Ask HN: My penmanship has gone to shit, what can i do? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: My penmanship has gone to shit, what can i do?

I've been sitting at a computer for way too long. My handwriting used to be clean with style. I have lost it. It's starting to bother me. I have been writing more but I am disgusted with the results. What can I do to get my penmanship back? I am seriously considering hitting up Amazon for some grade school penmanship practice guides but will this retrain my style?

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I am a big fan of this:

http://www.handwritingsuccess.com/write-now.php

I had no penmanship, and I had to print in order to write anything legible. I went through the book, and I now have a usable and readable cursive style, which looks much better than my old printing style. I'm not an artist, so it's not pretty, but it's readable and efficient.

Bonus: the entire book is hand-written in the style that it teaches.

My parents bought me the books from Getty and Dubay when I was a kid to improve my handwriting. I had a terrible time with legibility in 1st and 2nd grade, and they were adamant I improve. I haven't kept up with it as I should have, and this post is a reminder to myself to do so, but even today my signature and printing style are heavily influenced by italics.

I recommend Write Now also.

I've been trying to re-learn cursive for about the past 6-7 years and am still not thrilled with it. I find that I tend to try to write too fast, and this makes it sloppy. Something about the connection between brain and paper has been accelerated by typing. When I am able to slow down my writing, so that more thought goes into each word, it looks good. But practice, practice, practice!

Also, try different pens and different paper. I write better with "rolling ball" pens, the kind where ink just sort of flows out of them, rather than cheap ballpoints where you have to press down on the paper. But cheap paper causes the ink to bleed and look messy.

Thanks for the comments and book recommendations. After some digging around I found an interesting read. http://www.paperpenalia.com/handwriting.html

Apparently, I need to re-train my muscles, rework everything and then practice. I guess I now have a New Years resolution and goal for 2015. FML!

Try writing more at least everyday to regain your old penmanship, this is what I do and it helps to a certain degree. Im not sure taking penmanship guides would teach you anything you don't already know?

I thought I was alone in this because I've noticed over the last 10 years my handwriting has become horrible!

One thing that helps me is using ultra-fine felt-tip pens. They have a touch more friction than ballpoint pens. Obviously, they aren't magic, but when I revisit my notes a week later (I use a combo of org mode and notecards to plan my work), I can actually read them.

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