Kathy Wang, Author of FAMILY TRUST
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:28]I'm excited to be here today with Cathy Wang.
[0:30]Cathy is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard Business School.
[0:34]Cathy spent years working in the tech industry at Intel and C8 before writing her first
[0:38]novel, Family Trust.
[0:40]She currently lives with her husband and two children in the Bay Area, where she's working
[0:44]on her second novel.
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[0:56]Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:59]Welcome to Cathy.
[1:00]Thanks for coming on Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[1:02]Cathy, can you tell listeners what family trust is about?
[1:06]What made you want to write this novel and what is it about?
[1:08]So Family Trust is essentially, it's kind of like a multi-generational family saga.
[1:13]It's understood on an Asian-American family, like kind of upper middle class in Silicon
[1:17]Valley.
[1:18]The patriarch gets a kind of terminal illness diagnosis and it kind of follows the various
[1:24]players as they struggle with this diagnosis and what it means.
[1:28]So there's adult children in this and who have their own lives and their own problems.
[1:32]There's the first wife who kind of built up, he's so-called fortune with him.
[1:36]And then there's his younger second wife who has been with him for some time and is finding
[1:41]caring for an older dying man a little bit more troubled and she had anticipated.
[1:47]And so that in a nutshell is a story.
[1:49]What made me want to write this story, I mean, this story actually just began actually
[1:53]with one of the characters on whose name is Fred.
[1:56]He is an HBS grad, I was kind of struggling with his career in Silicon Valley.
[2:01]And I guess for me, when I wrote this at the time, like I was definitely at the stage
[2:05]in my career and so in my period where I think when you graduate from college, you kind
[2:11]of go along this very established path, you graduate from a good school and you get
[2:15]a good job and then you go to a good graduate school and then you go to a job after that.
[2:20]But then all of a sudden, I think your career kind of stops for a lot of people.
[2:23]You stop going up and I think a lot of us have been told that we'll continue to go up
[2:28]and then you actually realize that actually for a lot of us, you're not, maybe you're
[2:33]going to plateau there or maybe you're even going to start taking a few steps down.
[2:38]And so that was something that I was going through at the time and what really fascinating
[2:42]me was just how the men were handling this phenomenon versus the woman.
[2:47]I think they had very different ways of dealing with this disappointment and it was just
[2:51]me that I was obsessed with and so from there, I just started writing one of the characters
[2:55]and then it kind of grew.
[2:56]So interesting.
[2:57]And you deliberately put your career on hold, not sort of stalling as you describe it
[3:02]for a friend, but you put your career on hold as a tech manager after your son was born
[3:06]and that's how you wrote this book.
[3:08]Is that correct?
[3:09]Yeah.
[3:10]I mean, like, you know, my husband had this job at the time where he was probably traveling
[3:13]like half the month and then, you know, we had had a baby and it was just very, I just couldn't
[3:18]figure out how to make it work, like, and going back to work.
[3:20]And so I ended up staying home and, you know, it definitely felt really weird about it.
[3:24]Like I was a only person in my entire section who was not working.
[3:28]And so I definitely feel, you know, you definitely have feelings about it.
[3:32]And so, yeah, definitely.
[3:34]For listeners, Kathy and I both went to the same business school, Harvard Business School
[3:38]and not many people, A, our novelist, slash writers and not many people, she used to say
[3:43]how I'm working.
[3:44]Well, actually, is that even true?
[3:45]I'm not even sure.
[3:46]It happens later on, later on, like once I have a second, I feel like that a lot of
[3:50]people are just like, this is too.
[3:51]Yeah.
[3:52]And then a lot of, mainly women, I think, they kind of step away.
[3:55]Yeah.
[3:56]But the idea of writing a book about, you know, what happens when you're not as successful
[4:02]as you once thought you should be, I think it's so interesting because I've personally
[4:06]found out that I'm in my, you know, my 40s and people are sort of looking at their careers
[4:10]more analytically.
[4:12]The people who are really struggling with where they've ended up are having sort of
[4:16]most difficult time of it in sort of every realm of their lives.
[4:19]Do you find that too?
[4:20]Do you mean like at home and at work?
[4:23]Yeah.
[4:24]I feel like, I feel like, especially for people who have been told their whole lives that
[4:28]they're these achievers and to keep going and they have great educations and they start
[4:32]out with great jobs and then they sort of don't fulfill the potential that they believe
[4:36]they can.
[4:37]I don't know.
[4:38]I feel like it does so much to self-esteem for those people.
[4:41]I mean, more so than...
[4:42]Really?
[4:43]I agree with you, actually.
[4:44]I think a lot of them, you know, when I was at HVSA, I think most people are not married
[4:47]yet, for example.
[4:48]And so they're like, well, I rock it at school and so when I get married, I'm going to
[4:52]be great at that.
[4:53]And then when I have kids, I'm going to be great at that.
[4:55]And then, you know, that actually happens and, you know, I think there's going to be failures
[4:59]right along the way.
[5:00]I think that they have a hard time.
[5:01]Like you say, managing that as well.
[5:03]Yeah.
[5:04]I guess that was my long way of saying that people have a hard time managing failure.
[5:07]No, it's cool.
[5:08]I agree.
[5:09]Yeah.
[5:10]Although now that we've been talking, I've been thinking about different, particularly women
[5:12]who I was in school with, who have, after having kids have started really creative,
[5:16]interesting careers, not necessarily the straightforward jobs that they had right after
[5:21]graduating, but...
[5:22]Yeah.
[5:23]I don't know.
[5:24]I don't know.
[5:25]I think anyway.
[5:26]Not to say that people aren't working, but anyway, I'm just trying to understand.
[5:29]But I'll just say, I think that's a great starting point for a novel, which is probably
[5:34]why it turned into such an amazing note, so...
[5:38]Apparently, so you wrote this book while your son was napping in the afternoons.
[5:42]Is that true?
[5:43]I feel like I can't even get through my emails during nap time.
[5:45]I mean, not that I even...
[5:46]Yes.
[5:47]I mean, I feel like, you know, that was a good, that, what article that came out
[5:50]for my whole town newspaper, and it was so fun, and there's a woman who interviewed me.
[5:54]I mean, she had a young child, so she was like really focused on a point, right?
[5:58]So it's just kind of...
[5:59]I mean, yeah.
[6:00]I mean, it was.
[6:01]I mean, I guess the one thing that I don't know if it comes across is...
[6:05]I did write it when he was napping that year.
[6:07]I mean, it was really fueled by a very deep sense of desperation.
[6:10]I mean, it was just like, I just needed to have something that I was mine, that I was
[6:18]doing on my own.
[6:19]That was something that I could like a little hobby or something, so I did do it while
[6:23]he was napping, but I mean, at times it was really miserable for me, right?
[6:26]He would feel like...
[6:27]And I would try to do everything while he was awake, like, you know, watch me watch
[6:31]the dishes, and then he would have, you know, melt down, and you know, it was definitely
[6:35]not that easy.
[6:37]And there are lots of hobbies you can take up, right?
[6:40]Why this one?
[6:41]What was it about writing or writing a novel in particular that really appealed to you?
[6:45]It's definitely like a bucket list item for me that I wanted to try to write a book, and
[6:49]so, you know, I didn't know what my life would be like after I had two kids, maybe
[6:53]I'd go back to like a full-time like corporate career, so I was just like, you know, this
[6:57]is maybe the last time I'll have a big chunk of time, but I'm for quite a while, so that's
[7:01]essentially what pushed me to write it, you know?
[7:03]And I think at like any writer chair, I'm a big reader, and I was just always thinking
[7:07]that I was interested in.
[7:08]And had you written any short fiction or anything, or you just literally dove in?
[7:12]I hadn't, so I hadn't, you know, I hadn't had any like publications, you know, and the
[7:16]thing was like, I have looked at, I was like, ooh, maybe I'll just like go to one of those
[7:19]programs.
[7:20]Yeah, and for it has a program or like a fellowship, but you know, all of those require
[7:23]like letters of recommendation and examples of your writing and I didn't have any of that,
[7:28]and so I was like, well, I guess, you know, I have like almost like no choice, but to just
[7:33]try to write like a longer piece, you know?
[7:35]Maybe there's something to be said for the freedom, because I don't know.
[7:38]Whatever recipe you had your book ended up with such success, and I don't want to quote
[7:45]your hometown paper again, but can you tell me a little more about the process of selling
[7:49]your book and how that all went down?
[7:51]Yeah, so, you know, I had just used Google for everything, so I didn't have like beta readers
[7:57]or anything, and that's, I mean, I think, you know, I was like, when you have a young
[7:59]company that can't only meet up to do these like things that like, you know, like on
[8:03]PM or something.
[8:04]So I just, you know, done the whole spreadsheet thing.
[8:07]I think HBS people like spreadsheets where you, you know, have the list of the agents
[8:12]and everything, and then once my, I thought my book was in kind of like a decent shape,
[8:16]I started sending out the query letters, and you know, those are essentially those letters
[8:20]like you cold call agents with to try to get them to be interested in your book from
[8:24]there.
[8:25]I eventually got an agent and then, you know, the novel went on submission.
[8:28]I think pretty quickly after I mean, she had a few kind of comments on it, but I think
[8:33]we turned it around in like maybe three or four weeks and then she went on submission
[8:37]to the publishing houses.
[8:38]And how did you feel when you negotiated your final deal and the ink was that had dried
[8:44]on the contract?
[8:45]Were you just over the moon or could you believe it?
[8:47]I mean, so, you know, when I signed the contract, like, you know, I had probably gotten,
[8:51]like I had like just given birth, so I mean, like I was like not sleeping.
[8:55]So it was almost like a non-event.
[8:57]I mean, it's an event, but it was just like, you know, I was like probably sleeping
[9:00]like three hours a night, you know, with the baby yelling and then like the toddlers
[9:03]acting up.
[9:04]And so you're just like, I mean, it was wonderful, but I almost don't remember it.
[9:08]It's just, you know, in that haze of that period, we don't only remember anything
[9:11]from when our kids are like a little real young.
[9:14]And so one thing that I do remember is that that was when I told my mom that I had written
[9:18]a book.
[9:19]Like I didn't tell her anything until I had received a contract from HarperCollins.
[9:24]Because I knew if like something fell through, I would forever be like revived as like,
[9:28]what happened to that book?
[9:29]You said, you know, you're gonna write.
[9:31]So I remember with that, I finally got the digital contract was where I told her I had
[9:35]written something.
[9:36]Oh my gosh.
[9:37]That's so funny.
[9:38]Well, let's talk about the matriarch of the family in this book, Family Trust, Linda
[9:42]Liang at the sort of this typical mom, except that she and her husband or former husband
[9:48]Stan Lee have gotten divorced, Stan Lee's with another sort of younger woman.
[9:53]And yet she's obviously still the mom to the, to grown children.
[9:57]And when Stan Lee goes through an illness, she plays like a very,
[10:00]Interesting role.
[10:00]Like, you don't see this a lot, right?
[10:02]What it's like for the ex-wife
[10:03]when the former husband slash dad is ill.
[10:07]And that was really interesting relationship to examine.
[10:10]And then you made me laugh so much.
[10:11]When she Linda starts dating online with this Tiger Lily app
[10:16]and she goes on a date finally with somebody she had met
[10:18]and says, in person, Norman looked like his photos
[10:20]albeit older.
[10:21]When she first saw him, Linda was struck by a grim fear
[10:24]that she too appeared that aged and scuttled
[10:26]to the bathroom to reassure herself.
[10:28]She pet her face in the mirror.
[10:29]She didn't think she looked that bad.
[10:31]She thought she might still even be able to pull off handsome.
[10:33]But there was nothing she could do about it either way.
[10:35]She applied a fresh coat of lipstick.
[10:37]Right.
[10:39]I just love that paragraph.
[10:40]It's like so well written.
[10:42]So you just feel yourself in that moment.
[10:44]You're like in the bathroom with her.
[10:46]It's like just so perfect about aging and beauty
[10:49]and it just encapsulated so much right there.
[10:52]So tell me more about Linda's character
[10:54]and how you chose to write her.
[10:56]Well, for so thank you for your kind words.
[10:58]Linda, I mean, I think it's like a very,
[11:00]I mean, I hate to see it.
[11:01]I mean, she's a, you know, I think many Asian Americans
[11:04]will read this and be like, that's my mother.
[11:05]And that's how my mother is with it.
[11:07]You know, she's very practical.
[11:09]She's not very sentimental.
[11:11]She's very focused.
[11:12]She's very results focused.
[11:13]She's not a hugger.
[11:16]You know, she's not going to praise you.
[11:18]She wants the best for her kids,
[11:19]but you know, it's going to come out
[11:21]in a much more kind of direct blonde fashion
[11:24]that more or maybe stereotypical American kind
[11:27]of cheerleading style.
[11:29]So that's essentially her.
[11:30]And you know, she was responsible
[11:31]for a lot of the financial success
[11:33]with her first husband.
[11:34]And then, you know, they got divorced.
[11:36]And now she's seeing that maybe everything
[11:39]that she built up, which, you know, obviously he walked
[11:41]away with half with is going to go not to his,
[11:43]the adult children that, you know, are her children
[11:45]and his children, but actually to his younger second wife.
[11:49]Something else that is just interesting to me
[11:51]after having published the book is, you know, I think from that,
[11:53]there's very different viewpoints.
[11:55]I think on that younger second wife
[11:56]in Chinese culture versus American culture.
[11:59]I want to say like in Chinese culture,
[12:01]I mean, as a, and I'm kind of a stereotypical,
[12:04]I mean, I'm cliche stereotyping,
[12:05]but I think when an older man,
[12:07]Mary's a younger woman in Chinese culture,
[12:09]everyone's kind of like, yeah, like that's, you know,
[12:12]there's a deal going on there.
[12:13]Everyone knows it, you know, she wants a lifestyle
[12:15]and he wants, you know, companionship
[12:17]from someone young and pretty.
[12:19]I think in American culture, it seems to be like,
[12:21]it needs to be about true love, you know,
[12:23]or it has to be like, oh, well, it's a love, you know.
[12:26]Money is not even in the equation.
[12:28]And so, you know, when she's dealing with the discussion
[12:32]of his inheritance or his will,
[12:33]I mean, to her, it's just a normal conversation that you have,
[12:35]but it's just interesting
[12:36]because I, you know, I get emails from American readers
[12:38]and they're like, what's wrong with her?
[12:40]I just, it's just funny because with Asians,
[12:42]it's not even something that's a problem.
[12:44]Well, no, I was definitely surprised reading it.
[12:46]That was like, that's bold.
[12:49]Was your mom similar to Linda and how she raised you
[12:53]or her sort of general affect?
[12:55]Did you base it off of your own family at all?
[12:57]Um, you know, my mom is definitely like a certain kind of,
[13:01]yeah, I mean, she's, she's, like my friends growing up,
[13:04]they called her like Asian lost.
[13:06]Like she's just very, you know, certain ways.
[13:08]She's, you know, everything has to be very proper.
[13:10]So she's definitely similar to Linda in some respects
[13:14]and definitely I think in her bearing.
[13:17]And how about Fred, the disillusioned business school graduate
[13:21]who's sort of struggling?
[13:22]I feel like, you know, when you had his girlfriend,
[13:25]Erica is just stretched the truths about him.
[13:27]It's almost like what he wishes had happened, right?
[13:30]Like the things that she writes,
[13:32]even though he cringes when he, you know, reads it on Twitter
[13:34]or whatever, I think he would be happy with the version
[13:38]that she has of him in her head and how did that come about?
[13:42]You know, Fred is actually my favorite character,
[13:44]but he's the one that I think most people dislike the most,
[13:46]you know, but he's actually, you know, it's funny.
[13:49]I hear, I, you know, quite a few like of my XHPS,
[13:53]I mean, my friends were making us have read it
[13:54]and all the Asian guys are like, yeah,
[13:56]this is a normal man, like he's normal.
[14:00]But so I guess, I guess he's my favorite
[14:01]because I feel like he's very, he's very true to life.
[14:04]And I wanted to write him
[14:05]because I don't feel like there's a lot of Asian American men
[14:07]that are described in a fiction.
[14:09]That's probably true.
[14:10]You know, another author, Elissa Friedland,
[14:12]who wrote the intermission, spoke to my book group the other day.
[14:15]And she said that a lot of people had said
[14:17]to her about her characters, you know,
[14:18]I'm not sure I like them.
[14:20]You know, I'm not sure your character is very likable.
[14:22]And she's like, that's okay.
[14:24]Like that wasn't, my goal was not to make my character.
[14:27]Somebody you want to like, you know,
[14:28]that actually wasn't at all what I was going for.
[14:30]So that's good.
[14:31]You know, so I think there's a lot to be said for,
[14:33]I mean, you don't have to like everyone,
[14:35]like just being exposed to some of these characters
[14:38]is fantastic in and of itself.
[14:40]They don't have to be somebody you want to be best friends
[14:42]in necessarily.
[14:43]Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[14:44]And let's talk a little bit about Kate, the daughter.
[14:46]Kate is like the typical nice girl or she was, you know,
[14:50]she feels she's the nice girl to so many others.
[14:53]And then you actually write, what did it mean to be nice?
[14:55]Nice was a label that had been foisted on Kate since childhood.
[14:58]Your great Denny had said way back then.
[15:00]Like actually nice, not like so many other Asian women.
[15:03]But then soon after you say it was the times
[15:06]that she was a bitch, Kate, but now that she had really excelled.
[15:09]So I was wondering about this sort of dichotomy
[15:11]between the nice girl and then the bitchy sort of successful girl.
[15:15]Do you feel that that's Silicon Valley, you know,
[15:19]must have type of thing or was it just Kate herself
[15:22]that you found interesting as a character
[15:24]and wanted to portray that way
[15:25]without any sort of more generalized sort of societal commentary?
[15:29]I think maybe it's not, I mean, certainly it's like,
[15:31]it's like case in Asia.
[15:32]I mean, I think a lot of women have this problem
[15:34]or in Silicon Valley where you have to be very,
[15:36]I mean, in any, a lot of industry, you're supposed to be nice.
[15:39]I mean, I think banking is its own separate kind of world
[15:41]there where they want to have to maybe be able differently.
[15:44]But in the valley, I think you have to be pleasant, right?
[15:47]Like people want to have to work with you.
[15:49]And especially when you're like in a business function
[15:52]and so much of your job here is working with engineering talent
[15:55]and working with software and only,
[15:57]I mean, they have to like you for you to get a result.
[16:01]And so that's so much of your job.
[16:04]I think being Asian American, there's a stereotype
[16:06]that you're very shy, you're very sweet.
[16:09]Now you're so spoken and you know,
[16:11]but like, you know, Asians, just like I'm, you know,
[16:14]they're I mean, thinking like awful, awful things all the time.
[16:16]I mean, it's funny like when a bunch of Asian people get together
[16:18]like the conversation can be so mean, you know,
[16:22]like the things are set and then you go back into your office,
[16:26]you know, if other white people may be.
[16:28]And you know, you're totally different person.
[16:30]You know, I think that's something that's experienced
[16:32]by a lot of minorities.
[16:33]I think right where you know, you have your real self
[16:35]that comes out maybe with people you're more comfortable with
[16:37]and you go back into the workplace and you know,
[16:39]you assume your other identity.
[16:41]I just think for Asian Americans, probably,
[16:42]I just hold a lot and that have to be
[16:44]the more nice and celebratory type of role.
[16:47]I bet some people, some people could argue
[16:49]like any group of friends who's really close can get together
[16:52]and sort of gab and be who they really have a lot.
[16:55]A lot of people have to put on, you know,
[16:57]at least some sort of veneer of silly work.
[17:01]Great. Yeah. Yeah.
[17:03]So this novel was so great and so rich
[17:08]in so many relationships and aspects
[17:10]and family and everything else.
[17:12]I mean, it really sort of had it all, which is fantastic.
[17:15]And your book deal, I guess, included two books.
[17:17]So I was wondering if you could talk
[17:18]at all about your next book.
[17:19]You know, I mean, the next one,
[17:21]and I'm sure you've heard this on like many,
[17:23]from many people.
[17:24]It's like such a struggle because like,
[17:26]I feel like I used up everything for the,
[17:28]when I think back to the book, I'm like, man,
[17:29]I should have like not included this part.
[17:31]Like, I just wasted it there.
[17:33]Like, made it this full blown thing in the second book
[17:36]and I can't.
[17:37]And so I mean, I'm still struggling a lot with it.
[17:39]I probably have written like 200,000 words.
[17:41]And like, I just, none of it, it's not working.
[17:45]So I am now trying something else
[17:49]and hopefully, you know, be workout okay.
[17:51]But yeah, it's definitely a struggle
[17:54]to do this second.
[17:55]And I think my personality is that, you know,
[17:59]I have the second next two.
[18:00]And you know, it's like looming over me all the time
[18:03]that I need to come up with the second book.
[18:05]And when you sold the second book,
[18:07]did you have to agree on what it was about
[18:09]or can it be about anything?
[18:10]I mean, there was like a, I had no pages.
[18:13]So it was just literally like, you know,
[18:15]I had said something and they're like, okay.
[18:18]But I think, I mean, I think they're directive
[18:20]as kind of that it can be about anything within reason.
[18:23]You know, I mean, I don't,
[18:24]I don't know what's gonna happen
[18:25]if I deliver like a vampire thing or something.
[18:27]Well, right.
[18:28]Of course.
[18:29]No, I mean, yeah.
[18:30]But hopefully, hopefully it will be,
[18:34]I totally don't have to whatever I come up with.
[18:37]But you know, you see these all the time
[18:38]where like the first one that comes out
[18:39]and the second one doesn't come out for like 10 years, you know?
[18:41]And so I'm like, oh my gosh, I wonder if that's gonna be me.
[18:43]Well, I feel like it's so much harder, you know,
[18:45]it's one thing to write and be creative sort of
[18:48]in the privacy of your own home.
[18:49]If you don't know, you know, 100% where it's going.
[18:52]But it's almost like you're like standing
[18:55]in the middle of Times Square
[18:56]and every word you think of is being like broadcast out.
[18:59]I mean, there's a lot of pressure, right?
[19:01]Like, I feel like there has to be some sort of
[19:04]like suspension of disbelief type of thing
[19:06]where you're like, well, no one's actually gonna read this.
[19:09]So I'm just gonna do it, you know what I mean?
[19:11]And then go back and like you have to fool yourself.
[19:14]I think, I feel like you'd have to fool yourself
[19:16]into getting this sort of authenticity of the first book.
[19:19]Yeah, completely.
[19:20]I mean, that's just me.
[19:21]I don't know.
[19:22]I feel like when people and I know people are about to read
[19:23]something, I get very self-conscious about it.
[19:26]Whereas when I'm writing from the heart,
[19:27]it just like flows out of me.
[19:28]I don't know if you're the same way.
[19:29]No, completely, you know, I totally agree.
[19:32]You know, I mean, I didn't say that's really interesting to me.
[19:34]It's like, I'm not really like a user of Twitter.
[19:36]Like, I never used it before I wrote this book
[19:38]and everyone's like, oh, yeah, do you use Twitter
[19:40]because you know, everyone in publishing write using it?
[19:42]So like, I'm on Twitter, I normally lurk a lot.
[19:44]And I'll see people like tweet.
[19:47]And then like the tweet will disappear.
[19:48]Like they decided not to do it and then they delete it.
[19:50]And like then, you know,
[19:52]because they realize there's gonna be out there.
[19:53]And then, you know, and I feel like you can't write a book.
[19:56]Thank you.
[19:57]That way, do you know what I mean?
[19:58]It's like, maybe that's like really good.
[20:00]stuff probably, but that was a controversial tweet that they did that they decided to delete.
[20:04]But that's the stuff that's like really good in a book. And so if you keep just freaking
[20:08]yourself out that, you know, someone's gonna hate it or take a fence to it, I think, yeah,
[20:11]a lot of times it's too difficult to keep going.
[20:14]I actually just finished writing this memoir, which I have now decided I can't sell. But anyway,
[20:19]I know it's a long story. But anyway, three quarters of the way through, you know,
[20:23]even my husband who read it can tell he's like, this is when you realize that maybe it wasn't
[20:27]just you who was gonna read this. Like, like my whole like style in my agent and everybody,
[20:31]they were like, okay, this is what happened here. And I'm like, I don't know. I just started panicking.
[20:37]Anyway, obviously my tiny little story, it pales in comparison to your like major deal with the
[20:42]publisher and everything. But I'll say I relate to that feeling and I'm sure you will come out of
[20:47]it soon. And I also think like, you know, for sort of type it and I'm making assumptions about you
[20:54]here, but I'm assuming you're sort of more like a type A, you know, overachiever that I can
[20:58]relate to in that way. And having something not be perfect is almost unbearable, you know?
[21:04]So I, you know, but creative things sometimes just end up not being that way at first, right?
[21:10]Yeah. I don't know. I'm kind of rambling here. No, completely. You know, I get emails from like
[21:13]HBS people who like secretly want to write like a book, you know, and because can't get past like
[21:18]the second page or whatever, because they read they write in and they have to read it and they're
[21:22]like, oh, this sucks, you know? And then you want everything to be perfect right away, you know,
[21:27]they're not, they don't understand how, how truly bad like the first draft is going to have to be.
[21:32]Yeah. And no matter how much advice you get from other people, I mean, every author I've had on
[21:37]here, when I ask for advice to young to aspiring writers, everyone says, just right, just you
[21:41]have to start writing. Just do it. And yet when I try it, I'm like, oh, but I can't. Oh, but watch
[21:46]should be about, oh, but wait, the jacket, oh, but wait, you know, so I don't know. I think our minds
[21:51]get the better of us sometimes. Anyway, so do you feel like your life has changed since the book
[21:57]came out? I mean, it's gotten such amazing attention from the media and, you know, it's such a great
[22:03]book. How is it now that it's out there? I mean, I think it's the same for me. Like, I mean, I live in
[22:08]like a suburb and barriers. So I'm not like in a big writing community. So I mean, it's the same for
[22:14]like, I'm like trapped in my house with my kids. I'm like, I just don't like, you know, like, I didn't
[22:19]do a book tour, for example. You know, I'm halluciners out there. You know, like these days, I think
[22:23]unless you're like a really major publisher, like, I mean, I'm author. I only publishers really
[22:27]like fund book tours, right? Any more write things. And so, I mean, I didn't do one. I mean,
[22:32]so I'm just doing kind of a few events and then, otherwise, everything's basically the same for me.
[22:36]There's not much that has changed. I mean, an author, like even the most famous author in the world,
[22:41]which I certainly have not, is still like not. It's like a below-as-e-less celebrity.
[22:48]Feel like there's just, you know, there's nothing that's really too different.
[22:51]I know. That's the thing I like can't understand. You can walk into a room full of the most
[22:55]brilliant, accomplished authors and no one will even know who they are. You know, it's insane.
[23:01]It's just like, it's just crazy. I feel like there should be so much more attention.
[23:06]That's part of why I do this podcast is just to give writers a platform because
[23:11]you know, great books like yours might just like fall from the radar if the people don't
[23:16]hear about that, right? I mean, getting the word out is so important. And you know what's interesting,
[23:22]I mean, also I mean, I hate to keep going back to like the fact that we both went to business school,
[23:25]but like, you know, I feel like when I learn about how much like even very famous authors sometimes
[23:29]get paid, you know, you're like, dude, like that's like a mid-level, whatever. I don't like a
[23:33]bae girl, you know, like you're like the highest achieving like artistic mind is being like
[23:39]is being compensated at, you know, the same level as like, I don't know, like a mid-kinsie.
[23:43]First year. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Like this is just a, I don't want to say unfair, but it's a different
[23:49]world. There was a recent article that said the medium salary for writers is $21,000 a year.
[23:55]Yes. Yeah. I saw that too. It's like, come on. Yeah. I'm like, this is this is fair. Like,
[24:01]yeah. But is this how we value the contribution? Like, I feel like if I curl up with a good book
[24:07]and it amuses me for like 12 hours and makes me think and transports me to this other world,
[24:12]like I would pay so much more than I would even for a movie for that. I mean, think about,
[24:16]I don't know. I agree. Yeah. This is not always fair, but yeah. Yeah.
[24:19]Yeah. I saw that. Yeah. That was incredible. I mean, that was incredible. I mean, in a bad way,
[24:23]so it was crazy. No, I know. I just, I can't believe. Yeah. You know, I also remember in some
[24:28]operations class at business school that I took, there was somebody who was a writer or some,
[24:32]in some way, you know, doing some sort of writing something. And I remember them saying,
[24:37]that they viewed themselves as just a producer of any other products, but their product was
[24:42]words. Okay. Yeah. And so they approached it, like, you know, they were just going to market it
[24:47]as if it was, you know, the latest iPhone or, you know, a new pair of shoes or whatever else.
[24:53]Yeah. Like that the words, like that the end product was no different in a way. It's like,
[24:57]yeah. So interesting. Yeah. Anyway, so that's basically all I learned about writing from
[25:03]there about you. Anyway. So now that I've talked a lot about, you know, other advice I've gotten
[25:08]from writers, but what advice would you have to somebody just starting out? I mean, yours is such a
[25:13]inspiring story that it can be done that you can just like take a go and have it really pay off.
[25:20]What would you tell other people who are attempting it? I think that my advice would be, so like,
[25:26]just, you know, back kind of a little bit. Like, I keep this like journal. It's like a five year journal.
[25:29]So every, you know, every day you can look back and see how you felt a year ago on the same day
[25:33]and two years ago. And it's funny because like after I finish the book, I you forget a lot about
[25:36]how much work it is. But, you know, when I go back and read the entries from when I was writing it,
[25:40]I mean, I think I felt like a failure a lot of the time. And I felt like the book was failing that
[25:45]I was failing, that things weren't working out. Like that there are these huge plot holes that
[25:49]I was not going to be able to figure out. And I think my advice would be that when, you know, when
[25:53]you're writing your book, I think you're going to feel that level of failure and that the project
[25:58]can be completed and that there's no way that this is going to be publishable. And I think my advice
[26:03]would just be like, you have to understand that that is a feeling that you have to have in order
[26:07]to move forward into a publishable product from my perspective, you know, like it's entirely normal
[26:12]and it's necessary. So if you feel that way, just know that, you know, that I think that's a
[26:18]feeling that I think a lot of writers have. And, you know, I think a lot of writers have that
[26:22]feeling with every single book that they write. So it's normal and, you know, don't feel that
[26:27]that is necessarily like a pronouncement on the ultimate, like published ability of your work,
[26:31]right? It's just, it's part of the process. Or maybe your book is just here. Yeah, that's
[26:35]good. I was trying to end it on. That is always the post, there is always the post of it.
[26:45]But we're assuming that everybody out there is writing really great books. So that's not
[26:48]not going to be the case. What are you waiting right now? What am I reading right now? I just
[26:53]finished reading an anonymous girl by Greer Hendrix and Sarah. It was good. I'm interviewing
[26:58]them tomorrow. So it's good. It's a page trainer. It's an earlier one. Yeah. I don't usually read
[27:06]thrillers, but it was good. I was like, why don't I usually read thrillers. I like, you know,
[27:10]thrillers. Like, I mean, I think there's a huge market one. Like, they're well written, right? Like,
[27:13]you know, they're just, I guess you have to have like the minimum level of readability, you know,
[27:17]but I mean, I think they did a great job with the wife between us and a little bit about it.
[27:21]So I just finished a terrible country. Okay. How was it? By Keith Gessen? It was good. I mean,
[27:26]because I had like an interest in rush shows. I had gone there for about a month and so it was
[27:30]interesting to me. And so I didn't know anything about Keith's Gessen before I read it and then I
[27:36]Googled him and he's like this little Roddy person. And so I didn't know any of them.
[27:44]Yeah, it was interesting. But yeah, I mean, thank you so much for having me on. I think it's
[27:48]amazing that you do this series. Oh, thanks. Thanks for coming on. And please like, I mean,
[27:52]I think you should try your memoir. By the way, I think I'm going to rewrite it as a novel and
[27:57]then I feel like maybe I'll have a little more freedom. Yeah, that's always a, that's always a good way
[28:01]to, I just don't really know how to write fiction, but it didn't stop you and you did a great job.
[28:05]No, I think you would know more than you think. I mean, given everything that you read,
[28:09]like how much you read. And so yeah, you'd hope. And here, all right. Well, thank you so much. It's
[28:16]really great chatting. Okay. All right. Thanks. Thanks. Bye. Thanks. You too. Bye. Bye.
[28:20]This episode has been sponsored by Bookhampton Bookhampton.com. Thanks to Ryan and Steve at
[28:25]Texture Sound for the audio editing and mixing. Thanks for listening to momstone. Have time to read books.