Vignette #3 (experimental stream of consciousness style...)

Penmanship: an On-going Odyssey

My mother had beautiful handwriting.  Even her everyday hand was pretty nice, and when she took her time, she could write just like the examplars in the Zaner Bloser handwriting books we used as kids.  (By the way, does anyone else remember those funky shaped blue and red Zaner Bloser mechanical pencils?  Loved those!)  Sometimes, to give us extra practice, Mom would write additional sentences and exercises out on our practice paper, in penmanship so perfect that it could almost have been typeface.  And back when she was in college, if friends had to miss a class, they often asked her to take notes, because they knew her handwriting was wonderfully legible.  My father, on the other hand?  Let's just say no one in their right mind would ask him to take notes for them.

Guess whose writing I inherited?

I managed to write more or less decently in school, but as time went on, my penmanship sort of...went feral.  As in...became truly appalling.  I could have been in the running for worst handwriting of all time.  Don't believe me?  I have proof.  Here's a scrap of a story I wrote for my little sister back around '02 or '03.



For years, I kept journals in this sort of chicken scratch.  I knew it was bad, but since I didn't do a whole lot of re-reading my journals, I just lived with it.

Then came my first NaNoWriMo, when I got back into fiction writing for almost the first time since high school.  I discovered that I liked writing by hand, and that I liked what I wrote by hand, and often found it easier to find the right words when writing by hand rather than on the computer.  Plus, I could write wherever and whenever.  Just one issue: interpreting my own handwriting later on was a painstaking, tedious chore, especially if I'd been trying to write fast.  Sometimes I had to paraphrase when transcribing, because I simply couldn't read my own writing.  Ludicrous.  That was also about the time I started getting into fountain pens in a big way, and it seemed shameful to write so horribly with nice pens.  I decided I had to mend my ways.

At first, I worked on writing more like I had in school: the Zaner Bloser style cursive I'd learned in grade school.  But then I came across mention of cursive italic writing, and--more specifically--a book called Write Now that provided instruction in this style of cursive.  It's less ornamental than some styles--pretty no-nonsense, really--and faster than printing.  Since my main goals were legibility and speed rather than anything fancy, it sounded like just the ticket to me.  I ordered the book, and began the process of completely revamping my penmanship.  I practiced whenever I could.  It was during a period when I was also moving across country, taking on many other new challenges.  I remember hotel rooms in Pennsylvania and Iowa, where I spread out Write Now and Clairefontaine paper (another new discovery) on unfamiliar tables to practice writing individual letters over and over again or copy out poetry.



It didn't exactly come easily.  I'm the sort of person who couldn't draw a perfect circle to save my life, and since I was fighting against years and years of muscle memory and bad habits, it was often frustrating.  And I admit, in the end, my day-to-day writing isn't even as good as the writing I did on those practice sheets.  I will never be one of those people with effortlessly beautiful penmanship.  But I did come out of it all with (in my opinion) a much more legible hand.  Here's a page from a current notebook, casually written at a good clip.



It isn't perfectly neat by any means, but I can read it!  Lately, though, I'm noticing some backsliding.  In particular I struggle (as I always have) with keeping the slope of my letters even.  Also I can get sloppy with the connectors between letters, which can make some words confusing.  With the new ink here to play with...I'm thinking it's time to return to handwriting boot camp for a bit.  My penmanship is still very much a work in progress.

Mini-Typecast, Lame Photo Update Just to Update

I'm getting a bunch o' ink samples, mostly Diamine.  It's my first time trying this service of theirs, and I'm pretty excited.

Speaking of inky things, this stuff is pretty awesome for a number of cleaning duties, one of which is getting ink out of the bathroom sink...

However, the lack of the apostrophe in the official name was driving me crazy...so I added one.

Lousy photo of today's fountain pen rotation: Bling (Pelikan M200, Noodler's Air Corp Blue-Black ink), Stealth (Lamy 2000, Noodler's Black), Click (Pilot Vanishing Point, Private Reserve Midnight Blues) and What The...??? (Rotring Core, Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses)

First Morning Bike Commute Complete

Here's hoping the ride home goes as smoothly!

Dabbling in Dipping

(Yes, I did a certain amount of smearing.)

I'm surprised by how much fun I've been having with these.  I'd come to think of dip pen nibs as incredibly scratchy things that caught the page at every opportunity, and wondered how on earth people used them routinely back in the day...but now I'm finding that while some (particularly the very fine and flexible sort) *are* fairly scratchy (particularly if used wrong), other points are smooth, and some (which I find myself preferring, actually) are somewhere in between: they "grip" the paper a bit more than your average fountain pen, making my handwriting a bit nicer, but don't snag.  And most nibs hold enough ink for a few sentences or even a paragraph.  

I'll stick with more standard writing instruments when I'm out and about or not in the mood, but dip pens are a lot of fun to use in a journal, when I have the luxury of taking my time, pausing now and then to dip and think.

Some Randomish Linkies: Sumi ink is traditionally used for brush calligraphy styles.  It typically comes in stick form and must be ground on an inkstone and water added to make ink for each use.  I find this very interesting!  The bottled liquid forms are newer and (I believe) somewhat scorned by serious brush calligraphists...but, in my opinion, far more convenient and more practical for pointed pen writing where one submerges the pen in the ink  (you *could* load the pen with a brush, but I'm not that ambitious).  The Moon Palace works great for my purposes.

I bought mine from John Neal Bookseller.  They have all *sorts* of goodies there.  Most are aimed at true calligraphers rather than those who want to play with dip pens for general writing, but still worth a look.  Speculator also recommended Paper Ink Arts as a source for many things pen and ink, and in my dip pen wanderings I see he's by no means the only one to point them out.  Their on-line catalog leaves something to be desired.  I hear their paper catalog is much better.  I plan to request it.

And one of these days I'm going to pick up some Winsor and Newton inks.

I also came across this very nice catalog of Esterbrook nibs with writing samples.  Fascinating!  It isn't all-inclusive, but a nice reference nonetheless.  I wish I could find a similar reference for other common brands, but no such luck so far.

Oh, and finally...though it may be a bit premature of me to make sweeping recommendations of eBay sellers, I had a very positive experience with this seller.   In addition to nibs, he sells beautiful rocker blotters, ink wells, and pen holders of all sorts.  There will probably be another purchase sooner or later.

Woe.

Scrambled pencast