Love your ideation. That’s the kind of ideation that sparks conversations and additional ideas from other designers.
Some of the pencil shading is starting to look smudgy.
I remember back in the day we had to do 18" x 24" sheets of just lettering. Why don’t you try doing Michael’s sample multiple times on a 8.5" x 11" sheet. Make sure you pay attention at the letter construction, don’t let your brain do what it thinks it should do.
You may also want to draw a couple of faint lines on your drawings so that your lettering is straight. It will help you to keep your letters the same height and in a straight line. 