The Hand Written Word

I get so bored with my own writing that I never really stick with blogs. This one hasn't been an exception. Anyway, I decided to make a list of things I wanted to do before my 27th birthday and keeping a blog every day for a week was one of the things. To avoid the whole "I don't know what to write about so I'll write about not knowing what to write about," I'm going to write about handwriting.

Keyboards are fantastic. The really are. I can write mass amounts of words in very little time. If I were to attempt the same volume in regular handwriting it would take an infuriating amount of time and my thoughts would get all backed up. When my writing thoughts get backed up I either lose track of where I was going or I go to write one word and the word I was thinking of in that moment makes its way out onto paper resulting in a mangled Frankenstein's monster of a word. Or a random word from a future sentence barges in all out of context. Those occurrences are fine if I'm writing with a pencil (erasers are fantastic too) but when a pen is involved the result is messy and awkward.

That being said, never underestimate the wonderfulness of a hand written communication. There's an art to even the most messy of hands with a pen or pencil. Or crayon. Or smudgy bit of charcoal. Or stick + sand combo. I've had my frustrations with nearly illegible handwriting. I recall a teacher once who used to give me handwritten notes on some of my writing and they'd always be nearly a paragraph long but I couldn't ever figure out the cipher for that teacher's script. 99% of the time I got full points so I just kind of....didn't worry about it. Which is terrible when you think about it because so few teachers ever bother with written feedback. Alas.

My thought continuity is a little scattered, it has been a long time since I wrote for any sort of audience besides myself or friends. Bare with me, I'm almost done. I'll even give you a picture at the end. I'd give you a cookie if it were possible but computers haven't progressed that far yet (one day...one day).

The wonderful thing about handwriting is (cliche though it may be) the personal touch. No one has writing just like yours. There may be similarities somewhere but it's just not the same. It takes longer to write something out by hand which means you've had to commit pen to paper as well as time. It shows care. It shows personality. If I ever have the occasion to write a love letter (Do people even do those anymore? I don't care, I would.) it'd be painstakingly handwritten. (And then probably set on fire so no one would ever read it, including the intended recipient).

I leave you with a picture of my handwriting. My pen to paper thoughts are even more disjointed than my keyboard to internet ones, enjoy. (Why does cursive get such a bad rap? I like writing in cursive. It's like writing in fancy.)