Quotes from Yellowface

Deep down, I’ve always suspected Athena likes my company precisely because I can’t rival her. I understand her world, but I’m not a threat, and her achievements are so far out of my reach that she doesn’t feel bad squealing to my face about her wins. Don’t we all want a friend who won’t ever challenge our superiority, because they already know it’s a lost cause? Don’t we all need someone we can treat as a punching bag?

“And it’s like, she just gets me, like she’s having sex with my words. Like, mind sex.” Athena giggles, then scrunches her nose up adorably. I suppress the impulse to poke it. “You ever think of the revision process as like, having sex with your editor? Like you’re making a great big literary baby?”

But enter professional publishing, and suddenly writing is a matter of professional jealousies, obscure marketing budgets, and advances that don’t measure up to those of your peers. Editors go in and mess around with your words, your vision. Marketing and publicity make you distill hundreds of pages of careful, nuanced reflection into cute, tweet-size talking points. Readers inflict their own expectations, not just on the story, but on your politics, your philosophy, your stance on all things ethical. You, not your writing, become the product—your looks, your wit, your quippy clapbacks and factional alignments with online beefs that no one in the real world gives a shit about.

When you’ve got a project in your jaws, a full-time writing schedule feels like a blessing. But when you’re struggling to come up with a concept, the hours feel suffocating, accusatory. Time should be flying by as you sit wild-eyed at your laptop, possessed by the muse, pouring out your magnum opus. Instead the seconds creep to a halt.