I’ve been opening for David Sedaris on his tours for about five years now. Last fall, standing backstage with David in Poughkeepsie before the show started, he looked at me in the dim blue light and asked, “Do you like show business, Cindy?” He was grinning because he likes show business.
I thought about it for a minute. Had he asked me in the first year after I’d started opening for him, I might have said no. Because it terrified me to get on stage. But now that pre-show feeling is less terror and more excitement. So I told him yes, I liked show business.
What I have come to realize about this gift of being able to read essays on stage is that the person I am often writing for is standing in the wings. I can see David from the corner of my eye and when I land a funny line, I can often hear him cackling stage-right in response. In the weeks leading up to a show, it is David I am thinking about as I write. Will he think it’s funny? Will David like this ending? Because if David likes it, most of the audience will, too.
In the first year after my book Mother Noise came out, I wrote alone, trying to produce a second book. It wasn’t the easiest year. Recently, I started swapping work with an old friend, a writer I’ve admired and loved for twenty years. And I realized that I think she is making me better. It’s partly because I am writing with her in mind and partly because I am sending her line-by-line notes on the astoundingly beautiful work that she is currently writing.
When I asked her to swap with me, I knew it was a good idea but I did not predict the extreme and obvious affect it would have on my work. Because I am so blown away by this new stuff she’s writing, I bring a deeper focus to the page, to my own work, a desire to match the quality of her work in every line. It is the best thing I could have done for my writing practice.
Who do you write for? Who do you think about when you sit down to work? Have you ever changed who this person is in the years since you’ve been writing? And how do you think this affects your work?
I often tell my students that community is important. We write alone. The work requires a lot of isolation. Making sure we have people around us who understand, people who inspire us to be our best on the page, is so important.
When I leave the theater late at night after a show, I’m usually thinking about the lines that didn’t land, the sections that could be better. And I’m thinking about the lovely people I met in the book line, the feeling of gratitude I have for readers. I wouldn’t be here without readers, an audience, a community.
Thank you so much for reading as I step into Substack land. I’m so glad you’re here.
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Holy cow, Cindy! I needed to hear this so much. I'm in this weird holding pattern where I've finished my first book, a upper middle grade novel based heavily on my childhood, and waiting for my agent to read it and send it out for publication. I've been thinking about my next project and this question, who do want to write for? What do I want to say? How deep do I want to go with my own essays? And a thousand other questions have been swirling in my head for weeks. I have about 15 essays written, most published in various national pubs, and ideas for about 30 more. Snippets from my life that meant something to me, hard dark stuff, parts of my life where I struggled with my worth as a woman because I didn't look like everyone else, other parts where I desperately wanted to belong and would do ANYTHING to be liked, accepted. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you how reading your substack was what I needed to push me to think through my next steps. Sending a big hug! :)
I write for my friend Blaire because we do something similar with sharing and editing each others' work, and though I've never met him, I also write for David because he's always been a guiding light for my writing voice. Grateful to have been introduced to your work through him and glad you're here on Substack!
Holy cow, Cindy! I needed to hear this so much. I'm in this weird holding pattern where I've finished my first book, a upper middle grade novel based heavily on my childhood, and waiting for my agent to read it and send it out for publication. I've been thinking about my next project and this question, who do want to write for? What do I want to say? How deep do I want to go with my own essays? And a thousand other questions have been swirling in my head for weeks. I have about 15 essays written, most published in various national pubs, and ideas for about 30 more. Snippets from my life that meant something to me, hard dark stuff, parts of my life where I struggled with my worth as a woman because I didn't look like everyone else, other parts where I desperately wanted to belong and would do ANYTHING to be liked, accepted. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you how reading your substack was what I needed to push me to think through my next steps. Sending a big hug! :)
I write for my friend Blaire because we do something similar with sharing and editing each others' work, and though I've never met him, I also write for David because he's always been a guiding light for my writing voice. Grateful to have been introduced to your work through him and glad you're here on Substack!