I Tend To Show Everything I Do

I Don't Worry About Being Exposed. When I'm Writing About Myself I Think About Myself As A Character. There Is A Ton Of Stuff Going On In My Life That I Don't Write About. If I Need To Write That Stuff Down, I Write About Myself In My Diary.

She's Afraid To Tell Me Anything Important, Knowing I'll Only Turn Around And Write About It. In My Mind, I'm Like A Friendly Junkman, Building Things From The Little Pieces Of Scrap I Find Here And There, But My Family's Started To See Things Differently. Their Personal Lives Are The So-called Pieces Of Scrap I So Casually Pick Up, And They're Sick Of It. More And More Often Their Stories Begin With The Line "you Have To Swear You'll Never Repeat This." I Always Promise, But It's Generally Understood That My Word Means Nothing.

I Spent Months Searching For Some Secret Code Before I Realized That Common Sense Has Nothing To Do With It. Hysteria, Psychosis, Torture, Depression: I Was Told That If Something Is Unpleasant It's Probably Feminine. This Encouraged Me, But The Theory Was Blown By Such Masculine Nouns As Murder, Toothache, And Rollerblade. I Have No Problem Learning The Words Themselves, It's The Sexes That Trip Me Up And Refuse To Stick.

We're Not Unique In Our Family. We're More Ambitious But We're Not Special. I'm Not Funnier Than Anyone Else In My Family; It's Just That We Wanted More Than Raleigh, North Carolina, Had To Offer. If My Brother Wanted More Than Raleigh Had To Offer, You Would Know His Name. My Sister Lisa Has A Really Unique And Different Voice, But She Doesn't Want That. She's A Fine Writer, But Never Said, "i Want A Book. I Want That Kind Of Attention."

I Think I Became A Better Writer After I Started Writing For The New Yorker. Well, I Know I Did. And Part Of It Was Having My New Yorker Editor And Part Of It Is That Was When I Started Really Going On Tour And Reading Things In Front Of An Audience 30 Times And Then Going Back In The Room And Rewriting It And Reading It And Rewriting It. So You Really Get The Rhythm Of The Sentences Down And You Really Get The Flow Down And You Get Rid Of Stuff That's Not Important.