National Handwriting Day

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It's National Handwriting Day! I know you're excited! Did you even know there was such a thing? January 23rd was so designated in 1977 by The Writing Instruments Manufacturers Association (that's pens and pencils to us) because January 23rd was the birthday of John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence.

 

And why should we care, you ask? Lots of reasons. Writing by hand rather than on a keyboard improves your fine motor skills and your reading comprehension. It's calming, it's fun, and it improves your spelling and your knowledge retention. If you want to memorize a poem (Amanda Gorman's THE HILL WE CLIMB, perhaps?), write it down. I also find that my brain just processes things differently, and making notes in longhand can really give me a creative boost. It's lovely to be able to send someone a handwritten card or note, too, as it expresses sentiments in a way typed words never can.

Even though I'm a crazy fan of fountain pens and journals, I've never been happy with my handwriting. Having heard me complain about it too many times, my friend Gigi Norwood gave me two handwriting books for Christmas! I've now learned the difference between italic cursive and Zane-Bloser cursive (probably the lettering you were taught in elementary school.) I don't have aspirations to learn calligraphy, just to have my writing look nicer and be more legible, so I shall practice!

 

 

I'm right-handed but don't slant to the right, which you are apparently supposed to do. I don't join a lot of my letters, and I don't form them consistently. Lots of room for improvement!

REDS, do you like your handwriting? Do you write anything these days by hand? (I'm the only person I know who actually writes out grocery lists…) Do you write any notes or parts of your novels by hand? And what do you think your writing says about your personality?

RHYS BOWEN: I like my writing if I have time, such as five words inside a birthday card. I am a fan of sending cards and thank you letters ( British upbringing!). But if I’m writing something in which I try to keep up with my brain my writing is illegible. I still celebrate the day computers were invented. Being able to type as fast as I think is wonderful. 

 

I think it’s sad kids are not taught cursive any more. My youngest grandkids can’t actually read some of the notes I write in cards

JENN MCKINLAY: At the end of every book, I write a short breakdown of the events of every chapter. I’m doing it right now with Killer Research (Nov 2021). I like the methodical pace of writing it down and adding bits and pieces to make sure all of the threads are woven in tight and I haven’t changed any pertinent facts during the long unwind of writing the book. 

And I love handwritten notes. I treasure the ones I’ve received from loved ones who’ve passed away. It’s like having a piece of them with you. You can feel a real connection to a note that a person has written in their distinctive style. Penmanship has a personality all its own, I think.

HALLIE EPHRON: When I was in 6th grade, I remember endlessly practicing cursive writing and trying to earn a “Penmanship certificate.” Still, my penmanship is slapdash. My husband describes it as chicken scratchings, and for the longest time we had a New Yorker cartoon on our fridge--a man in the supermarket calling his wife on his cell, trying to decipher a shopping list and asking where he was supposed to find “a dozen hamsters.” 

But as part of my writing, I do a lot of drawing and list making and, like Jenn, outlining. Here’s a map I drew of the house in CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. It was important to remember where the upstairs bedroom window was relative to the driveway and the bulkhead door to the basement, and how you got from the bedroom to the basement (through the kitchen). For every book I need a floor plan of a house and sometimes a neighborhood.

LUCY BURDETTE: I do write thank you’s and cards to people, and this summer wrote many many postcards to voters. But the process feels SO SLOW. I no longer write parts of a book draft by hand, unless I’m somewhere without my computer. Even then, I’ve gotten more likely to dictate notes into my computer, which works pretty well. The only other thing I almost always write out is my to-do list. If I put that into a computer, I lose it instantly. Best to have it on the desk looking at me!

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, yes, Lucy, I also rely on a handwritten to-do list. It’s always by my side. (Here’s a page of the current one.) And sometimes I can even read it. 

My handwriting problem is two-fold. One, back in my Beatle days, I dumped my carefully learned Palmer method, because I had decided it would be cooler to write like a British schoolgirl, all square and straight and careful, not loopy and slanted and American. As a result, my handwriting became illegible. 

Then, add to that, years of writing as fast as I possibly could to take notes as a reporter. I can write REALLY fast. And usually I can read it. (For some reason, the words I can’t read are the ones that are obviously the most important. Like: don’t forget! Caoifhaoiha)

 

I now get emails from readers asking me to translate the inscriptions I’ve written in their books. Truly, honestly, sometimes I can’t figure them out.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I enjoy writing by hand: I do it for to-do lists, cards and letters, grocery reminders, etc. I had at least one child at Bishopswood summer camp from 2001 to 2016, and  tried to write to each one once a day, even if only a postcard. They were required to write back (at least once a week, or no lunch!), as well as hand-write thank-you notes. Unlike most contemporary Millennials, mine were taught cursive, thanks to their parochial school education. Youngest was in public school from 4th grade on, but they had returned cursive to her school, and she has practiced her penmanship because, as I said, “You’re going to have to hand-write those thank you cards to your major donors. (She has political aspirations.)

 

As for me, I‘ll echo Rhys - my writing is good IF I’m not too rushed. Even in a hurry - say, taking notes at a lecture - I still can’t understand the logic of only teaching printing. It’s faster to write cursive. Okay, maybe no one else will be able to read my class notes, but at least  didn’t miss half the seminar trying to print T-h-e T-u-d-o-r  m-o-n-a-r-c-h-y...

 

DEBS: Out of curiosity, are any of us left-handed? Does anyone else write with a fountain pen?

 

READERS, how's your cursive? Do you enjoy writing in long hand?

 

Oh, and you can see I'm going to have a cursive practice partner pretty soon!

 

She really rocks her Ms and Ws!

P. S. Extra points for anyone who can guess which book the opening lines in my sample are from?

The Write Stuff

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yes, I know Jonathan and I have a funny and unusual life. The other day, I was in a cab on the way to a library event, when Jonathan called me on my cell. He was trying to decipher the handwritten notes I'd made on the draft of his opening statement in a murder case.

I can't read your handwriting, he said. (Here's a photo of it.)

Yes, indeed, my handwriting is --well, incomprehensible. I write thank you notes and people say--I got your note. What does it say?

(Decoding the above: The C (commonwealth) wants you to believe Mr. H and Mr. P shot and killed Mr. R, and they are going to shower you with what they will try to convince you is...) 

Now, I know schools have stopped teaching cursive handwriting--a move I cannot believe.

In that same cab,  I said to the driver--did you take handwriting in school? 

He said no. It was too difficult,  and we all hated it, so they stopped teaching it.

How do you sign our name? I asked.

I just hook the letters together, he said. We learned what they call...  He paused.

Printing? I said.

Yeah. Printing.

Reds? Thoughts? (And if you have a handwriting sample--let's see it!!)

HALLIE EPHRON: My handwriting is so atrocious my husband insists on rewriting shopping lists. Printing is no better. And they taught cursive writing when I was in school - I even earned a "penmanship certificate." The older I get the worse it gets. This is a challenge when I interview someone for research. If I don't transcribe my notes within 24 hours I simply have no idea what I've scribbled.

So here's an example. This is a note I took recently interviewing a friend whose mother was a doll collector. (I think my next book is going to be something about dolls. Creepy dolls, of course.) I challenge anyone to figure out what it says. Hint: She was telling me about a doll her mother's hair dresser gave her when he closed his shop. It stood in his shop window at Christmas-time.

Decoding the scribble: A SANTA CLAUS SING ROCK AROUND XMAS TREE RED VELVET SUIT AND SWIVELS HIPS

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I have terrible handwriting and have always had a real complex about it. I think I must have made Cs in cursive writing in elementary school, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Maybe it's poor eye-hand coordination or motor skills or something...  I've never stopped envying people who can write a beautiful, flowing cursive script in journals and letters. That said, I do write by hand, all the time, in cursive, not printing. Printing is so laborious--no wonder people who can only print want to text or type all the time. Here's a garden list, and some book notes.

Debs! This is completely legible. And fascinating, how there are no corrections.....

And there is something special and unique, I believe, about the way our brains work when we write by hand that can't be duplicated with a keyboard. I do a lot of my brainstorming/idea jotting in notebooks, for instance. So if they stop teaching cursive in schools, will our brains lose another bit of wiring?  A very scary thought.

Something weird? In business college I made an A in shorthand.

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: I have fairly terrible handwriting, even though I remember studying it—with the practice paper with two solid lines and the one dotted line down the middle—in first grade. As an adult, my handwriting has gotten worse and worse. I was a little disconcerted to realize the kiddo would not be learning it in school (he prints and has perfected a scribbly signature), but, yes, he'll probably be using keyboards, so.... 

I recently bought a fountain pen though, inspired by novelist Kim Fay, mostly for the romance of it. [Of course I'm not using it yet, because I need to pick up ink — one of the many things on my (typed and on my smart phone) to-do list.]

Generally I just type right into the laptop when I write, but I do use yellow legal pads and pen when I'm outlining. Like Debs, I think there's some sort of connection to our more emotional selves. Or something....

Here are some of my notes for THE PRIME MINISTER'S SECRET AGENT :

HANK: Oh, let's see Mattie's writing--er, whatevering.

SUSAN: Okay, here's a thank you note Mattie wrote today to novelists Carole E. Barrowman and her brother, John Barrowman (aka Captain Jack of Dr. Who fame), for their gift of an autographed copy of their novel, HOLLOW EARTH.)

HANK: He is hilarious! (Did I mention..hilarious?) (We need to do a blog about thank you notes!)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I'm a big believer in nice handwriting. I'm glad they taught it at my kids' parochial schools, although in my son's case (left-handed and with small-motor challenges when he was small) it didn't take. My girls have a good hand, when they try. I think I was inspired by my grandmother and my mom. My grandmother Greuling had that classic Palmer penmanship they taught back in the first decades of the 20th century, when almost everything had to be written by hand. I don't know if my mother had it from her mother or from good teachers, but she has handwriting that is lovely, legible, and also distinctly hers.

I can understand the schools dropping penmanship - there are a lot of subjects to be taught and lets face it, our children and grandchildren will spend more time typing and texting than writing. On the other hand, I can't imagine getting through college and law school without cursive. Done correctly, it's both readible and extremely fast. If I had had to block print my class notes, I'd still be a 2L.

LUCY BURDETTE: You all had better let me and Julia write the ransom notes if we're kidnapped...I can't believe they aren't teaching kids to write by hand any more. What about thank you notes? Emails and texts, I'm sorry, do not match up. I can remember the lined paper--I had trouble with the tall looping letters like h's and p's. And Debs is right--when I'm stuck somewhere waiting without a computer, I often take a pad of paper to work on book in progress. It's amazing what comes up on the paper... Here are some notes:

Wait--I can totally read this, Lucy!

RHYS BOWEN: Isn't it interesting that many of us have less than stellar handwriting?

 Perhaps great creativity equals poor handwriting, OR our brains rush so far ahead that our hands scrawl, trying to keep up. I've tried taking handwritten notes for my books and often can't read my own notes. I make John a shopping list and he calls me to say "Did you mean beets or leeks?"  

"Peas" I reply.

So if any of us were ever captured and held hostage and could get out a note with a friendly carrier pigeon we'd write "Help. I'm a prisoner in the old clock tower."  And nobody would understand us.

HANK:  True! Remember that Woody Allen movie where the bank robber hands the teller a note--and the teller reads out loud: "Huh? You're saying--I have a GUB?"

Reds--where are you on the hand-writing spectrum? And the Hank-book of your choice to one lucky commenter!