Found an interesting article today on the waning art of penmanship:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11777003/Cant-sing-cant-dance-cant-write-joined-up.html

Initially, I thought "Oh, here we go, another Luddite." What's the point, after all, in making kids sweat over blotting paper and scratchy nibs when the vast majority of them will be scribbling the odd  note on a post-it pad and doing everything else via a keyboard? And we all know how the ancient Greeks tut-tutted over the new skill of writing and the loss of the age-old skills of memorization. People have always had a partly fearful reaction to new technologies.

But I do kind of see what he means. I was on holiday recently and had to do my writing on a notepad. And the whole process of laying something out on paper does make you think differently. I'm a lot more likely to think carefully about what I'm writing. And the lack of ability to select whole paragraphs and delete them on a whim means I can go back and find some nuggets of worth.

And there is something about the tactility of the experience. Even if it's a fickle Bic that I'm using, and not a good-old fashioned fountain pen.