the things i love most about being a writer, so far
and a tip to deal with the chronic low-level heartache of pursuing traditional publishing
Months until MIDNIGHTS WITH YOU comes out: Seven ☁️
Lately my heart has hurt and my heart has felt so full, both so intensely, and following so close one after the another, sometimes even at the same time.
Publishing broke my heart a little bit this month, but I’m not going to dwell on that too much here. I want to focus on the good things in this one, like I said I would last time.
I’ve been having lots of firsts lately—reading from my book for other people for the first time (thank you Dr. Lillian Lu for inviting me to speak to your students!). Being on a panel for the first time, at an amazing community event highlighting Southeast Asian diaspora authors. (Thank you Viviann Do, Carolyn Huynh, Jes Vu and Matilija Lending Library for organizing Little Saigon Book Street, and for including me 💜). And I did my first podcast interview! It’s coming later this month, I’ll definitely post about it on Instagram when it’s up.
And I’ve been thinking a lot about what the best parts of author life are. For me, lately, they’ve been:
Getting absorbed into a new project and writing again. Laughing with friends about our works in progress, in group chats or over dinner. Hearing your friends’ ideas and thinking, Damn, that’s brilliant, or Ahhh I want to read that! Writing together in coffee shops and libraries. Writing alone, disheveled, at my desk early in the morning, on the couch in the afternoon, in bed late at night, and making myself laugh as I’m staring at the screen. When the words click into place and surprise you. When the characters jump off the page and it’s like you can’t type fast enough to keep up. The feeling of settling in with Scrivener in front of you and a good playlist and notes for a scene you’re excited to write, laid out and ready to go in one half of the screen, a blank page in the other.
It’s the feeling of falling in love with a story, when the ideas are flowing and the characters won’t shut up and I can’t stop frantically writing ideas in my notes app even though I’m trying to go to sleep. It’s reading over friends’ screaming comments on my drafts, and leaving my own screaming comments on friends’ drafts.
It’s arriving at a book launch or event and seeing people you haven’t seen in a while, catching up, commiserating the way you only can with people doing this weird thing you’re doing, who are familiar with the same niche heartaches and very specific highs. Taking forever to leave an event because it takes like twenty minutes to say goodbye.
It’s when more established authors extend you their kindness and generosity and advice (which, in my experience, happens way more than I expected). Especially with blurbs, which is something really nice I got to experience recently—more on that sometime in the future, but wow, I’m grateful.
It’s getting messages from friends saying your writing moved them. Getting messages from strangers saying they’re excited to read your book. I got a message from a reader saying my book changed her life??? And I keep remembering it randomly, in the middle of doing other things—washing the dishes, being on a Zoom call, driving to the store—and thinking, “Wow, sounds fake?” But also: “Wow, whatever happens, I guess it was worth it.”
It’s friends showing up for you when publishing breaks your heart, piling into the groupchat with ideas and encouragement, so each time you look at your lock screen there are like thirty unread messages. It’s writing the acknowledgments for my debut and thinking about how grateful I am for the people I’ve met.
I’m so relieved to be working on something new that I’m having a lot of fun with right now. It’s very unhinged. Hoping I can tell you more about it one day, but for now let’s refer to it as OFFICE GHOST WIP. (WIP stands for Work In Progress, for the non-writer-bubble friends who read these sometimes lol). As the name might suggest, it’s not young adult this time! It’s nice to try something new and stretch my legs, wherever it ultimately goes.
The craft section: Developing an independent sense of satisfaction
On the debut authors’ panel at Little Saigon Book Street, moderated by the lovely Tara Kwan, she asked us to talk about a struggle we’ve faced on the way to getting published so far. I talked about the struggle of separating your sense of satisfaction—in your work, in yourself—from external feedback.
I really do think this is one of the big struggles of pursuing traditional publishing. The time scales are so long, and sitting with unfulfilled longing for years can kind of eat you up in this weird way. It can become corrosive. Time passing can weigh on you and feel like proof that your work isn’t worthy, but then things can change so fast—you can get that agent call out of nowhere, get a book deal after months of agonizing silence on submission. That external sense of what your book is can change on a dime, even though it’s been the same book the whole time. I feel like achieving a sense of object permanence about what your work is, not dependent on those external things, can really save your sanity. (But it’s hard! It’s still a work in progress for me.)
And publishing is really set up to make you feel vaguely like a failure all the time, because there’s always an upcoming hurdle to clear: Querying and trying to get an agent. Revising and feeling stressed about whether you’re heading in the right direction while your peers seem to sprint ahead of you. Going on submission to editors to try and get a book deal, and sitting in the silence while you wait to hear back. Once you have a book deal, waiting to find out how much support your book might get—from your publisher, from tastemakers, store buyers, awards committees, people who make lists, from readers themselves. Worrying about the opportunities the book will even get to reach readers, and how it will sell. Worrying how those sales will impact whether or not you’ll get to sell another book—because chances are, if you love the act of writing, you want to keep on doing it.
There’s lots of opportunities for rejection along all of those points, between all of those tests. Lots of chances to get your heart broken and filled with doubt. It can lead to a kind of dull ache that nestles between my ribs, that I try to pretend doesn’t exist most of the time, as I go about the rest of my life, trying to seem normal. I think of it as “publishing ache,” and I’m starting to think of it as a long-term thing, because it’s sneaked up on me even after passing the big milestones I thought might make it go away.
Which is why I think of this as a craft tip, because it does have to do with continuing to write, and getting out of your own way.
When I’m working on something—a new draft, a big revision, whatever it might be—and I’m filled with doubt, I make a list. I write out everything about the project that I think is going right so far, that I’m happy with, that I’m proud of.
Look, I know it’s cheesy as hell. But I feel like it’s helped me not sink and drown when the waves of self doubt have picked up. It’s made me feel better, in the thick of revisions that I wasn’t sure I’d find my way out of.
At the very least, if what you have down on the page is actually far off from the beating heart of what you want it to be and it needs a lot of work, writing this kind of list can be a good diagnostic tool. Maybe you’re only happy with one thread running through the whole story—this can be a sign to turn toward that thread and away from everything else that’s not serving the heart of the story you want to work toward.
Things I secretly love about my debut novel
Somewhat related to that list technique . . . historically, I have had a hard time letting myself feel good about myself or my work. I think I had internalized these bad ideas about being humble—that it somehow keeps you safe to not think too many good things about yourself, because it will spur you to constantly improve and never get too comfortable, and it will keep you from getting insufferable and full of yourself. In reality, though, I think this mindset mostly just got me . . . kind of beat down? And can make me feel bottomless and needy, like a cup with a hole that every good thing drains out of, and that can never fill up. Overall, it’s probably made me less fun at parties.
Plus, it is VERY jarring to have this kind of mindset and then shift into promoting a book. My God! Really not a great match for these ingrained ideas of mine.
This season of adjusting to book promo has been a time of growing pains, of trying things, of pushing myself. In that spirit (and, you know, in the interest of being more fun at parties), I’m resolving, each month, to tell you five things I secretly (at least, up until now) love about my debut novel.
First, to set the table, here’s the pitch: MIDNIGHTS WITH YOU is a YA contemporary romance that follows seventeen-year-old Deedee as she sneaks out after dark to learn to drive against her strict Filipino single mom’s wishes—and her growing connection with the mysterious boy across the street who agrees to teach her pushes them both to confront the pain, secrets, and generational trauma that really keeps them up at night.
This month’s five are:
It’s made people cry. (This is probably the most frequent comment I get about MWY, and I actually . . . saw it happen once, when a friend was reading it in front of me?? Just kind of wild, that words on paper can do that.)
On one level, it’s a story about the long shadow of generational trauma. On another level, it’s an aching, angsty, tender romance that’s got a lot of sweet moments. I feel like it’s got good balance—like spicy mango candy, or fatty pork with bittermelon. What am I even saying? Anyway.
It’s full of longing—not just romantic longing, but longing for more out of life and for finding out who else you could be, when you’re growing up in a painful situation that limits you.
That it’s not really a story about trauma, but it’s a story about two characters who have trauma in their backgrounds, who start there and get to go somewhere else from there. They sneak around, fall in love, have an adventure together, figure their shit out. It’s a story about moving away from trauma, and that means a lot to me.
That it’s filled with intimate late-night parked-car conversations and atmospheric night drives, and I’m just a sucker for those moments when two people can slowly open up to each other, out of the context of the rest of their lives.
Those were quite rambly and far from the hooky, snappy promo language I feel like I’m supposed to be learning right now lol! But maybe we’ll get there together over the next seven months.
March-April listening / reading / watching
This month, I’ve been in the throes of drafting OFFICE GHOST WIP (and I’m so grateful for that), and I’ve had the pleasure of beta reading for friends, so I don’t have quite as many published books to talk about as last time! I’ve also been reading some things for research that I would not necessarily pass along as recommendations (like a history of IBM lmao), but my Netgalley shelf is straining with good things I can’t wait to read soon.
Here are my recs this month:
With Love, Echo Park by Laura Taylor Namey — The family warmth and love of community that suffuses this whole story was so wonderful. If a story involves family secrets, that’s basically also an auto-buy for me, and this book has plenty. Clary’s story made me feel seen as a fellow napkin-hoarder, and as a biracial kid who really only knows and identifies with one side of her family. And I loved the prickly dynamic between Clary and Emilio in this irritant-to-love romance! So grateful I could read an ARC of this book early. It comes out on August 27.
Women of Good Fortune by Sophie Wan — This is kind of cheating because I read an earlier draft of this book a while back, but it finally hit shelves in March, and it is SO GOOD I need to take this opportunity to scream about it again. Incredibly vivid characters I still think about, rich and layered relationships, and a gripping plot that culminates in a madcap heist. Overall one of the best depictions of friendship I’ve seen in fiction.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman — Eleanor’s voice hooked me immediately, the way her perspective is so idiosyncratic and so painfully relatable at the same time. I love the way this story deals with loneliness, longing, and the warmth between people. It’s definitely had a big impact on me, and I can see why it’s so well-loved!
Crash Landing on You — The premise is ludicrous, but the storytelling, oh my GOD. I rewatched the whole thing for the first time in four years, realized I had forgotten a lot of it, and got emotional all over again. The characters! The group dynamics! The way this show pays off everything it sets up! I’m impressed this show gave me an emotional hangover on a rewatch.
No Rome’s “live in a mr2” video — This little YouTube concert that No Rome did for Nylon Manila is like catnip for me because I love the aesthetic of JDM cars, and I love his music. A frequent rewatch when I’m stressed.
Thirty-Nine — I’m just a few episodes into this drama, but I love the dynamic between the three central friends, and I’m invested in the romance between Mi-jo and Seon-woo already. Their dynamic is so sweet and gentle but still mature in a way I find really refreshing.
Thanks so much for reading! Let’s do it again next month 💜
Love always,
Clare