Ask HN: Has your handwriting suffered from years on the keyboard? HN, It being the holiday season, I felt compelled to write some thank you cards. I was shocked to see how terrible my handwriting has become, both script and print. I'm a techie in my late twenties and wanted to see if I am the only one who's handwriting quality has been impacted. |
Doesn't help that I'm left-handed either.
I recommend you should check out http://medievalwriting.50megs.com as a good first step for inspiration.
OTOH, I find that the kinds of pen & paper I use have a significant effect on the quality of my handwriting.
A friendly biology teacher recognized my plight and helped me retrain my handwriting into something legible. It still isn't great, but at least I don't make that mistake anymore.
"Write Now" by Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay [1]
It is a workbook-style introduction to "italic" handwriting. I worked through it a few years ago and to this day my handwriting is still legible. (It was not prior; the learning process was triggered by the realization that consistently I could not read my own handwriting.)
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Write-Now-Complete-Program-Handwriting...
In fact my writing is so bad, I find it easier to type out a shopping list in notepad and print it out, than write it on a piece of paper. Why? Because if I write it on a piece of paper, I most likely won't be able to read all of it, when I actually get to the store.
I'm 26 and I know my writing isn't going to magically get any better with time. I've been looking for good material to help teach myself how to handwrite, but I haven't found much. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place (or not hard enough).
If anyone has any suggestions for improving my handwriting, I would love to hear them. (I saw the post about the "Write Now" book, and I'm definitely going to pick that up.)
The main point:
>People for whom writing comes more easily may rest their hands fairly heavily on the paper, but their forearms and shoulders move as they write. Their writing has a cadence that shows they’re using at least some of the right muscle groups. They don’t draw the letters with their fingers; the fingers serve more as guides.
Partly from lack of practice but also from RSI which gives me cramps :(
EDIT: I'm in my twenties too
Although the major sourceo f my problem comes from using a laptop on my knees.. so :(
On the other hand, I do all my brainstorming and to-do lists on paper (and occasionally whiteboard), so I don't think I'll ever be completely out of practice.
My signature is even pretty bad. My name is quite long so I tend to just initial everything - otherwise I feel like a dbag standing there trying to sign something for like 20 seconds.
And in school, all my in-class essays/assignments were printed, any other homework I would just type up.
I fear that like many of the skills we as people used on a daily basis, computers, automation and our 'convenience oriented' lifestyles are causing us to lose those skills like handwriting.
That being said, I have the ability to provide very nice handwriting, but it requires an obscene amount of time and it hurts my hand after a while.
Writing with a ballpoint, my handwriting gets worse. I've found that I need to use a fountain pen to keep it legible (as long as it stays dry) because those pens require more attention to angle/pressure/etc in order to write. The pen I use is a Namiki retractible, which entertains some folks.
If you type a lot but you also continue to write a lot, your handwriting will be a lot better than if you write a lot less due to keyboard use.
When I write patiently and big, it looks neat. And when I write small, it looks Times New Roman font gone wrong. :D
Once when delivering a letter to a person, I handed it over to his assistant and he said "you've got really good letters". And everytime I want to write neatly I think of that incident. Coz he's the only in my entire life who said my handwriting is good. :)
Woe is me? :P
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/30/livescribe-shows-off-leap...
The Apple Newton had two levels of Undo (with redo disabled, otherwise just one).
http://www.amazon.com/Sarstedt-Permanent-Plastic-Glass-Tubes...
I got it mainly because of the looks (most fountain pens tend to lean towards the ornate, if you get what I mean, while this one was exactly the kind of design I loved in matte black, exactly the color I wanted), the weight (since I have tremors, heavier pens help with writing) and the price (less than $100).
Since what everyone will be looking for in a pen will be different, maybe you could look online...but if there's a store near you that sells lots of different types of fountain pens, I really suggest going in person to try out a few, and to talk about what kind of pen you had in mind.
When I went to Flax (a local store in los angeles) I went there with a couple different pens I saw online in mind, but trying them out in person, I wasn't satisfied. I spent a while talking to the guy helping me, really stressing the weight and price point as being my main criteria for selecting one, and he pointed out this little beauty I didn't even know existed.
I like the G2s, I even still have one around for when the fountain pen would be inappropriate to pull out (one being my favorite color was green, so I got a dark green ink for it that I usually use over black), but this makes writing fun again :)
It is getting to the point I have to do something though.
i feel you on the bad habit thing, 20 days is all it takes to have a new habit, though.