A few weeks ago, I went to a networking event for writers and had a bizarre experience. When I told one fellow writer that I was working on a novel and had an agent who was representing it, this white man, who lives in one of the most privileged areas of the country, turned to me and said, “But you’ve got to admit, it’s easy for you to get an agent. Indian women seem to be a trend at the moment.”
While this was the strangest comment I’ve had so far, it’s certainly not an isolated one. In the last year, as I’ve started hitting more of my goals and achieving more visibility online, many people feel the need to inform me how my achievement is not my own. From the woman who gave credit for my success to my husband, to the lady who said I only had a career because I had one kid (as opposed to her three), to this white dude and his moronic trendspotting, the insinuation is clear: There is a reason for your success, and it is not you.
I could take offense, I suppose. But I don’t. I can’t.
I don’t care, partly, but I also know the truth. And the truth is that these comments aren’t about me at all. Not even a tiny bit. They’re about the people making them. The more these people learn about my life and how I got here—with no contacts, no support, from a country without any established writing scene, personal difficulties as I was building my career, mental health issues, etc—they increasingly run out of things to which they may be able to attribute my success.
The thing is, there is one reason and one reason only why I have a writing career: I never gave myself the option of not having one.
I was, from the very first day that I became a professional writer, committed to a lifetime of trying, working as hard and as long as it took until I got what I wanted. It could take a year, it could take a decade, it could take the entirety of my life for all I cared. I was going to keep going until I achieved what I wanted. Simple.
Therefore, I’ve been focused, I’ve worked long hours (still do), and I’ve taken great personal and financial risks to get to this point. I’m nowhere near done, either. This is just the beginning. I have lofty goals and I’m going to keep working towards them until I hit them or die, whichever happens first.
No one wants to hear that, though. It’s not sexy. So they latch on to whatever positive they can find in my life to explain any success I might have. So they tell me I have a supportive husband. I do. They say I have only one kid and one kid is easier than three. This is true and the very reason I chose to not have three. They tell me I’m female and Asian. No denying that either.
Don’t get me wrong. I have been fighting misogyny my whole life, so it is sometimes incredibly upsetting when my success as a woman is attributed to my husband. But I also know that these comments are uttered out of one place only: Deep insecurity. She worked hard, but so did I. She did it. I didn’t. And so here’s the only thing that can explain it.
And, when we’re being honest with ourselves, we know that we’ve all done it.
Have you not ever said, “Well, of course her book is a bestseller. She’s JK Rowling. She could write a grocery list and it would sell” or “Well, yeah, but she can afford to do that. She’s Oprah,” or, the one that hits more close to home for many of us, “Well, yes, of course she can take a year off to write a novel. She’s married to a rich investment banker. Not all of us have that luxury.”
But when we do that—and let’s just admit we’ve all done it, okay?—what we’re doing is not minimizing the other person’s achievements, which stand with or without our commentary, but giving validation to our own bullshit excuses. When I complain that of course she can take a year off to write a novel, what I’m really saying is that I can’t. Not only have I made an excuse, but I’ve justified it, held myself blameless for the situation I find myself in, and taken away any motivation I have to change it.
Oprah was fired from her news reporting job once. JK Rowling was a broke single mother. Elizabeth Gilbert had three books with next-to-nothing sales before her breakout success.
You could think of them as having had it easy. Or you could use them as inspiration, as fuel for your own creative dreams.
There is no trend that’s suddenly making it easy for all of us Asian women to get published. But perhaps there might be someday. And when it happens, I will be ready and I will be prepared. I will have at least one, maybe more, finished novels. I will have worked on my craft every day. I will have improved my skills, learned about marketing. If such a trend were to arise, the work I’m doing today would allow me to take advantage of it tomorrow and ride that wave. And if not, I’ll keep writing my books anyway.
Will you?