Writer's Envy

I have pretty serious writer's envy. A tiny part of me envies novelists, with their ability to create a story that draws a reader in for page after page. But what I really envy, in all writers, is the perfectly crafted  sentence. One that grabs me at first read and makes me wish there was a better way to collect sentences than underlining them in books or ripping them out of magazines and stuffing them into a box on my nightstand.

This article by Tom Scocca and Choire Sicha about the "the city beneath our city," the "viewless labyrinth" of Penn Station contained one of those perfect, envy-inducing sentences.



"Harried people surge through its concourses and tunnels in perpendicular lines, mean salmon in puffy coats going always upstream." Mean salmon in puffy coats! So perfect.

Image via bondidwhat on flickr.