I started out in cursive cyrillic right away, just because I love it. You started getting really used to it and end up developing your own style pretty much right away. You can simplify out some of the superfluous curls, and disconnect some things.

The important thing is to remember you're writing not drawing. I have a hunch that some people feel like they have to keep drawing the letters. I watched one of my friends write once and it was so stilted even though he knew the characters he had to almost build them out of pen strokes. Even in Japanese (yay kanji!) once I get past the learning how to write (drawing) phase I just WRITE and I think it makes it neater. Watching another friend of mine write kanji was just goofy because he knew how it went, but he was sketching it, so it turned out chicken-scratchy.

Maybe practice writing fluidly. I dunno, if you just find a paragraph to copy into cursive (so you already know what it says) and then just write it without worrying, you will end up with a sample. Take a look at it and see what makes it hard to read. Practice ALWAYS makes better (if not perfect.)

~dUcK! (maybe this wasn't helpful...o_o i dunno)