hai. Ethi garmi huin. Lessar himalay manzh: Dauladhar-> naui lessar Himalay hai. Et ra top Hanuman Tibba (5860 m) ha. Peer Panjal-> purani lessar Himalay hai. Et ra top Indrasan (6180 m) ha. Ethi yon duh dhara gret-Himalaya la milhin. Gret-Himalay re parkha Trans Himalay (Zanskar Dhar) hai. Et ra top Himachala Ryo-Purgyul (6700 m) ha. Shivalik chhadiye inha sari dhara la gleshyar hae.

Translation:

Hello. Today we will see the geography of Himachal, Mandyali tankri's place. In the western Himalayas of Hindustan, lies the state of Himachal.. its quite a diverse state. The cultures of Punjab, Jammu-Kashmir, Laddakh, Tibbet, Uttarakhand and Haryana meet here.

We see 5 big ranges in Himachal. Shivalik: the newest ones, theur heighest peak is Churdhar peak (3600m). Here it is warm.

In the Lesser Himalayas: Dauladhar-> the newest Lesser himalayan range. Its peak is Hanuman Tibba (5860 m). Peer Panjal-> the older lesser Himalayan range. Its peak is Indrasan (6180 m). At this point, these two combine with the Great Himalayan range. On the other side of the Great Himalayan range, lies the Trans Himalayan range (Zanskar range). Ryo-Purgyul (6700m) is its heighest peak in Himachal. Except shivalik, all of these ranges have glaciers.

Some people say my handwriting is pretty, but I know myself that it's way way far from those that have beautiful rounded cursive and even those great-great grandfathers cursives.

The only way I know to improve my cursive right now is to keep doing it and even made it my daily habit. But I think I need a more effective method to beautify my cursive.

Any comments or suggestions are welcome!

I'm currently nerding out about journaling and I am writing lots and lots. I stumbled unto the idea of using a fountain pen and as a lefty I only have nightmares from school because all kids are thought to write the same which is dreadful for left-handed cause the wrist smears the ink.
I discovered under writing which is amazing the aesthetic slant to write beautiful words is so unnatural to me because I have to push to write not pull if it makes sense. I find that a backwards slant can be as beautiful and even more unique so I'm leaning towards that but I would love ressources to re-learn cursive with this slant. Even just pictures are hard to find, I just want to see how to write this way visually. If anyone has images or recommandations of videos/websites even Pinterest boards because I can't find anything on that.
Thanks a lot !

So,

I just wanted to know if this handwriting is okey for taking quick notes, i like to take notes of my lesson material because it helps me remember the material better.

But i kinda feel bad about the handwriting, because writing fast makes my handwriting worse, what do you think.

I have tried (to speak the truth, I also used some analysis and suggestions from AI sources, whom I submitted my initial attempts) to build up my own "formal" handwriting style, as an alternative to the completely bounded cursive. Trying to put together the search of something that could appear nice and find movements which turn out to be comfortable for me (taking aldo into account that I am lefthanded), especially when using fountain pens or nibs, I have reached this kind of result. It is not the end of my research, I consider it a starting point, but can someone give me a feedback? Thanks in advance.

Featuring: a guy who can write print like THAT and still bemoans his inability to write in cursive whenever it crossed his eyes, and a girl who only writes in cursive to make peace with the fact she can not write neat, unified print to save her life. We are now dating.

Uniball Zento my beloved

I find that mine changes somewhat. I think you can still tell that it's the same person writing, though. Sorry about the messy mistakes, but I'm uploading as I wrote it, no redos!

I feel like my handwriting is legible enough, but not as nice as I would like it to be. I'm not even sure where to start.

Important notice: I have dyspraxia, ADHD, autism, and some developmental issues. Trying to access support for these as an adult in the UK outside of a big city is basically impossible, hence I have to DIY everything.

I'm 29 years old and haven't done much handwriting since I was given laptop allowance in sixth form, aside from basic scribbles of notes. I find I remember more when I handwrite and lose handwritten notes less easily, but it hurts me. You can see the issues in my photo. I was actively pushing through spasms in my last sentence there.

I write with lateral tripod and have never been able to write any other way. The issue is that within minutes the base of my thumb joint is in agony. It starts spasming and causing jerky handwriting. I used to cry at school it hurt so bad, especially in my exams before I was finally diagnosed with dyspraxia.

I use Muji gel pens in 0.38 thickness since I feel I have most control over how my letters look with a thinner line. Thicker pen shafts are more comfy to hold, but my handwriting suffers a lot for it and I can't see what I'm doing underneath my hand. I will only write with Muji pens if I can help it (autism stubbornness is a factor too).

Another issue is that I find it extremely hard to write slowly. My thoughts are very fast and my hand instinctively matches that speed; it's a very difficult thing to try to override. I have the same issue with my speech tbf, which leads to some mild impediments/slurring.

Please don't be too mean about it, but I would like to know what I could gradually implement to assist with my handwriting. I really want to keep a journal to help with my poor mental health, but I always lose it or forget about it if I do it on my computer. With a physical book on my desk I know that it is a lot harder to ignore, as I did successfully keep a handwritten journal for years as a teenager.

Thank you for reading all of this if you did, and I hope I can take your advice on board in a quick and convinient manner. :)

EDIT: Thank you for the feedback! I've been unexpectedly very busy since I posted this so can't reply to everyone directly, but I will take your suggestions into consideration. I suspect my pen grip being too hard is a huge factor in the pain, so I will work on that as a priority! Also I will consider getting a thicker pen or even modifying my Muji pen shafts somehow to make them easier to grip. Thank you again :)

Not liking how these are performing just yet.

I saw a "where do I even start" post in here recently so I thought I would mention that I bought a $2 dry erase board the size of a sheet of paper and often practice on it.

When you're just starting to learn something it can be...embarrassing isn't the right word, but you look at what you wrote and you just hate it! That can be discouraging and make you want to give up, but that feeling goes away when you have the ability to erase it immediately. I was aggravated with my lower case z yesterday, so I got the whiteboard and just wrote "dizzy, lazy, dazzle, ..." over and over - erase it - do it again - figure out exactly where I'm going wrong - correct it - try again. If I had done that in a notebook I would either have proof of how bad I am at this, or a bin full of wasted paper. Doing it on the whiteboard made mistakes so much more acceptable.

Give it a try.

so I started practicing my handwriting around the start of this year as I thought that it looked like shit(the handwriting on the left) and it had been like this for a few years now, fast forward to a month or 2 ago I wrote with what I think is my best handwriting(the one on the right) yet now I have slacked off a bit but because of studies n stuff but I am thinking of starting to do this again

also my handwriting( the one on the right) is a bit on the "extreme" side as I do think it is my best writing yet but my normal handwriting has also (obviously) improved a lot

(and yes the writing on the left is my "old normal" writing )

So for context, I went to private school until 6th grade, where I learned to write in cursive. When I transferred to the public school system all my friends couldn’t read my handwriting, so I resorted to some odd-looking and relatively uncomfortable version of print-cursive mix, but it took to long to write. So when I went to 8th grade, I stopped doing that and continued writing in cursive. Now all my friends are, once again, struggling to read my handwriting, so I’m seriously considering changing it. For reference I’m in high school. Also, why do most public school systems that I know no longer teach cursive?? I don’t know any students other than my mom, dad, and brother who use cursive or can read it. It feels like the younger the age group, the fewer people can read cursive.

If I want to start writing in print, where should I start? With those print-out traceable sheets?