I don�t like my hand writing. Or my signature, as it turns out.

That I am dissatisfied with my signature is somewhat disturbing, though the hand writing itself is more a concentration issue.

I spent many many years at school and university writing long hand or made up short hand for hours and hours at a time. I still have the lumpy callous on the middle finger of my right hand to prove it.

Taking notes in class, writing in exam books. Pages upon pages of writing, the legibility of which varied according to how much I was concentrating and how tired my hand was. It would start out rounded and neat, generally quite small, and wind up huge and looping with three words to a line. Same with notebooks and notepads full of my creative writing, though interestingly, going over old notes on the manuscript I�m currently working on, it appears that I must have been concentrating pretty hard because the notes are neat and very tidy.

Since I started working I still take notes, but spend a far smaller part of my day doing so. I take notes during meetings, seminars and telephone conversations, but most of the writing I do is on the computer. As a result my callous has decreased considerably, and the legibility of my writing has followed suit. But while the legibility is one issue, it�s not actually why I dislike my writing.

This morning I was writing a label for a file, all in capitals, and it just looked harsh. My cursive writing is at least a bit curly and not particularly ugly, just messy. But the caps are hard and sharp and generally unattractive. Which is exactly the same problem I have with my signature.

Like most people, I guess, I developed my signature in my early teens after much experimentation and practice. I started with perfectly a big looping �J� (which my full name begins with) based on a silver broach featuring a curly rendering of my name that my parents had given me, and went on from there. The loopy signature that followed stayed until I started work. When I started signing documents, and credit card receipts, and basically about three times the general paperwork I ever signed before.

So now, while the same basic signature with the unusual �J� remains, it has become shorter, faster and sharper, and I really don�t like how it looks. It looks harsh and spiky. It contains exactly the same letters it did before, but it�s about half as long as it used to be and where there used to by loops there are now sharp edges overlapping with each other. I seem to press hard with the pen. Even when I write with the fabulous fountain pen Smurfette and Nathan gave me for my 30th, which by its nature requires me to write slowly and with more care.

I fear what it says about me. Do I appear harsh because I sign harsh? Am I harsh?

I also don�t feel like I can change it. After so many years of signing habit, and identification based on the way I sign my name, how can it be possible to alter my signature now? All I can really do is let it unwind a little. Concentrate a bit harder and let my signature relax back out to the way it was ten years ago.

Hmmm, slow down and concentrate more. Could it be that I should apply that philosophy to more in my life than just my writing? Could it possibly be that if I apply it to other aspects of my life that a more relaxed and attractive signature will follow?

Hmmm. I think I�ll start with the signature and see how it goes.