[voidUpdate]

As a left handed person, fountain pens are basically a no-go. What actually helped improve my handwriting was not doing cursive, but writing each letter individually, which forces me to pause between each letter. Still using the lower case forms (though I did try all caps for a while), but just forcing myself to slow down. Still have problems with 9 vs 4 though

[swannodette]

I’m left handed, with the right ink and paper this isn’t a huge problem. I picked up fountain pens a year ago and I will never go back to regular pens for my own writing.

[senko]

Left-to-right writing as a left-handed person involves a lot of pen(cil) pushing, which is a big no-go for fountain pens.

If it works for you, I'm willing to bet you're twisting your hand in a D position (going over and around the cursor), which I sometimes see left-handed people do. I have cramps just watching that.

[privong]

> Left-to-right writing as a left-handed person involves a lot of pen(cil) pushing, which is a big no-go for fountain pens.

> If it works for you, I'm willing to bet you're twisting your hand in a D position (going over and around the cursor), which I sometimes see left-handed people do. I have cramps just watching that.

I see comments like this occasionally and find it mildly amusing as a lefty who has been writing with a fountain pen for over a decade and doesn't have noticeably different hand position (either compared to righties or compared to my use of a pencil or ballpoint pen). Yes, some lefties do have hand positions that look incredibly uncomfortable and some lefties have trouble with fountain pens, but that doesn't mean it's a general/total non-starter for lefties to successfully/comfortably use a fountain pen.

Pen pushing is a problem if a writer used to a ballpoint pen or a hard pencil and needing to apply pressure to get ink to flow and applies that much pressure to a fountain pen. But once one makes the adjustment to a fountain pen's (low) pressure style, pushing is only a minor annoyance for fountain pen writing until the nib is broken in (at least that was my experience).

As others have said, it's also important to pick the right ink/pen/paper combination so that you're not laying down too much ink and so that it dries reasonably quickly.

[senko]

Thanks for the thoughtful comment.

It perhaps is a combo of cheap pens and learned pressure from pencils/ballpoints (and let's not forget smudging from hand sliding on paper if the ink takes too long to dry - I will emphatically not levitate my hand).

[jfengel]

I have not seen the word "cursor" used that way. From context it sounds like it means "the point where the pen meets the page", which does fit in with the etymology of cursor ("a thing which runs").

But I couldn't find a dictionary which supported that definition. Is that your own coinage, or is it a jargon that I didn't know?

[orthoxerox]

How do right-handed Arabs and Israeli Jews write right-to-left?

[voidUpdate]

Judging by the google image results for "arabic handwriting", they hold the pen above their hand instead of to the left

[voidUpdate]

I've never been able to work out how to write in the alternative positions without it hurting a lot

[loloquwowndueo]

Please share what the right fountain pen, ink and paper would be for a left-handed person to avoid smearing everything to kingdom come! (Asking with honest curiosity as a fellow leftie who would love to be able to use a fountain pen).

I swear by uniball jet stream pens, they feel much nicer than a ball point and dry fast enough for me to use them but would love a true fountain pen setup instead!

[swannodette]

I have 2 Sailor Pro Gear Slims 14K and one Sailor Pro Gear 21K. The later is the best writing experience. I'm not an ink maniac but I tried a few and I found that Sailor inks tend to dry reasonably quickly while still having a good flow. Midori paper and Tomoe River both perform very well. If I'm going to do a whole page of writing smearing from hand moisture can be a problem, especially w/ non-Sailor inks so in that case I use the "today" cards you can get for the Hobonichi.

[loloquwowndueo]

Ouch, the 21k is 420 bucks. I want. Thanks for the info, I truly appreciate it.

[nuancebydefault]

A big advantage of fountain pens is that when the ink is not dry yet you can easily erase the color chemically with another type of pen.

[tsunagatta]

Look into Noodler’s Bernake Black ink, it dries very very quickly and I’ve used it as a lefty for years with no problems.

[tiborsaas]

I'm also left handed and the closest thing I've found to fountain pens are rollerball pens, it's very smooth and easy to write with them, they are sharp and dry instantly.

[nuancebydefault]

I'm confused. The only thing both have in common is that they are pens. For the rest they are on opposite ends of the pen spectrum. Unless a pencil or a felt tip are called pens as well?

[GarnetFloride]

Lamy has left-handed nibs for their pens. So there are options.