I’ll tell you a secret—all my sto­ries (even the long non­fic­tion ones) start with wide-lined, loose-leaf note­book paper and a blue Bic pen. These are my favorite writ­ing uten­sils for ear­ly drafts. I like them because they’re not pre­cious. I don’t have to wor­ry about writ­ing words that rhyme or sen­tences with cadence. I can sim­ply play, try­ing any­thing, try­ing every­thing, scratch­ing out, crum­pling up, exper­i­ment­ing. There are no expec­ta­tions. The ordi­nar­i­ness of those writ­ing uten­sils frees me to play with lan­guage, mess around with words, fill up pages. And every so often I will see… just bare­ly see… the shape of a sto­ry in that play.