My flipcharts, when I have time to prepare them properly, are manuscript lettering with shading, and attractive bullet points. Marker colors are coordinated from page to page.
Why is this part of my Invisible Tattoo? Well,
A. My father had a distinctive, elegant handwriting. Perfect Palmer method, actually. The words made even more significant by his bold strokes. It was as if you could hear his sonorous voice coming off the page.
I have pages and pages of his sermon notes--he kept pen and paper on his bedside table to capture thoughts that the Holy Spirit gave him during the night. [By the way-tongue in cheek-the formula for a good sermon is three points, a poem, and a deathbed scene.] So many of the notes contain a topic and three alliterative words to represent the points of a sermon.
B. I have a Brother who is three years older than I. He was three years ahead of me in school. When I was five, he'd come home from school and ask, "What's 2 + 3?" And I'd answer, "What's a 3?" And, of course, his reply would be, "You're stupid!"
So, one day he brought home his "real writing" book. It was a paperback complete with practice pages for manuscript and script letters and words. I took that book and went my "office" which was the space where the chair fit under my daddy's rolltop desk. I'd take the book and manuscript sheets--you know the ones with the two blue lines separated by a dashed red line where the lower case letters were supposed to reach--and practice my "real writing."
The first word I learned to write in "real writing" was Rex, from the title of one of my brother's comic books, Rex, the Wonder Dog. Over and over until the "R" was tall and rounded. Over and over until the "e" looped in a perfect oval, and the cross on the "x" came in a straight diagonal line through the center of the roller coaster squiggle, and both letters touched the red dotted line every time, every time.
In addition to practicing on paper, I wrote on the window sills in my room and on the wood adjacent to the keys on the family piano. You can imagine how my stock soared with those antics!
Then I began first grade. And while the other students labored over their manuscript alphabet, every single day (including Saturday and Sunday) I wrote:
Dear Miss Riser,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Love,
Paula
As the years passed, I added more tricks to my handwriting repertoire. Instead of doodling in class, I filled page after page with upper and lower case letters. I learned to write all the lower case letters in script without lifing my pen from the paper. And the piece de resistance - writing the lower case letters in script BACKWARDS without lifting my pen from the paper.
I'm certain that my obsession with writing also contributed to my obsession with lovely paper and quality writing instruments. I have an endless supply of stationery, writing paper, sketch pads, notebooks, journals, accompanied by pencils and pens with just the right weight, just the right color/pattern, just the right ink, just the right point/nib. I'm pen and paper poor! (Although, you'd be proud to know that I gave or threw away a boatload of paper/stationery as I packed for the move Here.)
I've read that in order to become a master at anything--concert pianist, composer, golfer--it takes 10,000 hours of practice. If that is true, no wonder my handwriting is good.
What does it matter? Who cares? Well, my daddy did, and making him proud of me was one of the chief aims of my life. And, I care--it's a matter of personal style to make someone's name (their most important treasure) distinctive and beautiful.
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