Another N00b with a couple questions

**Downhill Specialist** · February 22nd, 2019, 05:40 AM

Hello there, fountain pen enthusiasts.

I am very new to all this and picked up my first fountain pen last week. I say picked up, a friend of mine who is more experienced than me gifted me a Lamy Joy with the 1.1 nib for my birthday last week and a couple days later, I chose a Studio for it's combination of looks, feel and price point as I am very new. My handwriting is a shambles. It really is terrible and I would love to improve it. I have been practicing every day and eating on line and I know it is a VERY long process before I start to see difference, but if I continue to practice what I do so far, I may just be reinforcing bad habits. So does anyone have any tips on where to start? All my adult life I have written in uppercase so it can be legible. I see so much beautiful handwriting on here and the web and I would love to just have, at the least, beautiful writing, regardless of printed or cursive. Mine just looks very shaky, whether I take my time and slow down or write at what has been my normal speed.

Please help.

**Chrissy** · February 22nd, 2019, 05:43 AM

Hello and welcome to FPGeeks.

Congratulations on your new pens. For help with writing you should start in the Creative Side set of fora: Creative Writing, Help and How to maybe?

**Downhill Specialist** · February 22nd, 2019, 05:51 AM

Originally Posted by Chrissy

Hello and welcome to FPGeeks.

Congratulations on your new pens. For help with writing you should start in the Creative Side set of fora: Creative Writing, Help and How to maybe?

Oh, perfect. Thanks for pointing me in the WRITE direction. (sorry)

**jar** · February 22nd, 2019, 06:11 AM

**Morgaine** · February 22nd, 2019, 10:02 AM

Hello and welcome. A fountain pen keeps my handwriting on the opposite side to illegible (or at least I hope it does).

**Anne** · February 22nd, 2019, 06:37 PM

Welcome

**Wahl** · February 25th, 2019, 01:02 PM

**azkid** · February 26th, 2019, 11:46 AM

Welcome! Just saw this type of question on Reddit.

Anyway, my mom had really amazing handwriting and she told me how they would do lots and lots of writing drills in school like repeating loop letters or i or things like that. I guess to build muscle memory and consistency.

I have tried some of that but I'm not sure how much it has helped.

I found it helpful to practice letters I had trouble with. I always struggled to write lowercase r properly. Last year i practiced it the correct way slowly and then sped up until I had the basic muscle memory down.

Then I wrote words with r in them over and over to get better at transitioning. For example, I had trouble with "br" so I would write 'brown' or 'abrupt' repeatedly. I definitely saw improvement within a week. I was also able to mostly train myself to write Q in a nicer way than I originally learned. And with practice my D looks much better.

I still struggle some letters more than others. I tend to close my e loops, my f has a sharp point at the bottom, and so on.

My biggest problem is consistent height of letters and their features. I keep meaning to come up with a custom ruled worksheet to help me practice consistency. I don't really see how else to fix it.

Also I do write more legibly with some pens than others. Probably sticking to one of those, exclusively, for awhile would be better than switching pens a lot.

**Bisquitlips** · March 2nd, 2019, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by Downhill Specialist

Hello there, fountain pen enthusiasts.

I am very new to all this and picked up my first fountain pen last week. I say picked up, a friend of mine who is more experienced than me gifted me a Lamy Joy with the 1.1 nib for my birthday last week and a couple days later, I chose a Studio for it's combination of looks, feel and price point as I am very new. My handwriting is a shambles. It really is terrible and I would love to improve it. I have been practicing every day and eating on line and I know it is a VERY long process before I start to see difference, but if I continue to practice what I do so far, I may just be reinforcing bad habits. So does anyone have any tips on where to start? All my adult life I have written in uppercase so it can be legible. I see so much beautiful handwriting on here and the web and I would love to just have, at the least, beautiful writing, regardless of printed or cursive. Mine just looks very shaky, whether I take my time and slow down or write at what has been my normal speed.

Please help.

Glad you are with us! Welcome!

I would start with Spencerian script if that is the way you think you would like to take. Here is a good set of guides and workbooks that will get you started.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/08...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Again.... Welcome aboard! Reach out if you have any questions!