So you might know me already as the slightly insane, wannabe author and calligraphy enthusiast, ~elhalfling. Or maybe not. If you do, I'll still be posting there, only just not my calligraphy stuff. I won't be taking my calligraphy down, but everything new will go up here instead.

There are a few reasons why I'm switching accounts. It's not to confuse anyone, but since I'm starting up a website and calligraphy blog with the theme of Amo Scribere, which is Latin for "I love to write", I thought this would be more suitable.

The second reason is that there is a major change in my calligraphy and it'll take a little while for me to upload anything with some of the more advanced alphabets. To explain this further, I'll have to post a little bit of my calligraphy story... beware of some rambling here. I sometimes get a little carried away.

Some of you may already know I'm fairly ambidextrous and have been for, well, as long as I can remember. I first learned to write with my right hand, but taught myself to write rather neatly with my left while in middle school. In high school, when I originally began learning calligraphy, I decided to try left-handed "just to see if it was possible". [I think I had too much sugar or too little sleep the night before I decided that!]

Since I write with my right hand normally [it's faster], I decided it'd be beneficial to switch my calligraphy hand. It worked and I achieved decent results. However, I've recently come to notice that my right hand starts to shake whenever I'm trying to ink nice calligraphy stuff. That's not so beneficial.

And so here I am, taking on calligraphy from a new perspective... er, for the second time. Hopefully I'll be able to get further than a second alphabet [aka Bookhand] and my blackletter gothic will be better. Actually, in the past week since this decision, I have already gone through the Simple Roman alphabet, as well as Bookhand. I have nearly completed my "final exam" project for the second alphabet. [I am giving myself letter grades to keep track of my projects - talk about obsessive.]

Main Goals
Finish and upload "final exam" for Bookhand unit.
Begin Italics, as this is a very useful hand to learn.
Work on Gothic Alphabets: Blackletter, Gothic Pointe (very similar to Batarde) and Rotunda

Name Etymology
Amo Scribere: "amo" is Latin for "I love" and "scribere" means "to write" in the same language.
Sinister Scribe: "Sinister" means "singularly evil or productive of evil" or "accompanied by or leading to disaster" [my original calligraphy attempt when I first switched back over]. This also has the historical definition of "of, relating to, or situated to the left or on the left side of something", coming from the Latin "sinistr-". And a scribe is someone who writes. Thus, a "Sinister Scribe" can come to mean a "left-handed calligrapher" in a sort of round-about way. Like I said, I can get carried away sometimes...

Anyhow, that is my journal entry.

[Nota Bene: Definitions came from Merriam-Webster Online and Latin roots and short phrases are in my arsenal of what's called "common knowledge".]