Sounds Like Me AN INTRODUCTION
I HAVE BEEN WRITING this book for over two years.

Over two years for eight essays.

Over two years for eight essays about myself, whom I spend a great deal of time with, and know a lot about. If you’re not great with subtext, I’ll help you out:

Writing this book was difficult.

I said yes to this project back in 2013, because I loved the idea of writing a book. That’s like buying white jeans because you like the idea of looking good in them. I think we all know where this is headed. It was nice at first. I smugly skated around on the phrase, “I’m working on a book right now. . . .” and people gave me raised eyebrows and looks of wonderment and I felt like sparkly peppermint candy for a few months. Then the edges faded and shit got real. Instead of a cabin in the woods with a typewriter and a basset hound, I had a laptop, a winter in New York, a deadline, and anxiety.

I kicked and screamed and wrestled and lost. I traveled and ignored and distracted and apologized. I watched it like a rattlesnake out of the corner of my eye and hoped it would just slither away. When it didn’t, I spent countless hours in coffee shops, restaurants, and at my kitchen table, writing to meet a “hard” deadline that came and went well over a year ago. I considered giving back the money I got from the publisher. I considered putting this off for another few years until I became smart enough or wise enough or funny enough to know how to do this. Then, at the encouragement of my managers, I decided to take a long break from it.

I wrote a musical.

It was easier to write a musical than this set of eight essays.

After about a year and a half of fighting it, I finally surrendered. I took a break from flogging myself with the question, “What business do I have writing a book?” and decided to do it anyway. That question didn’t have an answer, and the truth is that nobody out there in the world needs this book. Nobody but me. I needed it.

It taught me to love something difficult.

Writing this book was hard. In fact, I would say it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But the epiphany was recognizing that I could maybe still love this thing not only in spite of it being challenging, but because of it. It was as I sat with that truth that I understood why I fought this so hard. It feels infinitely more vulnerable to speak about my life without the metaphor and mask of music or my singing voice. I had to take a look at who I am without those things. These essays are a much more direct line to the inner workings of my mind and my heart, and that’s an exposed place to find yourself and your little machine.

I leaned on the familiar foundation of my own music to find my way into this new kind of writing, and eventually the book evolved into a collection of stories, each anchored by a song. It felt right to weave my music into this writing in some way, and it helped the essays start flowing like the tiny belabored trickle they were intended to be. I tried to be candid. I tried to be honest. I tried to remember things in an unbiased way. I tried to be at least a little funny. I tried not to gossip. I tried to be myself, as wholeheartedly as possible. I started to enjoy it, and that was astonishing. I neared the finish line bruised but happy, all the while dodging the main question anyone would ask. . . .

Deciding what to call this book almost drove me crazy. In a very formal meeting surrounded by a team of literary professionals, my publisher asked me casually, “So have you thought at all about a title?” He smiled. I fake-smiled. He had no idea how much time I had already spent wildly scraping my insides for this oh-so-elusive set of words. Hours and days and weeks making lists of possible titles, some of which still speak beautifully to the emotional state I was in along the way. . . .

Wait, So I’m in Charge?

Trying Too Hard

Being a Person Is Really Hard

I’m Not Going to Write You a Book

I Don’t Feel Like Being Funny

Utterly Uncool

Whatever It Is, It’s Not What You’re Thinking

I spared him my knee-jerk reaction of leaping across the table and fighting him like a feral cat, and instead told him I was “working on it.”

I was on my eighth and final essay, sitting at my kitchen table looking out my window at the never-ending winter of New York, and thinking for the millionth time about what I wanted to call the book. I thought about the approach I was taking with the essays. About how the essays felt like they reflected my life on a larger scale. I wanted them to be honest. I wanted them to be authentic. I wanted to make sure that when I read them back, they sounded like me (*cue light bulb).

So here we are.

This book is some of my story and some of my songs.

It was a labor of avoidance, then hate, then love, and I’m glad I stayed around long enough to witness the transformation.

I wrote it for you.

It sounds like me.