I have been complimented over the years on my penmanship.  When I was younger, I used to write long letters with a fountain pen – definitely a tool that will help improve your penmanship.

Now that most of my (little) correspondence is done via e-mail, I don’t sit down to write many letters.  At work, I write very little with pen – I spend most of my day at the computer; when I attend meetings, I scribble notes with a pencil (my preferred writing tool in the office for some reason…), or I make notes directly into Sharepoint.

As a consequence of this lack of practice, I sometimes don’t recognize my own writing when I am put in a position of needing to write something by hand.  For example, when I sat down to write my Christmas cards last month, I was appalled at my writing.  I write all envelopes by hand, and add a hand-written note inside the card, and I couldn’t believe how shaky my hand was, and how messy my writing was.

I was reminded of this again this morning, as I sat down to address an envelope for a card I’m sending to a friend.

I swear, I used to have nice penmanship.  I really need to write more, to get back into shape.  Where’s that fountain pen?