Remembering the first draft of Women of Good Fortune

coming to terms with releasing my book baby to the wild

This newsletter has been languishing in my Drafts folder, but I am BACK to talk about WOMEN OF GOOD FORTUNE. For those who missed it, my book’s cover went live around a month ago! She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Pre-orders are available everywhere now. On Amazon, on Netgalley, on Walmart. At local booksellers. On Goodreads. It’s funny because when I tell people I have a book coming out, I think their initial reaction is skepticism, but then they see that it’s on Amazon and B&N and they’re like oh so this is not just a self-help guide-slash-memoir you turned into a PDF and are now trying to sell to people.

I remember telling my agent about this book on our offer call, and back then, it was a fledgling idea. I did not believe I could write a heist, and it sort of felt like I was making big promises that I couldn’t keep. There were so many points when I would cancel plans one evening or forego watching TV because I knew I had to draft, and during those times, I would sometimes wonder: what am I doing? Am I sinking countless hours into something that will go nowhere? I know I’m excited now about this idea, but when that excitement fades, will there even be a story worth reading? Should I choose the easy life and watch this Korean drama instead (do not be mistaken, some nights I did choose the Korean drama)?

I rewrote this book several times. First, I wrote it from only one point of view, and I got to around 50k words before I realized the structure wasn’t working. Then, I rewrote it with three perspectives. I did a ton of research on current events in China and spent a lot of evenings talking to my parents so that I could form a picture of contemporary Shanghai. My agent told me the heist needed to be more fleshed out. Cue me watching a lot of heist films, outlining every teeny detail of what would happen in the heist (and I am NOT an outliner at all), then spending one feverish day writing that entire section.

A lot has changed in this book, and so many people have touched it. Along that process, I think I have slowly let go of this story and recognized that it is not just mine anymore. As copies go out into the world, people will read it and have reactions to it. They will interpret it in ways that I may not have intended, or they will see exactly what I was trying to say, with a clarity that I don’t even possess. And what a pleasure that is, to hear someone spend time to read something I wrote, then spend more time to review it and describe how it made them feel. When I got my unsolicited review, it felt funny. Here was someone who I did not need to beg to read my book, reading it and liking it. What a mix of joy and gratitude I felt. I also knew that I would have to depart Goodreads because I would otherwise be unable to restrain myself from reading all the reviews and infringing on a readers-only space. However, I do love praise, so my sister has graciously volunteered to forward positive reviews to me.

I worried about a lot of things when I realized that people are starting to read the book. I worried that they wouldn’t like it, that my rating would tank, or worse, that nobody would pick it up at all, and my author career would vanish in a puff of smoke. But I thought back to my initial goal with this book: write something that’s fun but captures the nuances of Chinese culture in a way that might be new to Western audiences, but hilariously familiar to those of us who grew up in Chinese households. I believe I’ve accomplished that, so regardless of what happens, I’ve fulfilled my original objective. And I’m just so excited about this book reaching people. There’s an audiobook in the works too, so my friends who need something to listen to while Swiffering will get to experience this book too!

Anyway, my mantra while being on submission was to work on something new instead of overthinking what might be happening with my book out there in people’s hands. That has stayed true, so instead of thinking about which people on Netgalley are now reading this story, I’ve been drafting my second book and steadfastly trying to avoid the second book blues (with limited success). More on that later; this newsletter is already long enough.

Something I wrote today:

“Y’all coming?” their tour guide asks. “I gotta say, I don’t get a lot of married couples here.” 

“We’re not married,” Priya’s quick to correct. “Divorced, actually.” 

“And you want to spend the end of the world together? I’ve got some throuples and polyamorous folks that’ve come through, but this might be the weirdest thing I’ve heard.”