“People who grew up before the blogosphere, I just think that your brain is wired differently. I feel like in some ways my sensibility is aligned with people twenty years older than me than somebody six years younger. Because there was a sort of cutoff.” PeopleThinkingWayFeelsYearsBrainGrewSixGrew UpTwentiesSensibility Author:Meghan Daum
“I started my professional career before the blogosphere existed in any sort of meaningful way. I think that my approach as a writer was certainly freer because I wasn't worried, I didn't have commenters on me right from the get-go. I didn't have this instant-reaction culture that young writers have to deal with now. I had different things - I was listed in the phone book and people would look me up and call me and yell at me, but that was about as bad as it got.” PeopleThinkingWayLooksBookDifferentYoungCultureDealsCareersApproachPhonesMeaningfulReactionsWorriedInstantDifferent ThingsCall MeYoung WritersProfessional Career Author:Meghan Daum
“I think it started to feel like home when I stopped maintaining any pretense that I was ever going to be in the movie business. I went there like many writers - I had a screenplay deal and I would go to these meetings and it was the typical thing. And I hated it. I was not interested in writing screenplays, actually. But I kept feeling like that was what I was supposed to do. It was just this horrible cognitive dissonance.” ThinkingFeelsWritingFeelingsHomeDealsMeetingsHorribleHatedNot InterestedTypicalMaintainingPretenseScreenplaysCognitiveMovie BusinessDissonanceCognitive Dissonance Author:Meghan Daum
“As I've gotten older, I've felt I have more authority on that subject. I think the conversation needs to be reframed. What I hate - a lot of conversations about choosing not to have children tend to be couched in these superficial terms, or kind of glib, "I'd rather have a Porsche" or "I forgot to have kids." No you didn't.” ThinkingNeedsKindChildrenKidsHateFeltTermSubjectsConversationAuthorityI HateSuperficialPorsche Author:Meghan Daum
“I don't keep a diary or a journal. Sometimes I'll send emails to friends and that's a way of recording what I was thinking at any given time. But I've never been a journal keeper. I feel like part of that is because I'm always on deadline. I've been a freelancer my entire career and, at any given time, I have several deadlines for all sorts of things whether it's some magazine piece or ad copywriting or anything. Obviously, people with deadlines keep journals all the time but, for me, the idea of doing more writing is never appealing. It's why I never blog.” PeopleThinkingWritingSometimesDeadline Author:Meghan Daum
“What I think is important about essayists, about the essay as opposed to a lot of personal writing is that the material has to be presented in a processed way. I'm just not interested in writing, "Hey, this is what happened to me today." You get to a place that has very little to do with your personal experience and talks about some larger idea or something in the culture. I don't think you can get to that unless you have had a lot of time to gestate and maybe if I was taking a lot of notes while stuff was going on, I wouldn't be able to get to that place as easily.” ThinkingWritingImportantTodayCultureNot InterestedEssays Author:Meghan Daum
“I mean, being provincial is a privilege in a way. Also people in New York think everybody interacts because they all take the subway. "Oh, I see all these different people! All these different walks of life on the subway." Well, they're not coming to your dinner party. Certainly, in small-town Nebraska, everyone indeed did mix together.” PeopleThinkingMeanDifferentTogetherPartyDinner Party Author:Meghan Daum
“For me, one of the reasons I love this form - the personal essay form - is because it's a way of forming an intimacy with the reader. What I'm saying to the reader is: I'm going to tell you something; I'm going to be generous; I'm going to offer. The confession, on the other hand, is sort of an imposition because you're asking the reader to forgive you or somehow exonerate you or say, "Hey, I'm even worse." But what I'm interested in doing is being generous and offering a perspective or suggesting a way of thinking about something.” ThinkingReasonPerspectiveForgivingIntimacyGenerousConfessionEssays Author:Meghan Daum
“Maybe learning how to be out in the big world isn't the epic journey everyone thinks it is. Maybe that's actually the easy part. The hard part is what's right in front of you. The hard part is learning how to hold the title to your very existence, to own not only property, but also your life.” ThinkingWorldHardBigsEasyExistenceJourneyFrontsPropertyTitlesEpic Book:Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House Source: Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House
