How can I improve my dreadful handwriting?

[Whirliwig72]

My handwriting has never been good but after years of minute taking at speed its now really, really dreadful - goes up and down all over the place with different sized badly formed letters and caps added in random places. Sometimes it causes real problems - my details get taken down incorrectly from forms etc. I'd love to send beautifully handwritten cards but unless I write really slowly using just the right sort of pen, my writing is pretty illegible.

My problem harks back to school I think ... rather than being taught beautiful cursive style like many of my peers, my primary school thought 'progressively' it was better just to arm us with Beryl fine-writers and let us get on with it.

Anyone re-taught themselves to write as an adult? or is writing style too engrained after childhood? I'm not really fussed about learning to write copperplate or anything i'd just like to have attractive clear handwriting.

I had to teach myself a new handwriting style when I was teaching in...I think it was Hampshire and they had a beautiful handwriting scheme across the whole county.

How long did it take you? Do you still write in that style now?

I think practice can help. Use lined paper, concentrate really hard on forming each letter properly. Get a sample of something you like, so you have something to aim for (maybe a computer font you like the shapes of).

Copy out texts you like, short poems etc. Practice on shopping lists, ttd lists etc.

If you want to really go back to basics, you could buy the exercise books they have for kids at the stationers, and trace over the letters.

My writing was going downhill at uni, and I had to concentrate really hard on getting it back to neat and legible. Now I write so seldom, it's not brilliant, but if I take my time, I can write quite nicely.

Good luck!

marking my place as terrible writer too.

How about doing a calligraphy course? Obviously, you can't go beautiful calligraphy for every bit of casual writing, but it does teach you how to hold a pen and to form and join the letters correctly. When I find bits of my old writing now, I can always tell whether they date from before or after my calligraphy course!

Thanks Mrs Meeple - great advice :) My dream handwriting is French cursive - like in the film 'Amelie' when she writes up the menu in the cafe!

Good handwriting is not calligraphy. I think the key to good hand writing is improving your visual perception and practice.

You could try the books
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1855033860/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

We used write from the start with my son and this book is supposed to be a more grown up version.

I have never tried it, but I have heard good recomendations for hand writing without tears.

What are your fine motor skills like in general?

Thank you Maud and Rainbow:) Isn't grip important? i notice when i'm stressed I hold the pen very tightly so writing feels really restrictive. I only write anywhere near nicely with a fine liner because the ink flows more freely.

Thanks RT - hmmm I can be a bit clumsy. I find things like sewing hard - getting all the stitches even.

Whirli I spent last year at uni in Paris and perfected my swirly twirly French writing. Nobody at my English university can read it now, so I've had to untrain myself sharpish...

Buy a lot of the pens you say you can write neatly in (for me it's the Uniball eye pens) and just go slowly. It doesn't matter how long you take (unless you are in an exam or something) so just practise.

Not long. Hours rather than weeks. I used the kids books. I do still write like that when I think about it as its nice handwriting.

Of course good handwriting isn't calligraphy but, as I said, the skills and techniques learnt in calligraphy can have beneficial knock-on effects for one's everyday handwriting.