I love cursive.
Mourning the Death of Handwriting, in Time.
I keep telling people that writing in cursive is therapeutic. When you write on a computer it’s faster, more efficient, direct to the point. When you write something longhand, you allow your mind to wander and then try to bring it back to the topic. It’s like going off on a riff then returning to the basic melody. Also, writing longhand and then typing it onto a screen forces you to edit and tighten up your work, and I don’t mean just the typos. You won’t believe the sloppy drivel that editors have to make sense of. It’s a good thing there are gun laws. A writer from the 60s once said of mediocrities, “Balian na ng kamay, baka magsulat pa yan.” (Better break their hands, they might write something.) Now they all have keyboards hahaha. They can write with their elbows.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
July 28th, 2009 at 04:33
Neil Gaiman writes everything in longhand because (among other things) it forces him to concentrate on the writing.
As for sloppy drivel that editors have to deal with, aspiring writers would do well to read the immortal (by net standards; 5 years and going strong) Slushkiller thread and its comments on Making Light.
July 28th, 2009 at 05:10
truth be told, I don’t know how to write using pen and paper anymore! when I needed to finish this half-page draft it seemed like stenography or a doctor’s note, you can see the laziness with all the shortcuts made
July 28th, 2009 at 08:45
Hey, you have a nice penmanship.
July 28th, 2009 at 13:06
I still write cursive when it’s personal notes or things that I don’t mind not being read by everyone else. My handwriting is properly indecipherable.
July 28th, 2009 at 13:08
writing longhand is writing for me. penmanship says a lot, really. whats more it preserves what is gradually deteriorating-culture.
July 28th, 2009 at 21:55
that notebook doesn’t have lines. i like it. where did you buy that?
July 29th, 2009 at 00:55
I keep a journal. I still write by pen(mostly expenses and occassionally appointments,family affairs or other urgent things.)Funny thing is,if I have to write something longer than two sentences I end up writing a-la text messaging, that is, I tend to write shortened words like in texting. I find it disturbing and I try my best not to do it. So far I haven’t succeeded.
September 29th, 2010 at 10:44
I see that your handwriting has kept to the curves and loops Ms. Botanes drilled to us. Mine has evolved into a print italic–looping and connecting only when convenient.
I think STC teachers reluctantly gave “S” grades to those whose only failure would have been penmanship. Needless to say, I hated the weekly announcements of who would move to ballpen use in Grade 3 homeroom class. Good penmanship was a social status. Ballpen users could be horrible at everything else since ballpen use evened everything out. We lesser mortals gazed longingly at the Reynolds and Scribblers in the stationery, surreptitiously buying them so they could languish permanently at the bottom of our bags.
So… in which quarter were you promoted to ballpen use in Grade 3?