The Younger was given a list of school supplies which, in our pandemic-ridden world, I bought through Amazon.
I wasn’t prepared for the wash of nostalgia I’d feel when the supplies arrived.
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Well, I guess it wasn’t the supplies (plural) so much, as it was the ream of college-ruled, 8 1/2 x 11″ notebook paper.
I may be remembering incorrectly — that happens, especially as I get older — but I think it was the standard when I was growing up. I seem to remember high school syllabi threatening us if we dared to turn in homework on 8″ x 10 1/2″, wide-ruled paper.
That was okay with me; I could fit more words on larger paper with smaller lines.
And I did fit more words. I wrote a lot. I don’t remember much of what I wrote — lots of stories, I think, though I only remember one. And I wrote what I guess you’d call a serialized picaresque in the tradition (i.e., a total rip-off) of pulp writer Robert E. Howard‘s Conan, mainly because a girl I had a crush on liked it.
Anyway, I opened the Amazon box and pulled out the supplies I’d ordered: graph paper, some pencils, some pens, a metal ruler, a three-ring binder… and 500 sheets of college ruled, 8.5 x 11″ filler paper.
I was always disappointed when my parents would buy a package of 100 sheets. It just wasn’t the same. The package was flimsy. There wasn’t as much promise. I think that’s why I bought a full ream for my kid, even though he might get through the semester without even breaking open the plastic.
But that’s okay. It’s my nostalgia, not his, so I’m not too disappointed. Besides, he’s been writing a lot, practicing things that I only learned much later (if I’ve learned them at all): developing character through action and conflict; describing things in vivid detail; revealing the world and its “lore” gradually, rather than — as so many of my college-age creative writing students did — in a long, tedious preface.
For him, the paper is just so much pulp. The blank screen on the computer holds the promise. I get it… though I will admit I was pleased when he sat at the dining room table to write by candlelight during our latest power out.
“Eighteenth-century style,” he told me.