Most people write ugly because their regular script foundation is weak, and their characters lack ancient charm and have shallow connotations. So my suggestion is that if your regular script foundation is weak, it is best to practice regular script first. Once you practice regular script well, you will lay a solid foundation and it will not be difficult to learn calligraphy.
If you don’t like regular script, then I suggest you stick to practicing regular script for a year. At the very least, you must lay down the foundation of regular script. As long as your writing is passable, you don’t need to write anything. There are so many great things, as long as what you write meets the basic requirements, it is enough to be fair and dignified.
Of course this is the minimum requirement. After you have finished writing regular script, you can then study the regular script of the ancients. Although we know that the regular script of the ancients was written with a brush, it is perfectly possible to practice it with a hard pen. For example, Ling Fei Jing and Zhao Mengfu's regular script are fine.
After laying a good foundation in regular script, and having mastered the calligraphy of ancient and modern people, you can now learn running script. Of course, you can learn Xingkai calligraphy as a transition in the middle. Ancient calligraphy, such as Zhao Mengfu’s calligraphy, especially its regular script, has the flexibility of running script. Therefore, it is very appropriate to use Zhao style calligraphy as the transition between regular script and running script.
Then, we officially enter the learning of running script. Then, the issue that needs to be paid attention to when learning running script is that we must pay attention to the echo and coherence between words, and we must understand the expression and charm between words. Be coherent. When we are studying individual words, we must not only do it in one go without interruption, but we must also do the same when writing a line of words, and do it in one go.
Learning regular script and learning running script are different in some details, but most of the steps are like this: first choose a calligraphy that you like. You can start with modern calligraphy. The basics are to dabble in ancient calligraphy and gradually copy in depth.