I handwrite a lot and often get comments about it, so I thought I’d write a little something here. So usually at the end of a production, I’ll write a bunch of (mostly personalised) thank you cards to cast and crew, different departments etc. (93 for The Brothers Sun, 88 for Masters of the Universe etc. etc.); it takes absolutely ages, but showing appreciation to those I worked with and those who took care of me is really important to me.
I’ve always loved cursive handwriting; it’s just beautiful to look at. It’s an art form at the end of the day. I’ve been writing cursively for the last 30 or so years, it’s just a matter of refining it over time! It starts with knowing how to join your letters, before learning how certain letters will look different when written cursively (for instance a normal ‘f’ and a cursive ‘f’ look different)
I base my handwriting similarly to how you’d write music; I use the horizontal lines to structure the level of the letters.
Italicising the writing is just more comfortable in joining the letters together. Take the sentence ‘I think this is the best!’, I’ll start with ‘I’, then ‘think’, where I dot the ‘i’, loop it around to cross the ‘t’ and continue the line to start the ‘t’ in ‘this’, then dot the ‘i’ and loop it over the start of the next word, ‘is’, where I dot the ‘i’, loop it round and continue to start the ‘t’ in ‘the’. I’ll then cross the ‘t’ and extend it to start the ‘b’ in ‘best’, then cross the ‘t’ and extend it to form the body of the ‘!’.
Take another sentence, ‘I want to indicate that’, it’s only when I cross the ‘t’ in ‘want’ that I continue the line to start the ‘t’ in ‘to’, then write ‘indicate’. I’ll always dot the ‘i’ first before crossing the ‘t’; so I’ll dot the second ‘i’, loop it round to dot the first ‘i’, continue to cross the ‘t’, which then continues to start the ‘t’ in ‘that’.
The only time I don’t loop the ‘i’s or ‘t’s over the rest of the word is when there are ‘l’s in the word, like ‘illegitimate’, where I’d dot the last ‘i’, loop it over to dot the second, then the first ‘i’s. I don’t cross the ‘t’ with this continuous line because that crosses the ‘ll’s, which would make the word look like ‘ittegitimate’.
When I used to spend hours a day in the woods, I noticed that if you dug up the ground, all the roots of the trees would be connected. When you look up, a lot of branches at the top of each tree are also touching the branches of another trees. As such, my handwriting is somewhat inspired by the time I spent in nature, where the orientation is almost symbolised by a breeze. I love that I like that all the letters are connected in some way or form.
It all sounds a little complicated, it’s just how I’ve written for years; I find it forces me to be forward thinking and intentional with how I communicate my ideas when writing. As it’s an art form, I take my time to handwrite everything! If it’s rushed, it won’t be legible and won’t be art!
Here’s how the last paragraph looks:
On another note, at one point I was trying to learn how to write with my left hand, where I would write different words with both hands at once, in an ill advised way to make my time more efficient. So, I would write ‘Hello’ with my left hand and ‘how’ with my right, then ‘are’ with my left and ‘you’ with my right. In theory, I was certain that my piano playing and my ability to dual wield Kali sticks would help, but no; all it did was give me headaches!
Piano and dual Kali sticks have a harmonious coordination to them, whereas I was forcing my brain to divide a single linguistic sequence into two parallel streams, creating some kind of cognitive interference. I don’t think my hands were necessarily the problem, but rather the visual strain, concentration and muscle tension (not just in my hands, but probably my face too), especially trying to make the handwriting in my weaker hand consistent with the other, were probably the causes of the headaches...! My hands can move independently to one another but my brain can’t handle parallel handwriting processes particularly efficiently at the same time. Sad times. As such, I don’t do practice this anymore! ...I won’t ever be as cool as Ringo Yu in Iron Monkey, where he writes two separate medical prescriptions with both hands!
Even thinking about it gives me headaches…!
