OK, so I'm playing around with this Write Now book, and I filled in the "before" personal handwriting sample. It says to write in my everyday handwriting. The lines on the page are for 4-mm x-heights. There is just no way my everyday handwriting has a 4-mm x-height! So I wrote out the next lines using my real everyday handwriting, and I saw that I have a 2-mm x-height. (The sample shown below was written with a Namiki "fine" round nib

Given that I really want to go to Italic cursive, and the x-height should be 4 or 5 nib heights, that means my nib needs to be 0.4 to 0.5 mm in size. Will that even work? Will the ink flow so rapidly that there won't be any variation between thick and thin? (I use Noodler's Polar Black ink).

So, any advice? Do I just resign myself to writing larger?

--Rob

It may be that after following a handwriting course your writing might come out average size after all.

EDIT: Misunderstood your post. You do not need to get an italic nib to learn italic writing. Keeping your own pen should be perfectly acceptable.

If you do get an italic nib, you will have to write about twice as large, or maybe more.

The first 2/3 of the WRITE NOW book assumes that you use any pen/cil — the last 1/3 introduces the Italic pen, but makes clear that you can treat this as an option.
In any case:

/1/ though Italic ideally uses a 5-pen-width x-height, many proficient Italic-users — now and in Renaissance times — have preferred to write it with a 4-pen-width or even 3-pen-width x-height. (Note that these shortened x-heights require slanting the letters more, in order to keep them from looking unduly squat and dark.) Many Italic-writers have tended to reserve the "pure" 5-pen-width x-height variety for rather slow, formal work, and use the 4-pen-width or even 3-pen-width versions for more rapid, informal writing (where they would tend to slant a bit more anyway) — for more on this matter, see the introduction and other explanatory material in the late Fred Eager's THE ITALIC WAY TO BEAUTIFUL HANDWRITING: CURSIVE AND CALLIGRAPHIC. (Mr. Eager used a shortened x-height for his less-formal "cursive" Italic, and a full 5-pen-width x-height for his more-formal "calligraphic" Italic. This book of his begins with the "calligraphic," then introduces the "cursive," then alternates between the two.)

/2/ *whatever* the size of your writing, you can obtain (or grind, or have ground) an Italic nib that allows 5 pen-width to the existing size of your writing. Italic EF (extra-fine) nibs may do it for you — so may Richard Binder's "cursive Italic" nibs. Or do as I have done for (and recommended to) small writers who wanted an Italic nib: follow the do-it-yourself pen-grinding instructions given in the appendix to the above-mentioned THE ITALIC WAY TO BEAUTIFUL HANDWRITING: CURSIVE AND CALLIGRAPHIC. These instructions teach, step by illustrated step, how to take a non-Italic fountain-pen and grind it into an Italic fountain-pen for the same size of writing. (NOTE: don't do your first few "conversions" on your favorite pen: start with some old Wearevers or whatever else you won't mind messing up as you learn.)

Kate, thanks for the info -- I also let Richard know my concerns, and he says he grinds the nibs so that the flow is proper. So I'll be ordering a nice, 0.4 mm crisp italic nib for my VP -- crisp rather than cursive because I think I'd like a lot of contrast in thickness. And if I'm wrong, well, I'll just add yet another nib to my collection

I've worked through the first part of Write Now, up to the numerals (see image below, 3 mm x-height). While the writing is alien to get used to because it's so different from my evolved style, it is also very pretty to look at, so I'm convinced that this is the way to go!

Interestingly, I've found (as noted on another post somewhere) that I tend to press hard on the paper when concentrating on the letter-forms. Hopefully as I grow more sure, I won't be using a lot of pressure.

--Rob

If you press really hard, you might want (at least for a while) to go with the Striker pencil (mentioned in another thread here as an Italic pencil) rather than with a pen.
Though the Striker has a very wide lead, the rectangular shape of that lead means you can turn the pencil a bit in your hand and write with the NARROW end of the rectangle — as narrow as most fountain-pen nibs .... in effect, with the Striker you not only get an Italic pencil, you get two Italic pencils in one! (I should have mentioned this in my post on the Striker, but sadly forgot to add a note of this ultra-cool feature because the phone rang right before I finishd my Striker message).

If you don't feel "write" using a pencil in a book as nice as WRITE NOW, go for one of the markers made specially for Italic handwriting: e.g., the Pentel Italic Fountain marker (discontinued in the USA, but still made in the UK and sold through eBay in a couple of nib-widths) or the Sakura Pigma Graphos marker (made in 1.0mm, 2.0mm, and 3.0mm nib-widths).

I used to use carpenter's pencils for practice and for layout. You can use a sandpaper block to adjust the width to whatever you require.

Also, if you don't mind a suggestion, it's perfectly ok to come up with your own personal version of italic letterforms. Express your personality. Make your x-height three times the nib width if that pleases you more than five times the nib width. Learn more than one form of each letter -- I personally like the "two-story" version of "a" and "g" as alternates.

It's your handwriting. If you aren't aiming to become a calligrapher, who's to say whether your letter forms are "right" or "wrong" as long as they are legible and fast and easy to write? (Actually, calligraphers each have pretty distinctive letterforms. Marie Angel's calligraphy is easily distinguished from Ann Camp's and neither of them looks just like Arrighi's cancellaresca.)

Re:

> the "two-story" version of "a" and "g" as alternates.

In my personal handwriting, I normally use the "two-story g" and also the lower-case q" made like a small upper-case "q" (both very common in Renaissance Italic) — and I teach these to those who /a/ want to learn them, and/or who /b/ already write, or try to write, something somewhat like that as their version of this letter, and/or who /c/ have great difficulty with the usual Italic "g" and "q." (Believe it or not, some folks who have difficulty with the usual Italic forms of these letters have no problem at all with these less usual forms.)
When teaching kids, though, I typically go with the usual Italic "g" and "q" unless I see reason to introduce the less common variants.

Although I don't use the "two-story a" (seen in some of the very, very earliest Italic, during its evolution out of Humanist which *did* have the "two-story a"), I do teach that form of "a" as an option on request or if I see that a student already writes (or attempts to write) the "a" in some version of a "two-story" form.
(NOTE: to get the best results with the two-story "a," write it with the historically used left-to-right stroke-sequence for this letter: start with the "lower story" [the tiny curve that makes the left side of this letter] and THEN make the "upper story" [the "roof and right wall" part.)

Besides the above, I also very occasionally write the "backwards 6" version of "d" which doesn't appear in Renaissance Italic but *does* appear in some medieval and some Baroque-era styles ... from which some 20th-century revivers of Italic imported it into their own versions. And, yes, I teach this to those who want it / those who come to me with something more-or-less similar / those who have real problems with the usual Italic "d."

The advanced Getty-Dubay book (ITALIC LETTERS: CALLIGRAPHY AND HANDWRITING) has a nice long section including variant Italic letter-forms as options: as I recall, that section has the alternate "g" and "d" and "q" and some others (though not the alternate "a").
And, of course, if you go back to the original Renaissance manuals you will see still another way of making a "q": one that I DO NOT recommend today, because of its potential for confusion with "g."
In Arrighi's and some other Renaissance manuals, one of the shapes used for "q" looks exactly like what a modern Italic manual typically uses for "g" ... Renaissance "g"s often used the "two-story" shape, but almost as often simply had a longer, ALMOST-looping curve going some distance upward from the bottom of the "g." That latter shape, like the "two-story," remains legible as a "g" today — Fred Eager used it in his manuals — but I don't recommend that we moderns use the Renaissance "almost-looper" as an Italic "g" because we tend to make the "almost" loop into an actual loop: hard to control, and generally out of sync with the over-all loop-less appearance of other letters.

Modern Italic manuals/instruction, from Fairbank on [Fairbank started teaching Italic in the 1920s] almost always (99+% of them, including my usual instruction) employ for "g" the very same shape that many Renaissance folks employed for "q" ... because, heck, to us it LOOKS like a "g" ...
I don't see a problem here, because of course we've also dropped a host of other Renaissance Italic features such as the long "f-like" version of "s"... not to mention the complex medieval/Renaissance abbreviation-system in which (for instance) something that looked like "q3" (tiny "3" stuck to the bottom of a "q") meant "que" & a horizontal line above a letter meant that an "n" or "m" follows that letter (e.g., "fotaa" with lines above the "o" and the first "a" meant "fontana") — in reviving Italic and promoting it for readability's sake, we have to stick to what we can reasonably expect other people to read!

I write my two-story "a" without any pen lifts. Left to right, top to bottom. When the first downward motion hits the base line, the nib immediately reverses direction, retraces the downstroke briefly, then curves sharply left, then down into a small loop and back up and to the right. Very quick. Learned this from Arthur Baker.

Other variant forms that I use include what you've called the "backwards 6" for "d" and something that looks like a Greek epsilon for "e." I think I've always done those that way, even before I became interested in calligraphy in my junior year of high school (1962 or 1963).

There are at least two ways to do a two-story "g" -- one of which you can do without a pen lift, like my two-story "a". I learned this form of g from Jacqueline Svaren.

I can do straight "italic" with all the Renaissance letterforms (I like Mercator's style as a model), but for everyday use it's too slow (for me) and I find that being able to vary things (appropriately and in moderation) keeps writing interesting. If I don't care whether my reader will be entertained by what is in my writing and the way it looks, I'd just as soon type/word process/email.

I'm working on a "retro" hand, based on some bits of handwriting on the old Esterbrook nib chart, and influenced by mid-twentieth century sho-card script. I've posted some of the early development here, guess I should update the examples. This is writing intended to be done with a flexible or semi-flex fountain pen nib, simpler and faster than copperplate (almost anything is simpler and faster than copperplate!), interesting to look at, and practical for everyday use.

I, too, normally use only one stroke for my two-story "g."

Re your:

>I'm working on a "retro" hand, based on some bits of handwriting on the old >Esterbrook nib chart, and influenced by mid-twentieth century sho-card script. I've >posted some of the early development here,

Where?

> guess I should update the examples.

I look forward to seeing your early and current examples.

First very rough posting here. As I've worked on this, I've figured out capitals that work better, and also sorted out the backslant.

Later version for the minuscules here.

I'm covered up with a book project that releases on January 15. When I come up for air, I'll do up a more extensive set of examples.

This looks pretty good! For further ideas that would harmonize with yours, I recommend the "Abbreviated Capitals" section in the 19th-century Ames penmanship books if you can find them.
Yes, 20th-century reprints exist — search on Google or in eBay for this:
ames penmanship (Also check Amazon.)
The "Abbreviated Capitals" part would fit well with your evolving style — the rest of the book (very elaborate Spencerianism) wouldn't, buy you should read the book anyway for its historical interest. Interestingly, the introductions to/other authorial comments in some of the Ames books not only acknowledge that handwriting styles have changed in the past, but predict that they will continue to evolve in the future. (And we LIVE in that future ... )

And how long have you been writing?
Four foot one!
Four foot one... that *is* a long time!

Anyway, after trying out a crisp italic nib, I've decided instead to go with a cursive italic. Crisp seems very scratchy to me, and cursive is nice and smooth. So I'm looking forward to some nice handwriting!

I showed my Getty-Dubay practice paper to my wife. She said it looked almost like it came out of a printer in a pretty font, which made me feel very, very good! It's just what I was looking for in my handwriting -- legible and regular. I've even begun to individualize what I've learned, so I'm looking forward to posting some new samples after I get my new nib!

--Rob