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Does anyone else notice that the quality and nature of penmanship changes depending on the nib, pen, ink, and paper?? Here's a sample of my sloppy handwriting. Practice in progress. Rhodia Paper.

I occasionally have arthritis flare ups in my hands and fingers. With that, my normally "Business Palmer" cursive turns illegible. However, my printing is very legible and nicely spaced, but much slower than my cursive. It is enjoyable to me to write cursive and to slowly improve . . . .but. . . . I am wondering if it is within good etiquette to switch to print on some letter corresponding for this reason? Then, there might also be the fun challenge to improve my printing style as well which I've never done. Thoughts? Thanks you for you help and thoughts, jim ps: Some people have writing that looks more like printing or printing with flourishes than script and it can look great as well. But I have not tried that for corresponding.

Hello, Being a ballpoint generation and having used ballpoints since the first day I went to school, I had difficulty in transitioning to fountain pens. Loosening up the grip and using the whole arm movement were like learning how to walk all over again. In the end, I finally found what works for me, and hopefully this may be helpful to others who are having similar problems. Note that this is not the only way. I am pretty sure that others may have discovered various ways of holding fountain pens. Figure 1 shows how I hold ballpoint pens. The pen is held/pinched by the index finger and the thumb, and the pen rests near the first joint of the middle finger. Notice how much my index finger bends and how my index finger meets my thumb. When writing using this grip, I rely a lot on finger movements and downward pressure, both of which are unsuitable for writing with fountain pens. Figure 2 shows my fountain pen grip. First, notice that I slide my thumb position backward (Always remember to pull back your thumb when using fountain pens). Second. the pen is held by my middle finger and my thumb. The pen rests near the first joint of the middle finger and held in place by the thumb. The thumb is positioned slightly backward towards the rear. Third, the index finger simply rests on the pen. In fact, I can actually lift my index finger up and write (as shown in Figure 3). Forth, when writing, do not use any part of your palm as the pivot. Instead, use the fleshy part of your forearm as the pivot and let your arm move freely. When using this fountain pen grip, you will rely less on finger movement, and more on wrist and whole arm movement, which is the ideal according to Palmer. The only caveat is that you cannot use this grip when you need to exert downward pressure. So when you are writing using ballpoint pens or you need to write on carbon papers, you need another grip. I hope this helps.