5 ~ 7 Minutes
Becoming a Lefty
Or, how keeping trying can sometimes lead to an interesting result
I think it's fair to say the 2020 Lockdown gave a lot of people quite a bit of time to think inwardly. I know it did for me. And one thing I thought about at great length, was my Dyspraxia. A condition that controls everything I do. One night, whilst sitting at my desk, probably lost in thought over something meaningless, I asked myself "I wonder if my left hand is any better at this writing thing than my right?". So, one evening in June 2020 I picked up a pencil, and started writing.
What I wrote on the first evening.
At first the content of what I was writing did not really matter. I pretty much just copied out Wikipedia articles, or at least, until I got to the bottom of the page, as by that point my wrist was screaming in pain and tension. I really wasn't used to my hand doing all those fine motions. An image of what I wrote on the first day can be seen to the left, if on desktop, or above, if on mobile. It starts out mostly legible, but becomes increasingly hieroglyphic as you go down the page, moving into totally illegible for the last few lines.
My writing after nearly a month.
Nonetheless, I persevered with this "One page a day, from a randomly selected Wikipedia article" technique, for almost a month. My writing got increasingly neater, and my wrist became increasingly more comfortable with the movements. Around this time, it also became possible for me to write several pages in an evening, before my wrist entered into "actually too painful to even hold the pencil" territory - with my right hand, this usually happens after one or two A4 pages.
An image of how well I was writing can be seen to the right, on desktop, or above on mobile. It is plain to see that it is far more legible, and whilst there is a drop-off in quality towards the bottom of the page, it is not nearly as bad as it was 24 days prior - I numbered the pages, in the top right, to track my progress. There is also a very nice backward slant to the writing. As a scientist I do not subscribe to the notion of graphology. However, I do admit it has a nicer aesthetic to it than forwardly slanted writing.
Eventually, after a few more weeks, I decided it was time to graduate to a pen. And at the same time, a larger notebook - because the sample size of my practice was starting to feel rather limiting. Initially this felt strange, the different weight of the pen, the different thickness, the different shape, not to mention the different amount of pressure I had to apply to first make a mark on the paper, but also the different pressures I had to apply to then move it across the paper. It was hell. Even though I had just spent a month1 "learning to write again", with a pencil, I felt like I was going through that, all over again.
I'll spare you the sight of what my early "writing with a pen" was like, for the image displayed this time is probably of a page written about a year later, and in a different notebook. Still using the "randomly selected Wikipedia article" technique, of course, but now often spamming that button, for hopes of an interesting topic, or at the very least, a page with enough text in the uppermost section.
My writing after switching to a pen.
As can be seen though, my writing is easily legible, and whilst there are a lot of wobbles, and otherwise unstable lines, it is consistent in its style. The quality also does not drop, much, as the page continues, save for the last few lines where my hand falls off the bottom of the page, forcing me to alter my writing angle.
Over the next few months, I slowly and steadily transitioned away from random Wikipedia articles, because I felt the randomness of the words became a limiting factor in my practice. Due to my Dyspraxia I have limited short term memory, and when focusing so hard on a skill such as writing, I find myself unable to remember even a few words at a time. So when doing this I am essentially looking up at the screen, remembering the next two words, going back down to the page, positioning my hand on the paper, and writing those two words - often needing to glance back up at the screen to remind myself of the second word, if the first one is complicated, long, or unfamiliar to me.
It's fairly plain to see then, that this writing style is very stop-start, and never free-flowing. I can never get into any sense of flow, and every few words I am starting again, not very realistic. This of course, does not affect my free-writing, as there you are indeed thinking as you go, rather than copying down pre-written material.
Roughly what my writing looks like now.
However, I did still, on occasion feel a need to just copy down a single page, and this is what you see in the final image. But by this time I had upgraded my pen, from a ballpoint, to a fountain pen - having not used once since middle school, 15 years ago. I think the quality is pretty good, there are still some odd movements yes, but this is nothing that I don't always have with fine motor control.
Nearly two years on, I still practice, though not daily, and very rarely now a random article, but rather song lyrics, or poetry. I do this because I feel these types of writing are closer to reality, with repetitive words or sentences, and a less scientific, or absolute, lexicographical style. One day however, I do want to move into free-writing with my left hand2, to see what my writing is really like; whilst I am having to think both about how I am moving my hand, and what I am writing. I shall no doubt post an update whenever I reach this milestone.
As a result of this journey, my writing is now neater than it has ever been, and I am able to write several pages before cramping up. Not to mention having that uncanny ability to "just use the other hand", which I kind of had already through Dyspraxia, owing to my lack of a dominant hand, but now it's even more powerful. And I've managed to make even a few people envious. Imagine that, a Dyspraxic making other people envious through having better co-ordination? Crazy.