Ordinary Days By Lauren Denton: Bouquets of sharpened pencils

New school supplies make me giddy. Fresh boxes of Crayola crayons, new sharp pencils, pristine pink erasers. Notebooks with unmarked pages, folders waiting to hold important papers, fine-tipped markers. When I was a kid, I always got excited about choosing just the right notebooks, pencil pouches, and Trapper Keepers (who remembers those?!), and even though pre-purchasing the box of supplies through the schools is more convenient, there’s a part of me that misses gathering all those necessary items, labeling them, and packing them all in a backpack for the first day of school.

I loved all the supplies, but the notebooks and pens were, and still are, my favorite (though the smell of those Crayola crayons is a very close second). I think my obsession with notebooks and pens stems from the fact that I started journaling when I was about nine years old. I still have my very first diary. It’s turquoise with pink lettering on it and has two holes along the edge where a little silver lock used to be. The lock and the keys that went with it were lost a long time ago. Once I was grown, I wondered about that diary for years, unsure of where it had ended up, then a few years ago, I found it in my bedroom closet at my parents’ house when they were packing up to move. Flipping through those pink and blue pages is a trip through time back to the middle of my childhood. I wrote about how much I disliked math, friends I spent the night with on the weekends, playing tennis after school, and going to my grandparents’ house — nothing super important or earth-shattering, definitely nothing I needed to keep under lock and key, but I kept it private anyway. That one little diary turned into another and another, and I now have a big trunk in the guest room of our house absolutely stuffed with journals. Over the years, the things I wrote about changed from math and tennis to boys I had crushes on, weekend parties and college plans. Graduations, heartbreaks, real love and the hope for children.

These days, when people ask me how I got started writing books, my answer is usually those notebooks, stuffed side by side in the trunk in the back bedroom. Years of putting pen to paper and writing down my thoughts — essentially processing the world and my place in it — played a huge part in paving the way for me to become a writer. Sometimes I think about that little girl — then preteen, teenager, college student — hunched over notebooks of all sizes and colors, scribbling down everything in my heart. I had no idea back then that I’d still be hunched over notebooks (and a computer) as an adult, scribbling down ideas for characters, plots, and conflicts of my own creation, but I like to think she’d be proud of me.

I still write in a journal, though these days they’re more prayers and character studies than recaps of my days. And I still get excited about new notebooks and pens. As a writer, those are my main tools, possibly even more important than my computer (though I’m quite partial to my MacBook). There’s a particular size of notebook that works well for me, and I buy them in packs of six. It has a sturdy cover that won’t tear and two pockets that hold the scraps of paper where I jot down thoughts and story ideas if I don’t have a notebook handy. I’m also really picky about my pens. I like gel pens more than ballpoint, and it can’t bleed through to the other side of the page. If I see someone using a pen that looks good, I’m not afraid to ask them what kind it is. Pens for signing books is a whole other ball of wax, but I have my preferences for those too.

I went ahead and bought the school supply kits for both my girls this year, but we’ll probably make a trip to Target before school really gets cranking so they can personalize things bit. Maybe a cool new pen or some stickers to decorate the plain binders. Because you never know when a pad of paper or a particular pen or pencil may spark a desire to write, and even if you never write a word of a story or book, just the simple act of writing can be therapeutic. While we’re at Target, I’ll probably pick up a notebook for myself, because I can never have too many, and I just might grab a box of crayons too.

When I’m not writing about my family and our various shenanigans, I write novels and go to the grocery store. My next novel, “A Place To Land,” releases Oct. 4. You can reach me by email at Lauren@LaurenKDenton.com, visit my website LaurenKDenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDentonBooks or Facebook @LaurenKDentonAuthor.