Pencil guidelines as well as penciling in all the words is something I do when I have a very specific outcome in mind and when I am not in a hurry.
If I am writing out a chunk of text, I ALWAYS pencil the words first. It is the only way I can avoid spelling errors since I focus on the individual letters and ignore the words.
On my blog, which features a lot of ideas that are experimental, I frequently comment, "This would have been better if I had penciled in some guidelines. When teaching, I encourage the use of pencils since many students have the wrong impression and assume that everything works out beautifully without any guidelines for old-timers. Not this old-timer. But, I like to do some of the experimental work without guidelines.
A tip that I need to add to my master list of tips:
If you want your lettering to be level, it is really hard to accomplish this when:
you have no guide lines -AND- you have your paper at an angle.
If you are in a hurry, and no time for guidelines, orient your paper -in front of you- and level.
Your eye will be pretty good at writing on a level line.
Although this is not an ideal position for some styles.
And once you are wearing bi-focals, it can be even harder to write in a straight line.
Tip no. 2
On small items, like place cards,
if you want to write on a straight line,
but you do not want to pencil the line
and you do not have a light table
draw a heavy black line on a piece of lined paper
wider than the place card
and then put the place card over the heavy line so that it extends on both sides
this will help your eye see where to begin and where to end
PLUS
you can do this at a slant.
this tip was something I learned many years ago at IAMPETH
from the NYC scribes - who do a lot of place cards and escort cards
and it has been a great time saver.
I am going to put - Jean's Tips -
at the end of all my tips so that -hopefully- it will be easier to find them
when I get around to some kind of master list.