A/N: This toyed with me for a while before I figured out it wouldn't suffer itself to be edited much. As such, it's unbeta'd, and while I wouldn't call it raw, it exactly isn't dummed down. If I gain any insight into a re-write that may smooth it some, you can expect to see this changed; otherwise, it will remain imperfect as it is. I do hope you enjoy it in this state.

On Paper

I don't understand people's interest in composition notebooks. Some might take a cue from the writer who believes her poems must be written in midnight black ink with curlycue letters, that writing needs to look so beautiful on a creamy swan-white page in a bound book that will only see the lines of prose instead of what's hidden between them.  But me? I would much rather have lined paper, the translucent kind that really picks up pencil smudges and coffe spills. New composion notebooks encourage beautiful words and light, flowy script. What if my words aren't beautiful? What if they're the harsh truth? Would I disguise them to fit in a bound book? I don't want to disguise my words; they're ugly and painful for a reason, when they want to be. And if they want to be beautiful, they don't need fancy paper to make them that way. Dare you suggest I need beautiful letters to produce beautiful writing? My words are simple beauty, bright-eyed and dirty, not diamond encrusted. My words are wise or foolish, young, innocent or broken, but not finely carved – no, never words of wax, never dowried and thesaurus-raped before they're ripe. My words grow on pages, growing pains and all; they're not bound and packaged in a creamy vellum shell. My words would feel much more at home scratched in between blue college ruled lines, not blank walls white with supression.

And what is the deal with inkwells? Ink? How can I be expected to write when I have to sprinkle sand on a page before I can turn it? In a bout of passionate inspiration, do you want to be held up by a handful of sand? A too-tight binding? A flourish on the letter J? I, for one, have neither the time nor the inclination to stop mid-word to draw a loop around a letter. I hope that no writer does. Which is more important to you: a perfectly-shaped punctuation mark or a perfectly-placed one? I thought so. I will not stop for any petty points when a masterpiece is in my fingers trying to get out. I wouldn't want it to hurt itself in my futile attempts to live up to so-called beautiful paper.

All paper is beautiful. It comes from trees, which are unrivaled in grace, and it can be used for anything. What would society be without record keeping? Stories without backing? Life without literature? Humans are nothing without paper. It sustains us as much as food and water does, whether it's pulpy and ragged-edged or not. Paper is beauty by definition. But tell me, which is more beautiful? The aristocratic, white-armed composition book paper, free of pockmarks and lines and smudges, decked with ruby rings that can't slide off its fat fingers, forever locked in unbearable perfection; or the pencil-smudged, crinkly lined paper, bound loosely in a spiral notebook or binder, uninhibited by tight bindings that slam pages shut, open to messiness and hastily-drawn arrows and "find thes. less adverbs" and scribbled-over paragraphs – the surest sign that heavy work has been accomplished – and freedom that has never been felt by a rich composition notebook. Lined paper works hard; it spends long days sowing plot twists and redoing work until it's perfect, where white paper must be neat, oh so neat, so that nothing can be crossed out or changed, lined paper returns home covered in dirt and scratches but stronger for them. Lined paper is the assiduous paragon, the proof of sweaty brows and graphite stained right pinkie joints that won't be clean even after a scrub – because the essence of paper, the thin waxy smoothness, the scent of plebian papyrus, has reached the soul.

Not only is it diligent, oh no, it's self-sufficient and rugged. Composition paper is the snooty Numenorian King Aldarion while lined paper is Strider, Ranger of the North. It is a virile medium, a vital young means of expression. It can brave any forest, any river, and come back rich with the sweat of accomplishment. All it needs is a bent knee as a hard surface, a clickie pen conveniently stored in a ponytail, a light bright enough to see by, and if it's not bright enough, then criss-crossed and messy lines won't bother it at all. Lined paper thrives anywhere and can accommodate any writer. Composition books need oak desks, classical music, quill pens with inkwells. Sherlock Holmes-era accountants in three piece suits. They're too temperate for heavy work; they will never suffer themselves to be kept in pockets for quick notes brainstormed while in line at the grocery store, they will not be folded for safekeeping. Never will they be brought to the forest, not even on a nature hike; it would be uncomfortable for something so fragile to meet so real a world. Wind? The absence of a hard surface? Never. It's all Draw the curtains and stop that racket while Lined Paper is Squeeze some lemon juice into my hair, I wanna go outside (spelling dialect ask beta). Lined paper has no time for "M'lord" or "Sir" or "Ma'am"; it's too busy with the words that rhyme with Earth and if any of them would fit in the same line as a description of a fertilized flower bed.

You can keep your silly white pages and bound books. Me, I'll take a 450 sheet ream of grainy, greasy college ruled feuilles de vivre – pretty or not, they're worthy of holding what I want to write.