{"id":164,"date":"2011-10-31T23:08:03","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T03:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sangamithra.wordpress.com\/?p=164"},"modified":"2011-10-31T23:08:03","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01T03:08:03","slug":"junot-diaz-and-min-jin-lee-tell-it-like-it-is-origins-doubt-why-people-want-to-become-writers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sangamithraiyer.com\/?p=164","title":{"rendered":"Junot Diaz and Min Jin Lee Tell it Like it is #origins #doubt #why people want to become writers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"Last Saturday, the Asian American Writers\u2019 Workshop<\/a>\u00a0hosted their third annual Pageturner Literary Festival <\/a>(\u201cthe Siberian Literary Festival,\u201d Granta Magazine Editor John Freeman joked when introducing his panel in the afternoon). Those of us who braved the snow\/wind\/rain to attend the amazing programs at Powerhouse Arena and Melville House, were very glad they made the trek. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the day then camped out in DUMBO, listening to heartwarming stories celebrating 20 years of AAWWs, a panel on Occupy Wall Street (“There’s a reason why revolutions always happen in the spring”), and another on China and India with Siddartha Deb and Jianying Zha and their “menageries of profiles of people.”<\/a> Amitava Kumar and Hishan Matar discussed the war on terror and straddling the line between activism and art, and one could just listen to Amitav Ghosh forever discuss history and opium.<\/p>\n

One of the highlights of my day was watching Junot Diaz and Min Jin Lee “hang out.” The program description was exactly that. I wasn’t sure what this would entail, \u00a0but I was so happy I stuck around to find out. Though neither one of them really uses twitter, the conversation was split up into hash tags. #origins, #doubt, #why people want to become writers<\/strong>. I am going to break this post into # origins, #doubt, #the reader and #we don\u2019t sell anyway<\/strong><\/p>\n

#origins<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both Min Jin Lee and Junot Diaz took over ten years to publish their first books and they discussed this long process. Junot said that most discussions of \u201chow one becomes a writer\u201d often feel \u201cless like options and more like the paths you failed to take.\u201d There\u2019s no one path and schedule that fits all. (He closed the panel with the very reassuring \u201c You didn\u2019t do anything wrong\u201d)<\/p>\n

Min Jin did not study writing in college. She pursued economics and then switchted to history and went on to Law School. She wanted to examine what it was that led her and Junot to become writers. Neither of them came from families of writers or had the luxuries of trust funds to pursue their work. But this idea emerged, this \u201cinner belief\u201d that they were writers.\u00a0 Reading inspired this too. \u201cWe get so much courage from writers we don\u2019t know,\u201d Min Jin said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

#doubt<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYou feel like a loser for so long,\u201d Min Jin said about her long road to publication lined with rejection letters. \u00a0Junot talked about that constant battle of \u201cyou versus whether or not you think words mean anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you need to finish a work,\u201d Junot said, \u201cis\u00a0 an extra dose of compassion.\u201d Compassion for yourself. Once, he quit working on his novel for a whole year. It wasn\u2019t until he was able to forgive himself, (\u201cI forgive you for really sucking\u201d) that he was able to begin the work again.<\/p>\n

\u201cNaipaul really helped me,\u201d Min Jin said. \u201cI don\u2019t think he wanted to help me,\u201d she laughed. But there was something in A House for Mr. Biswas<\/em> that spoke to her, that told her she could do what she wanted to do.<\/p>\n

While we have doubt, we must also have trust. Later there was a moment when Junot was talking about the difference between working on short stories and novels. You can hold a short story in your head. It can be perfect, he said. Novels draw strength from their imperfections, Junot observed. \u00a0You can\u2019t hold it all in your head, and you have to trust that that all the pieces will come together.<\/p>\n

#reader<\/strong><\/p>\n

Junot had some concerns about the writing workshop lifestyle and writing to a group of writers. Often times, \u201cthe reader\u201d is forgotten in these discussions. One writes to readers. You have to understand \u201chow readers function\u2026 how reading actually works,\u201d he said. \u00a0 Min Jin had some great workshop experiences at the Asian American Writers Workshop, and finding a group of writers\/readers\/mentors.<\/p>\n

There are two gems I took away from their chat on these topics.<\/p>\n

1- \u00a0 \u00a0Junot pointed out, \u201cThe average reader is capable of deciphering a great deal of unintelligible stuff.” \u00a0It is normative in the process of reading. \u201c (Perhaps even the pleasurable part. Wan explained this to me recently in education terms as \u201cdesired difficulty.\u201d) We have readers who are going to get our work. (If they get 60 percent of what we are saying, that\u2019s a win, Junot added)<\/p>\n

2-\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Min Jin shared a little story about how when she was younger she never talked. Her parents thought there was something wrong with her. She got accepted into Bronx Science, and in high school, she realized she needed to learn to speak or else people would think she was stupid. \u201cMy parents thought I was stupid.\u201d One great lesson she learned in public speaking training was something that can be applied to writing too. \u201cYour audience wants to like you,\u201d she said. \u00a0They don’t want you to fail. \u201cYour readers want you to succeed.\u201d \u00a0Many times when I\u2019m writing, I have a critic in mind, whether internal or external, and not the generous reader who is invested in my story. This shift in perspective can make all the difference.<\/p>\n

# We don\u2019t sell anyway<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the publishing world, those of us writing about things new and different that aren\u2019t part of the standard model, are \u201cstatistical anomalies,\u201d Min Jin pointed out. She talked about wanting to populate an English novel with Korean words, like Russian novels of a certain time were populated with French, and how this idea wasn\u2019t warmly received or understood.<\/p>\n

Junot told us how he almost messed up his first novel by listening to his first editor who told him to take out all of the footnotes. He did. Then, the editor quit, and Junot put them back in, and the second editor didn\u2019t say anything about the footnotes.<\/p>\n

The problem, Junot said, is that \u00a0they \u00a0[publishers, editors, agents] are \u201cmaking economic arguments about aesthetic issues.\u201d Essentially saying, \u201c You are not going to sell.\u201d \u201cWell guess what?\u201d Junot said. \u201cWe don\u2019t sell anyway\u201d<\/p>\n

So we might as well write the stories we want to write and be true to them and not let the economic stuff get in our way. \u00a0They closed with warm encouragement:<\/p>\n

You matter. \u00a0Your stories matter. \u00a0You didn\u2019t do anything wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday, the Asian American Writers\u2019 Workshop\u00a0hosted their third annual Pageturner Literary Festival (\u201cthe Siberian Literary Festival,\u201d Granta Magazine Editor John Freeman joked when introducing his panel in the afternoon). Those of us who braved the snow\/wind\/rain to attend the amazing programs at Powerhouse Arena and Melville House, were very glad they made the trek. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Junot Diaz and Min Jin Lee Tell it Like it is #origins #doubt #why people want to become writers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16],"tags":[93],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","category-writing","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sangamithraiyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sangamithraiyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sangamithraiyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sangamithraiyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sangamithraiyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sangamithraiyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sangamithraiyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sangamithraiyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sangamithraiyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}