WEBVTT - Ana Huang: Consultant by Day, Erotic Romance Author by Night 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.400 Welcome back to she Pivots. This is Ana Huang. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:16.360 Welcome back to She Pivots, the podcast where women share 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:21.120 bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything. 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:30.480 I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Picture this. It's the 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:35.360 late twenty teens, and somewhere inside a geopolitical consulting firm, 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.680 there's a woman in press relations doing very stable work 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.400 that you can speak openly to your parents about over 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:45.360 dinner and every morning before that job even starts, she's 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:49.319 up writing romance novels under a name nobody in her 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:53.640 real life knows. That woman is today's guest, Ana Huang. 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.279 She's a number one New York Times bestselling author. Her 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.000 romance books have sold more than twenty five million copies 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:05.240 and been translated into thirty four languages. Her Twisted series 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.400 pulled in over two billion views on book Talk and 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.880 now it's headed to Netflix. And she got here through 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:14.440 a childhood writing assignment that was meant to help her 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.399 improve her English. And at two am moment in a 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.160 tiny New York apartment where she asks herself, is this 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:23.319 what I want? We're going all the way back to 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.080 little Ana, growing up a first generation American child to 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:30.319 Chinese immigrants, and we go all the way up to 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.840 finding her passion for writing, building a dedicated following in 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.040 the romance genre, and her new book King of Gluttney 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.720 that was just released this April. This is Ana Huang 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:46.679 and this is how she pivots. What is your name 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:47.319 and what do you do? 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.480 My name is Ana Huang and I am a contemporary romance author. 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.680 Incredible, We're going to go all the way back to 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.440 little Ana. Tell us about growing up. Tell us about 0:01:57.440 --> 0:01:57.960 your family. 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:00.000 I was born in New York, but I grew up 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.600 In Miami. Chinese immigrant family. And I think I really 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.320 started loving reading and writing when I was small. When 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:09.639 I was in kindergarten, I had to take English as 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.880 second language classes, which I didn't know because I was 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.800 the only Chinese kid in my class and so I 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:17.720 was the only one in my ESL class. And I 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:19.639 was just like, Oh, this guy just like comes every 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:21.320 week and I get to chat with him in English 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.680 about everything. And I had no idea it was to 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:26.280 like help me improve my language skills. And my mom 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:28.639 at the same time she was like, hey, like, why 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.040 don't you write me a different story every day in English? 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:33.680 And in my mind, I was like, Oh, my mom 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.480 loves my stories. I'm gonna write her story every day. 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.320 And that was sort of how I actually got into 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.960 the whole loving books thing. And she really nourished that. 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.040 She took me to the library every weekend. It was 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:48.520 so funny because I remember I was eight years old 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:50.720 and I told her. I was like, oh, Mom, like, 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.639 I think I really want to be an author. And 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:56.000 she looked at me and she was like, hmmm, I 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.040 don't know. She's like, I love that as a hobby, 0:02:58.120 --> 0:02:59.840 but as a job, I think you need something more 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:03.360 like financially stable. So for the longest time, I just 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:05.720 did it for fun. Yeah, it was like my creative outlet. 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:07.600 Just to back up for a second, how did your 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:09.560 family end up in a community where you were the 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:11.760 only Chinese family or just student? 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.800 Yeah, so Miami has a very large Latin community, not 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.359 as many Asians in the school district that I happened 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:20.600 to be in. I just happened to be one of 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.600 the very few Asian students there, which was fine, you know, 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.320 I learned to adapt, but it also meant that my 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.520 family had to be very conscious about keeping me in 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.160 touch with my culture. At home, they only spoke to 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.359 me in Chinese and they didn't speak to me in English. 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.080 And even now sometimes when I meet their friends, they're like, wow, 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:40.160 they're like, your daughter speaks Chinese so well, like like 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:42.480 my like my children also grow up in America and 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:44.920 they like barely understand it. But that was something that 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:46.280 was really important to them. 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:48.840 So that was a really conscious choice. Like what were 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:50.440 some of the other ways that your family kept you 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:52.720 grounded in the Chinese heritage. 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.160 I mean, they really kept to their traditions. I do 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.120 think especially as over time went on, they did become 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:01.280 like a little bit more westernized, you know, they adopted 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.040 a bit more, they kind of melded Asian and Western traditions. 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.080 But for us, it was always you know, like the 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:08.280 foods that we ate, the traditions that we had every 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:11.360 Sunday we would go to dim sum at home. We 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.960 practiced a lot of things I think are very important 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.480 in Chinese culture, just like the way that we treat 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.640 our elder sort of like all of the TV shows 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:20.880 that we watched were all of these dramas that were 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:23.880 from Hong Kong, you know that they installed specifically so 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.719 that they can watch Hong Kong dramas in the US, 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.720 and so I grew up in that sort of environment, 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.400 and it was really interesting to me because I feel 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:34.560 like when I talked to a lot of other people 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.040 that also come from different cultural backgrounds, it's almost like 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.960 a switch. Like when I am at school with my friends, 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.039 I feel very American, and I am American because I 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.040 grew up here, But then when I went home, I 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.680 kind of feel like almost a different person, just because 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:49.719 the way that I interact with them is so different 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.040 than how I would interact with my non Asian friends. 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:55.240 You brought up the idea to your mom that you 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:56.680 might think that you might want to be an author 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:58.560 when you were eight. What were some other things that 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:00.200 you thought you might want to be when you grew. 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:03.320 Okay, I will tell you this much. I was very 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.120 influenced by the media that I consumed, and so when 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.360 I watched the Double Wars product, I was like, I'm 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.160 going to be a magazine editor, Miranda Priestley, that's going 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:13.240 to be me. And then it was this like science 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.000 fiction show called mun X. It was sort of like 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.200 a live action X Men almost that I was obsessed 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.360 with when I was in middle school, and I looked 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:21.280 at it and I was like, I'm going to be 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:25.320 a geneticist. That was completely not realistic because I'm not 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:28.119 that great a science, and so I switched back and forth. 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.000 But I have always been really drawn to things in 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.880 the arts and culture, you know, Like I loved interior design. 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.200 I loved fashion, Like the backlog of Vogue and Allure 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:39.720 magazines that I had starting from when I was like twelve. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:41.839 My mom was like, Ana, you got to throw some 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.920 of these away, like you're not reading this old Vogue 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:46.919 from like two thousand, and I'm like, how do you 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.200 know that? I remember one day. Yeah, I was like, 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.480 maybe one day I need to go back and reference 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.200 this article from like May two thousand. You don't know. 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.560 I ended up in college. Actually I settled on international 0:05:58.560 --> 0:05:59.839 relations instead. 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:08.280 The very clear line from Miranda Priestley to geneticist. 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:10.240 To a natural pipeline, you know. But no, I decided 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.720 to do international relations because I really loved travel. I 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.760 was probably the only girl in my middle school class 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.440 that insisted my mom subscribe me to Conde Nast Traveler and 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:23.800 Travel and Leisure. That was pretty precocious, and I loved it. 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.880 I loved reading the story, seeing the world, Like I 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:28.920 hadn't traveled much at the time, but it was something 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.200 that always just really fascinated me. And so when I 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:33.320 went to college and was really thinking, like, Okay, what 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.520 is something I can do that has a very solid 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.400 foundation in the sense that my family would be like, Okay, 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.520 this is something that is like more financially stable. Plus 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:45.000 it's something that I personally would be interested in. And 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.840 I think international relations. Yes, it's travel, but I also 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.799 loved the idea of like connecting with people of different 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.440 cultures and having that through line, and so that was 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:54.800 what I did for a long time. 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.839 Yeah, how much did your parents approval matter to you? 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.159 Like did you have to like keep going back and 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.359 checking when you took jobs? Like how much did that 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:03.560 still play in? It? 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:07.479 Did matter for sure? I mean I think every kid 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:09.680 wants their parents to be proud of them, but especially 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.160 I think in my culture it was a pretty important thing. 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.000 And I think I felt maybe a stillin pressure because 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.320 I was the first person in my family to go 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.560 to college and I felt like, you know, they moved 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:22.920 to the US, and they sacrificed so much for me 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.520 to have this education and all of the experiences that 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.000 I had, and you know, to send me off to college. 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:30.000 I don't want to go into a field where if 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.360 they feel like they've wasted like all this time and 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.840 money to send me to something that they're not proud of. 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.880 But for me, I didn't necessarily have to check with 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:41.320 them on jobs. It was more like, okay, Like in 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.400 my mind, I was already self censoring myself. I already 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.080 knew and then once I decided on something, I just 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.440 had to sell it to them in a way that 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:51.640 I knew they would be more open to the storyteller. 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:53.000 From the beginning exactly. 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.840 I was like, well, I was like, mom, international relations, 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.000 the federal government job is very stable. And then she's like, okay, okay, 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.560 She's like so one day secretary of State, and I 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:03.000 was like, sure. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.480 Yeah, we'll keep it in the range of possibilities, not 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.800 zero percent. So what were like the actual jobs that 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:09.400 you did in. 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.120 Yeah, well, okay, so it was a lot. So I 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:17.080 actually I didn't go straight into international relations because after college, 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.360 I wanted to go to grad school first, and so 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:21.520 I wanted a little bit of a gap year in 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.600 between undergrad and grad school. So I actually spent a 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:28.560 year teaching second grade in DC, and it was more 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.320 of like a national service thing, like I did a 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:35.880 lot of education based work, like for volunteer work in college. 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:37.480 So that was just for a year, and then after 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.680 that I worked for the Singapore Embassy in DC for 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:42.960 a little bit, sort of in their cultural departments. It 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:44.880 was a lot of admin stuff I did, like a 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.160 lot of the passports, a lot of the consort of stuff. 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.480 I also helped the Social secretary put on a lot 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:51.640 of the diplomatic events and all of that, which was 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.199 really fun for me. And then after I was there 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.360 for a little bit, I went to grad school at 0:08:56.360 --> 0:09:00.120 Georgetown where I got my master's in international politics. And 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.960 then after I graduated from there, I moved to New 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.319 York and I actually ended up working in the press 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:10.600 communications department of a geopolitical consulting company. What I really 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:12.880 wanted to do. I wanted to be in the Foreign service, 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.200 but I decided to switch to the private sector after 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:16.439 the twenty sixteen election. 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.600 And then you know, Ana's dreamed to become an author 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.000 got filed away under someday and she went looking for 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.800 something her family can be proud of. She ended up 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:30.600 in international relations, a master's from Georgetown, a consulting firm 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.800 in New York. The whole time, though she's still writing, 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.720 she just kept it a secret. You were writing the 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.800 whole time under a side name and sharing your work 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.440 on Whatpad. Yeah, under a username, not telling your family. 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:48.040 No, that was oh my god. This was before AO three. Really. 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.400 That was like in the two thousand Swatpad was like 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:52.720 the place to be and that was teenage me and 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:56.280 it was such a formative experience for me actually, because 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.680 for the longest time I always told myself, I was like, 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:00.800 I never want to write for money, Like I know, 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:02.600 I told my parents I watched me an author. But 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:04.760 then I was like, I don't know, Like I kind 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.360 of love the act of just writing for myself. It 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.640 was therapy for me. It was a creative outlet, and 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.400 I was afraid that if it became my job that 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.520 I wouldn't love it anymore, and so it became my thing. 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:18.720 But then I discovered what Pad. I was what like 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.319 sixteen maybe. When I found it, I was like, all 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.640 of these stories are so interesting. I can just write 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.120 whatever I want. And I decided to upload one story 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:28.959 just to get feedback, and it actually ended up doing 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.520 really well. Like I had some stories go viral on there, 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:33.440 but for me, it was still for fun, you know, 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.800 like I never thought like, oh, I'm gonna make this 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:40.120 into her career until much later, much later. But I 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.720 think it was very formative for me because it really 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.559 taught me how to write in a way that I 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:48.719 think will keep people coming back from more because it's 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:50.400 kind of more of a serial up, like you upload 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:52.440 one chapter at a time so they can't be really 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.000 boring or else people get bored, and then they'll also comment, 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:58.439 and you know, you have that interaction with your readers, 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:00.840 and I think that really informed the way that I 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:01.920 interact with my viewers. 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:04.840 Now, okay, so when did you start telling people in 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:06.360 your lives that you were writing. 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.240 You mean as a professional writer or no. 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.280 No, even like Wattpad or I was like, when did 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:13.319 you start telling people in your lives but you kept writing? 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:15.640 Yeah? So in my personal life, I never told them 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.000 about Wattpad that was my little secret like you and my 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:20.800 parents did it. Now, I just did it for fun, 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:22.679 like I had online friends, but people in my real 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.600 life did not know. I think maybe I first started 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.120 telling people in grad school because I did end publishing 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:30.760 and now it's been unpublished, but what are the stories 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:32.360 I put on whatpat I published it for a very 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:33.840 short time because I was like, oh, well, I'm in 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:35.760 grad school, I can't work full time. I need some 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:37.960 extra income, and so that's what I did. I just 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:39.200 I was like, well, I write your roote the story, 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.000 so I might as well just publish it. And it 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.040 actually did help me. It did pretty well for something 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:45.360 that I had no clue what I was doing at 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:46.880 the time. So I told a couple of people. I 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:48.920 never told them what the title of the book was 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:51.240 or what I wrote it under. And like I said, 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:53.160 it's since been unpublished because I wrote that when I 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:54.920 was a teenager, and looking back, I'm like, this is 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.080 not like the best work that I could have done. 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:59.000 What does it mean to be published, like when you 0:11:59.000 --> 0:11:59.800 say you published it? 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.640 So for that it was just self published that book. 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:04.000 It was you know, you can go on Amazon, you 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:05.520 can go on KDP, and you can just like self 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:07.720 publish a book and then people can find it. So 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.679 that was a very low key event, and then I 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.360 unpublished it years later when I was like, oh, this 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:18.280 could be better. I didn't actually tell people that I 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:23.240 was seriously considering writing until after the pandemic. I think 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:25.880 for the longest time. There was actually a long stretch 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.960 where I couldn't read or write for fun in my twenties, 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:31.400 just because I had grad school. Like, I was so 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:33.640 busy with work. I had all of this reading that 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:37.000 I needed to do for school, and so I dropped 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:38.679 out of it for a long time. But then when 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:41.040 the pandemic came, I was a home I had nothing 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.600 else to do, so I was like, Okay, time for 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:45.440 me to get back into my hobby. And that was 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.840 when I really rediscovered my love for books and for writing. 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.400 I published in twenty twenty my debut adult romance, and 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:54.600 then my breakout novel came in twenty twenty one, and 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.120 it's kind of been off to the races, I guess. 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.319 The opportunity to really get into writing again and let 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:07.280 her taste and style develop. She finally shared her identity 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.439 with her family and friends, shattering her double life as 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:13.280 she doubled down on her passion. In a minute, we'll 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.400 ask Ana what it was like to go all in 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:19.200 on writing, why she chose the romance genre, telling her 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.200 parents she was quitting her job, and why her mom 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:26.760 is explicitly not allowed to read Ana's books be right back. 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:42.320 Once you started writing again, did you go back to 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:44.160 like the same genres you had been writing? Did you 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:46.600 try different genres? Like how did you decide what you 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:48.359 were going to write and public? 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.640 So I have always been a romance lover, even from 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:53.320 when I was young, maybe a little too young, But 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.080 I think the only difference is that when I was younger, 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:57.920 I was writing a lot of fly A obviously, because 0:13:57.960 --> 0:13:59.440 I was in the Ya mange, like I was writing 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:01.559 about people on high school. I was writing about teenagers. 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:03.760 They were not spicy at all. They were just sort 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:05.800 of like cute, little high school stories. And by the 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:07.520 time I got back to writing in the Pandemic, I 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.080 was obviously much older. I was reading kind of more adult, 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.880 mature books, and so that was where you saw the line. 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.319 It's like everything I had written before that was very 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:18.960 YA and then starting in twenty twenty, it started to 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:23.280 get gradually more mature in adult and like spicier in 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:25.640 a way. And that's really the only difference. Like I've 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.960 never really tried writing outside of the romance genre. I 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.440 might in the future, but that's still my first love. 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.080 Do you remember when you took up the pen or 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.480 the keyboard. Yeah, and you thought, okay, am I rusty? 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.000 Oh yeah, for sure. And honestly sometimes it still happens, 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:42.480 like every time I start a new book, I'm like, 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:44.560 have I forgotten how to write a book? Like I 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.000 know I've done this before in my lives. That's so hard. 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:49.240 I think it actually is a muscle, Like I think 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.360 writing is a muscle, and you can train yourself to 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:54.400 be better and faster at it. But I remember, like 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:56.360 in twenty twenty, I was writing and I was sort 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.440 of like, oh my god, like I don't actually know 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.880 where I'm going, but this is fun. And I will 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:04.920 say that was way back then before I learned like 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:06.840 all of these courses you can take and podcasts you 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:08.360 can take, and all of these things that you can 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.160 learn about writing, craft and marketing. So there's something to 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.560 be said about not knowing what you don't know. So 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:15.000 for me, it was just like, Okay, I'm going to 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:16.840 sit here and I'm just going to tell the story 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:18.880 how I feel it needs to be told. And it 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.120 was actually a lot easier back then because there were 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.000 fewer eyes on me, Like there are practically no eyes 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.080 on me, So I had a lot of freedom to 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:26.880 do what I wanted. Now it's a little different. 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:28.720 You say that you know you were kind of like 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.040 pulling from the age of experience that you were, like 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.600 from yade to adult. How much were you pulling from 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.160 your own experiences then and how much do you now? 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.000 I think definitely my earlier books were much more heavily 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:43.960 based on my experiences, Like not totally, but my debut 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.080 series it's about a group of friends that meet during 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:48.600 study of broad in Shanghai, and I studied broad in Shanghai, 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:51.800 so obviously there's a lot of correlation there, and obviously 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.720 it's been dramatized for fiction, but a lot of it 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.560 was experiences that I had when I was traveling, and 0:15:57.600 --> 0:15:59.760 even now, in a lot of my books, there are 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.920 little bits and pieces of things that I experience in 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.240 real life, or glimpses of people that I know in 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:07.400 real life that have been changed in some way, but 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:10.480 they still inform my writing. And I know there's this 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:12.640 saying that they're like, write what you know, and I 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:14.400 do write what I know, But at the same time, 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.640 I'm like, you have to expand past that a little bit, 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:19.640 because if you only write what you know, then that's 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.200 pretty limiting sometimes, I feel. 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.000 So, at what point did you say, I'm going to 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:26.640 do it under my own name, which first of all 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:28.880 was different for you. And when am I going to 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:30.880 start identifying myself as an author? 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:34.440 I think that and a wrong name. I kind of 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:36.920 just went for it, you know, like I was like, Okay, well, 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.360 obviously I can't publish a quote unquote serious book under 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:42.720 I don't know, like some screen name that I put 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:44.520 when I was like a teenager, right, so I had 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:46.480 to pick something, and that was what I stuck with. 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.040 And then as an author, it actually took me a 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:51.720 while because it felt really weird to say like, I'm 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:54.880 an author. Especially when I started. I was doing both 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:56.840 my day job and writing at the same time, right, 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:58.920 so it was not my identity. I would be like, oh, 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:00.760 it's just something I do for fun, and that's how 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.280 I described it for the longest time. And obviously now 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:05.040 like I do tell people like I'm an author because 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:06.720 this is what this is what actually what I do. 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.320 But it took a couple of years for my mind 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:11.399 to really make that shift and being like, oh, like 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.480 I am actually like an author, like this is not 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.119 just a hobby or something that I'm like doing on 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:19.440 the side or whatever, like this is a real thing. 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.119 So where were you in that when your book blew up? Like, 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.600 were you still working at your international policy job? Oh? 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.680 Yeah, I was. I was still in my day jobs. 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:29.520 I would wake up early every morning and maybe have 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:30.800 like an hour or two in the morning where I 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:32.600 would write, and then I'd come home and I would write. 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.120 And no one at my job knew really until I quit, 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:37.399 and they asked, you know, like well, where are you going, 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:39.879 like what are you doing now? And I was like oh, 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.159 because none of them really read in this genre or 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:44.800 really understand. I was sort of like, oh, you know, 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.199 like I'm going to be a writer or like, you know, 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.040 I write fiction. I didn't tell them what my name was. 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:52.280 Some of them were little like, oh, they seemed a 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:54.840 little concerned. I remember one of them, They're like, are 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:56.840 you going to be able to pay your rent? And 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:58.520 I'm like, think, I'll be fine. 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.040 , So I'm nervous to hear about your conversation with 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:02.840