I definitely need to practice handwriting and stroke order too. I don’t handwrite very often, and I know some general stroke-order conventions that serve me well enough when I do, but there are still some kanji I just can never get right.
I think I’ll join in starting with the kanji from character names in the book I’m reading, if you don’t mind?
Of course I don’t mind!
Feel free to post here as well, you can follow along with me or do your own thing, maybe we can even trade suggestions for what Kanji to do.
The main point of this thread was not only to keep me accountable for learning daily, but to hopefully inspire more people to work on their own handwriting, along with matt_in_mitoさん’s Thread, as it was his daily character thread that inspired me to work on my handwriting and try Calligraphy for the first time.
Thank you for asking!
2024年2月6日（火）
黒
音: コク
訓: くろ, くろ.い, くろ.ずむ
black; dark; bad; guilt
メモ: Kicking off with the first kanji in the MC’s surname! Though I may or may not start jumping around some after this. I’m writing down all the names as I remember/come across them on my whiteboard, skipping or erasing duplicate kanji, and I’m erasing the kanji as I do them, so the only way I’ll forget them is if I forget to write down the name in the first place.
I’m not surprised that Goo has more definitions than Shirabe, but I am surprised Shirabe has an extra reading: くろ.ずむ.
2024年2月7日（水）
羽
音: ウ
訓: はね, は, わ
feather; wing (of a bird or bug); counter for birds, rabbits; Dewa Province
メモ: Shirabe has an extra reading for this as well: わ is considered a sound change like ば and ぱ and thus Goo doesn’t list it as its own reading, rather just makes a note of it.
It turns out if I’m not careful while writing this kanji quickly, I have a minor tendency for the first stroke to curve and encroach into the right-hand side. And a major tendency for the drops(?) to wind up parallel lol (After doing the stroke order, I write them a dozen times on a separate sheet for practice writing them normally)
Looking good so far!
Early on in your writing journey, you’ll notice a lot of small mistakes with balance and proportions, which will work themselves out as you get more practice. It’s great to work on radicals as well if you haven’t already 
2024年2月7日「水」
漢字：平
訓読み：たい.ら、ひら
音読み：ヘイ、ビョウ、ヒョウ
Jisho Page
2024年2月8日「木」
漢字：掌
訓読み：てのひら、たなごころ
音読み：ショウ
Jisho Page
メモ：Double feature, featuring multiple ways to write out “Palm”, being 「手の平」and 「掌」、both being 「てのひら」。
Just like 常、the three lines at the top are drawn first, which feels weird after drawing 薬 where the horizontal line is drawn first.
As a side note, moving forward I am no longer going to be including the links to the WaniKani Pages of characters, unless I deem it necessary for specific kanji.
2024年2月8日（木）
優
音: ユウ, ウ
訓: やさ.しい, すぐ.れる, ゆた.か, まさ.る, わざおぎ, やわ.らぐ
tender; gentle; kind; excel; surpass; superior; loose; slow; actor; calm
メモ: This is one of my favorite kanji, but I hate writing it. I can never seem to fit all of the right side within the line without it sticking out underneath, no matter how tall I write it. Practice today went well though. After doing the stroke order practice, I was conscious of how much space the top part took up, so the bottom fit too.
2024年2月9日（金）
慶
音: ケイ, キョウ
訓: よらこ.ぶ, よ.い
jubilation; rejoice; auspicious; celebrate; congratulate
メモ: Another one I think is really pretty. I just find the 愛 (well, crown + heart + winter, but) construction very aesthetically pleasing. And it turns out this one’s pretty fun to write, too!
優, 慶, and 愛 all have the nanori ちか. That seems too many to be coincidence. I’m tempted to detour and hunt down other kanji with 愛 in them now…
Hi!
This kanji showed in my practice today, 亀. A famous one it is, difficult to balance properly!
EDIT: this was today’s practice full set, from the top of my memory:
2024年2月9日「金」
漢字：節
訓読み：ふし、-ぶし、のっと
音読み：セツ、セチ
Jisho Page
2024年2月10日「土」
漢字：爪
訓読み：つめ、つま-
訓読み：ソウ
Jisho Page
メモ：With these two we finish off the hands, with 「節」、 “Knuckle” (or 「指の節」for extra specificity) , and 「爪」、 “Nail”!
Time for a short break from body-related kanji.
Hi!
This is today’s practice, again from the top of my memory:
By pure coincidence, both つくるs ( 作 and 造) showed up, the third one 創 didn’t though. 超 also appeared, a quite useful prefix (超人, 超特急, 超音速).
2024年2月10日（土）
操
音: ソウ
訓: みさお, あやつ.る, と.る
manipulate; operate; handle; maneuver; grasp; virginity; chastity; fidelity
メモ: Oh, this one turned out kind of a mess. It was more difficult than I expected. (I kind of feel bad, since this is my favorite character’s name.)
2024年2月11日「日」
漢字：努
訓読み：つと.める
音読み：ド
Jisho Page
メモ：Thank you @Pablunpro for the suggestion!
As stated along with this recommendation, at 7 strokes it might seem like an easy Kanji, but with the inclusion of the 女 radical, that is immediately made not the case.
Besides that tough radical, you have to balance the spacing between the 女 and 又 at the top, and ensure you get the right shape of the 力 radical at the bottom.
All in all, a challenging character from a technical standpoint, and one I diligently toiled on to write correctly as much as possible!
I think it looks great!
If you want any feedback from an amateur,
Here’s an attempt I whipped up. Honestly I felt like this kanji was easier to write out smaller.
In red are 3 points of interest.
1: The first line of your modified hand radical 「扌 」should ideally be pretty straight across. If it turns up a bit, that’s fine, but you shooting for it to be pretty level.
2: At the bottom of your modified hand radical, you want to come to a stop, and then bring it up in a hook-like shape. It makes it look a bit better and helps distinguish it from other similar radicals.
3: For the most part, most of your elements should start and end at around the same height. The top of your first mouth radical 「口」should roughly line up with the top of the modified hand radical, and the bottom of your tree radical 「木」should roughly line up with the bottom of the modified hand radical.
Hope this helps! Keep up the good work!
Hi!
Yesterday I was reading a Wikipedia entry and tried the following whilst looking up words in Jisho.org: instead of writing its supposed reading or looking it up by radicals, I just draw the kanjis that made up the word.
The thing is that you have to write the kanji “properly” (as much as possible, 
) in order for it to show in the first position of the results grid. Thus, you indirectly practice kanji writing whilst looking up new vocab.
For example, taking the kanji above:
BTW, I find it easier and more useful on the phone (or any device with touch screen), as you can write with your finger instead of using a mouse.
Incidentally, you can also practice radical understanding and pronunciation using the other searching methods.
I hope you find this interesting and useful.
とにかく、良い日曜日を
Yeah, I think so too. My practice writing it out a dozen times after that went a little better, though still not quite right, even with trying to be conscious of everything’s placement. I guess this is just one I’ll have to practice more if I want it to look right rather than merely “close enough.”
And in general the hand and other radicals that flick up like that at the bottom. If I write any faster than pretty slowly, they have a tendency to wind up more straight like that. I think part of it may be that I’m afraid to put too much force into it or else it’ll drag too far. I have some minor fine motor control issues, though it often doesn’t matter quite so much when I’m writing in English.
Maybe after I’ve done x many kanji, I’ll do a little summary thing. That’ll give me at least a little bit more practice.
I have the Shirabe Jisho app on my phone, and I’ll often use the handwriting input when I don’t know the reading of a kanji (not necessarily that kanji, but one in the compound, and if it doesn’t seem more trouble than it’s worth to switch to keyboard input to type the one(s) I know, I’ll just draw them; same with if I’d left it on handwriting input, I tend to just draw it unless it’s a troublesome one). It’s a lot less forgiving than Google Translate’s, although I don’t think it’s necessarily based on stroke order either. There’ve been times where I knew I’d accidentally gotten the stroke order wrong but it still came up, and times where I was careful to get the stroke order and appearance right yet it still took a few tries for it to show up or else I had to resort to radical search or copy-pasting from GT.
2024年2月12日「月」
漢字：齢
訓読み：よわい、とし
音読み：レイ
Jisho Page
メモ：Thank you Pablunpro for the suggestion! Or should I really be thanking you…?
At 17 strokes, this Kanji was a workout for me. Couple that with the fact that I messed up the writing out the stroke order the first time around, but I had only noticed after I had “finished it”, thus having to redo it all over again.
With such a large number of very small, precise strokes, tensing up and trying to get everything perfect will wear your stamina out, but if you loosen up your grip and allow yourself a little bit more leeway, it becomes a lot more bearable to write out in large quantities.
Both technically challenging and high in stroke count, thank you again for the suggestion!
2024年2月13日「火」
漢字：処
訓読み：ところ、-ご、お.る
音読み：ショ
Jisho Page
メモ：Thank you Pablunpro for the suggestion! I appreciate your continued support!
This may be a controversial take, but I didn’t find this particular kanji that difficult. The full-size looks a bit odd, as I tried to follow Jisho’s reference as best as I could, but besides the first couple attempts, I feel like I could get the balance pretty consistently good for this one. Maybe it’s all the curved-line training I’ve been getting trying calligraphy.
At 5 strokes, It’s a nice break from yesterdays Kanji!
2024年2月14日「水」
漢字：亀
訓読み：かめ
音読み：キ、キョウ、キン
Jisho Page
メモ：Another kanji suggested by PablunPro! Thank you for the support!
Compared to 鳥、鼻、and 鬱、balancing this wasn’t all that tough. The saving grace is the final stroke, the “tail” so to speak, is very thin and can easily sneak under the bottom of the character, even if you don’t give yourself that much space to work with. For 鬱、you have to worry about the top-bottom and left-right spacing, otherwise you’ll have this giant block of Kanji that won’t fit on the page right.
Anyways, this is a nice addition to my collection of animals!
