Being a writer is an endless study in human transition and lessons learned or forgotten or misapplied.

Sloane Crosley

Categorized in : Lessons Transition Lesson Learned

I definitely rediscovered reading for pleasure by devoting such a large swath of my time to sitting on airplanes. I am now painfully adept at removing my shoes so as to have the least amount of foot surface area touching an airport floor.

airports airplane reading

I do think New York prepares you for the crossection of personalities and realities on display when you leave the country, and I'd live somewhere else if I had a reason or burning-the-the-point-of-discomfort desire to do so.

new-york country reality

I don't do emoticons unless I'm making a big deal out of them. I'll type out, 'This is so amusing it makes me want to grin in pixels.' And then do it.

pixels amusing want

I don't really think of my essays as being about myself. I know it sounds insane, but I just don't think of them as a memoir. They're essays; they're not an autobiography.

insane sound thinking

I now know my right from my left and my up from my down. Unluckily, my terrible sense of direction remains. For me, to live in New York City is to never be able to meet someone on the northeast corner. It is to never ever make a smooth entrance, always to get caught looking lost on the street.

able cities new-york

I think the goal with any writing, but especially narrative nonfiction, is to put the blockade of putting your thoughts in this unnatural medium of print and then trying to reach through that and actually convey what's going on, what you think, and make people laugh and recognize themselves while doing it. Definitely the laughing thing.

writing people thinking

Cohabitation seems a greater leap in cities because it's all the harder to extract oneself if things turn sour. It's what keeps otherwise functional adults living with their mothers.

mothers-day cities inspiring

Cats and their owners are on a private, exclusive loop of affection. Thus cats have become symbolic of a community eschewed and a hyper-engagement with oneself. They represent the profound danger of growing so independent in New York that it's not merely that you don't need anyone - it's that you don't know how to need anyone.

independent cat new-york

Because I am a horrible flincher, contact lenses are not an option. I'm always envious of contact-wearers. There are endless reasons to take off one's glasses during the day and, as I have grown older, what I don't see has become increasingly pronounced.

lenses glasses reason

I don't understand how you can be a decent writer and not know pe... by Sloane Crosley

I don't understand how you can be a decent writer and not know people.

decent knows people

Out of all artists, authors are the least trained for the spotlight. Wanting attention isn't a requisite part of the package.

spotlight artist attention

Suburbia is too close to the country to have anything real to do and too close to the city to admit you have nothing real to do.

real cities country

The world I describe is about how people live now. It's not about zany people with unlimited, inexplicable funds in an apartment somewhere.

inexplicable people world

When you spin a globe and point to a city and actually go to that city, you build an allowance of missed opportunities on the back end.

ends cities opportunity

Yes. I am writing full-time. Which is strange. It feels like not... by Sloane Crosley

Yes. I am writing full-time. Which is strange. It feels like not having a job.

strange writing jobs

You know what they say: 'Why sit at a table that doesn't have key lime pie on it if you don't have to?'

pie keys tables

Brits and Americans have hundreds of different phrases for the same thing. Luckily, it's usually a source of amusement rather than frustration. A flashlight by any other name is still a torch. My personal favourite is 'fairy lights,' which we boringly refer to as 'Christmas lights.'

frustration christmas light

For me, titles are either a natural two-second experience or stressful enough to give you an ulcer. If they don't pop out perfect on the first try, they can be really hard to repair. Or, worse, if the author thinks they pop out perfect, but the publishing house does not agree, it's difficult to shift gears. And then? Then you go insane.

publishing-house two thinking

Air travel is the safest form of travel aside from walking; even then, the chances of being hit by a public bus at 30,000 feet are remarkably slim. I also have no problem with confined spaces. Or heights. What I am afraid of is speed.

At the end of each year, I sit on the floor and go page by page through the old calendar, inking annual events into the new one, all the while watching my year in 'dinner withs' skate by. When I'm done, I save the old calendar in the box of the new one and put it with the others on a shelf.

calendars events years