Call Me Charlie

Issue 258

You guys,

Something I am desperate to be in my writing and my life is funny.

I often imagine myself as a guest on David Perell’s How I Write podcast. In my fantasy, he didn’t reach out when I first published my book, when I was still a nobody. It wasn’t until the book had skyrocketed in the media, and I’d become friends with Glennon Doyle and Cheryl Strayed, and everyone wanted me on their podcast—even Dax Shepherd—that David texted me on Whatsapp and asked if I’d like to be on the show. I humbly accepted the invitation and didn’t mention that I should have heard from him sooner. Regardless, now I’m here, in his studio in Austin, mic’ed up, wearing my smart-sexy-stylish long brown velvet dress from Faherty that I recently splurged on, confident as ever, certainly as confident as David has ever seen me, and we’re chatting. I have no idea what I say. All I know is that I make the stoic David Perell laugh, and if I can make him laugh, that means people listening must be laughing, too.

In today's memoir deep dive, I talk about how Amy Wilson was able to make the reader laugh in her book, Happy To Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser.

One way Amy made me laugh was her inclusion of a fantasy. She wrote:

“I saw an opening to approach the other female actor. She was the one I was really excited to be working with. She was the one I'd watched on TV for a decade. I figured I could strike up a conversation with her in the cafeteria line, hopefully join her at the table. Tell her a little about my upcoming wedding. Maybe I'd even invite her. After all, we'd be working together every day.

‘Hey. Hi. I'm just wondering, where do we all go for lunch?’ I asked her.

‘You know, we all mostly do our own thing,’ she said. Then she went into her dressing room and closed the door.”

Amy let herself imagine a world in which this woman she never met before might come to her wedding, and then the woman rejected her, and never spoke to her again. The more our fantasies don’t match our reality, the funnier they are. My husband didn’t even know about the David Perell fantasy, not until I typed it here, which of course I didn’t want to do, because that meant admitting it was something I thought about more than, I don’t know, twelve times.

I was recently on a Zoom call with someone I’d never met before—I only knew her through Substack—and she said, “Can I ask you something personal?” which is my favorite thing to be asked. I leaned in, waiting for the juicy thing to be said. It’s the same way I feel when a writer includes a fantasy. I lean in, the words on the page suddenly electrified. They’ve decided to let me in on their most embarrassing thoughts, and it’s a thrill.

David Sedaris does it in his essay, The Santaland Diaries, when he imagines himself arriving in New York and heading to the offices of his favorite soap opera to meet with the show’s stars:

“In my imagination I'd go straight from Penn Station to the offices of 'One Life To Live,' where I would drop off my bags and spruce up before heading off for drinks with Cord Roberts and Victoria Buchannon, the show's greatest stars. We'd sit in a plush booth at a tony cocktail lounge where my new celebrity friends would lift their frosty glasses in my direction and say, 'A toast to David Sedaris, the best writer this show has ever had!!!'

I'd say, ‘You guys, cut it out.’ It was my plan to act modest.”

Your fantasies are funny. Include them. Listen to the podcast to learn other ways to make the reader laugh.

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Until next week,

Charlie