"Hard wristing."
After last Friday’s Sideboob about buying things I don’t need, specifically a single-use digital notepad (the reMarkable2) I thought it’d be a wheeze this morning to try writing a blog post, long hand, on my iPad. A spendy little piece of kit I already own.
Spoiler alert.
This post was not written long hand.
There are many options for writing on the fondle slab, and I do have a stylus for that. But I ran into a couple of deal-breakers.
One, the stylus and software are terrible.
Two, my handwriting is worse.
Together, they produce laughable outcomes like translating ‘handwriting’ to ‘hard wristing’.
It’s a pity because I actually wouldn’t mind slowing down a bit and doing some longhand writing. I recall that when I was putting Leviathan together, and I’d hit a section that gave me a bit more trouble than usual, I’d grab some scrap paper from the waste basket in the library and work my shit out with a pen or pencil. It always worked.
But it’s been so long since I wrote regularly with a pen that I fear my handwriting is forever shit now.
I use an off-brand version of the remarkable and it has changed my life (for the better). But I don't use it any longhand to text conversion feature.
It's fantastic for not having a pile of notebooks with no sorting function. Instead there are folders of subjects and individual notes with subject headings. That has been enough for me to be massively more organised and appear to be a fully functional operative in my area.
My handwriting was legible but kind of ugly.
One history school teacher wrote, “w’s poor handwriting militates against optimum performance.” And he used to mark me down significantly because of it, the bum!
I was randomly working with a chap who had a degree in Education. He said to me, you started school young.
I did. I started grade one on my 5th birthday.
How did you know that, I asked.
From your handwriting, he said.