Preface To Pen Pals On Paper...

Pen Pals On Paper - Book Project

A tribute to slow time, and the art of writing in the World of Paper...

While the world debates abandoning teaching cursive writing in a world of digital files and keyboards, this blog celebrates the art of writing by hand. Without the Digital World, this project is neither possible nor necessary. It is meant to be a beautiful marriage of both mediums.

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Pen Pals On Paper - Continued...

There are several reasons to retain cursive writing. We shall discuss that shortly. First, however, I would like to distinguis between "handwriting," and cursive penmanship.

While the term "handwriting" is often used interchangeably with "cursive writing," they are not the same thing. "Handwriting" also includes printing by hand. Cursive script is only cursive script. It is a distinct subset of handwriting.

Onward now we go, into the discussion of the reasons we may wish to retain the art of cursive writing...

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The Benefits of Cursive Writing In a Digital World:

• Fine hand-eye coordination; The act of writing by hand emphasizes fine motor skill pathways in the human brain. This ability can be useful for many tasks in life. It also may help enable any latent artistic talent for drawing and painting by hand.
• Uniqueness of style: Handwriting, both cursive and printed, are as unique to each individual as are fingerprints or iris patterns in the eye. In an era where most textual communication was done on hand-written letters or notes, the author of a message was easily identified by persons familiar to them.

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Benefits of Cursive - Continued...

People familiar with a writer would have years of reading a particular author's handwriting, and be able to recognize it at a glance.

• Distraction-Free Writing; Writing on paper has no "notifications." No computer program or "app" can make something pop up on a page in your notebook. If you set your phone on silent, place it screen-down on the table, and open your notebook, the only thing that can disturb you while writing is yourself, a visitor, or a disaster. You are much more likely to write down a well-thought-out and complete narrative than on a keyboard. 

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Benefits of Cursive Writing - Continued...

• Style and Aesthetics; In my mind, cursive writing on paper is more beautiful than fonts on a computer screen. You are seeing writing that took a person years to develop the skill to do. It is unique, and also has an ability to convey context that digital fonts lack. You can tell if a writer was rushed, for instance. Their writing will become sloppy and cramped. There is a quick and easy freedom to adapt writing on-the-fly. [small drawing of a house-fly] It is easy to insert "special characters," or small illustrations. It makes a form of artistic [symbolf for "cents"]. Writing in cursive is a graceful art inherently designed for the human eye.

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The Down-Side of Cursive Writing...

Simply-put, handwriting can't currently be hyperlinked. You can't click on paper and go to a different topic.

Replication isn't an issue for cursive script. Digital scanners and facsimile ("fax") machines have been with us for a very long time.

It's really the [in-]ability to link to other documents from within writing on paper that the Digital World looks down upon. Yet, is that really such a detriment? I would argue that in many cases, the lack of links in a paper document is actually a benefit.

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Why Hyperlinks Are Often a Detriment to the Reader...

• Distraction-free reading... Hyperlinks entice the reader to abandon the very subject they came to a given document to learn of. Links in the body of a text are like land mines to thorough reading. Following them in mid-text leaves the original subject incompletely-learned. It leads to "subject-hopping." I see this as akin to, but much more damaging than "channel-surfing" on television. Reading comprehension and depth-of-learning would be far-better served if hyperlinks were confined to footnotes or an appendix at the end of a document.

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How Can We Marry The Benefits of Hyperlinking With the Readability  of Paper Documents?

• By writing documents, scanning them, and embedding them in a digital compilation with a well-hyperlinked appendix.

I fully realize that this is more effort than most modern writers are willing to undertake. Learning the handwriting of a new author may also be more than some readers are willing to do. Yet what does that really ay about our culture, and [about] us?  Perhaps that we have been conditioned to value the fast, the shallow, and the mass-produced over the patiently-crafted. You must decide for yourself...

Dan Stafford  10-14-2017

Cursive Writing Chart - A "Rosetta Stone" For Cursive Writing...

Cursive writing is about both beauty and efficiency.

Aesthetically, cursive writing is a more ornate script, asnd if done well, it is more pleasing to the eye. Practicing *slowly* helps develop better readability, otherwise known as "penmanship."

What it does for efficiency is that cursive writing reduces the need to lift the pen off the paper as you write. This increases writing speed. It also reduces ink splotches and smears. That was incredibly important before ball-point pens were invented.

Dan

Example Letter Number One

Welcome to the Pen Pals Book Project!

The project concept was created by Dan Stafford. Contributing authors are from the Poetic Constellations poetry board.

This project is intended to come up with a book for younger readers that captures the feel and life facts of the paper era of our recent past. Days when, if a friend moved away, you only had the postal service to keep in touch. Phone calls were rare and expensive. Television was limited, and Summer seemed unlimited. No internet. No constant distraction.The street lights coming on was your signal to go home and get indoors, but until then, the outside was all yours...

The intention is to have writers of the era pair up, and write Pen Pal letters back-and-forth to each other as they would've back then. If your friend had moved away and you'd kept in touch. Be twelve or thirteen again, or even ten. Write to your friend about what would have been the big moments in your life at that age, or just the every-day things that were going on in your childhood.

Can you put your mind in that place? Can we bring the reader into another era? There's only one way to find out...

Example Letter One - 15 years old:

Text:

Dear John,               July 8th, 1977

It was an interesting Fourth of July.

Mom took all three of us camping at Devil's Lake near Madison, WI. We had brought a bunch of fireworks for the Fourth. My brother Jeff and I got into a roman candle fight! We were shooting the roman candle fireballs at each other from across the campfire, and laughing our heads off!

No one got burned, but it probably was a good thing that we were right next to a whole lake full of water!

We spent the whole day on the fifth swimming in the lake. Literally all day. We only got out for lunch.

Mom's friend Ginny and her kids Brian and Brooke were there too. There was a small cliff we were jumping off of, but it was only about one story tall.

That's not the funniest part, though!

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Page 2

There was a whole camp full of nudists on the other end of the lake. One of the ladies was floating naked on an air mattress asleep out on the lake. Mom and Ginny wanted me to swim out there and tip her over!

Haha! I almost did it. I swam pretty close, but I just didn't have the heart to dump her in the water. I didn't see anything except her butt, though. She was sleeping face-down.

I slept pretty good after that.

The rest of the month has just been normal so far. I'm reading a great book. It's called "Skylark of Valeron" by E.E. "Doc" Smith. Totally epic science fiction, of course!

So what have you been doing? How is your family? Any new friends yet?

Your friend,

Dan