Comment by benrutter

Comment by benrutter 5 days ago

10 replies

Any tips for lefties? I find in very difficult to avoid complete smudgification of everything I write with a fountain pen, since it takes so much longer for the ink to dry.

elros 4 days ago

What I’ve seen being done before, not only by lefties but actually by quite a few people, is to shift your paper 45~90°, so that you’re effectively writing bottom up (right handed) or top to bottom (left handed). It can get a moment to get used to it but it alleviates the smudging significantly.

For what it’s worth, personally, I don’t like it so much, but I know people who swear by it; and had fast, clear, legible notes to back it up.

foo42 5 days ago

I write with my hand below the line to avoid smudging. A consequence of this is my pen meets the page at quite a shallow angle which I find is perfect for fountain pens but scratchy with ball points. These days I do very little hand writing and find my traditional pose (described above) causes hand cramps, but I don't know if that's specific to the odd way I write or if all poses would when so out of practice

  • graboid 4 days ago

    Did you learn that handwriting pose already as a child? If not, how hard was it to teach yourself writing that way?

nvader 4 days ago

I recommend using a sheet of tissue, napkin or old school blotting paper under your writing hand.

This advice is not just for lefties. Although I'm right-handed myself, I like to use a tissue paper under my palm when scribing Wedding Cards, to avoid smudges.

tenuousemphasis 5 days ago

Try writing right to left!

  • benrutter 4 days ago

    This is the kind of solution I'm looking for!

    Should I:

    - Write in mirror image form?

    - Learn to predict my line length so I can write right to left, but have the text read left to right?

    - Learn arabic or herbrew?

    I'm leaning towards all three personally.

    • Dilettante_ 4 days ago

      You're being facetious, but Da Vinci famously wrote mirrored script. If it's just for your personal notes and such, I feel this is actually the obvious smart solution, seeing as the flow of the writing will be aligned with the direction you're coming from.

    • rightbyte 4 days ago

      Writing with mirrored letters would be a awesome party trick.

      Counting line length before writing it seems harder to get fluent in than arabic or hebrew scripts...