You write a book.
If you’re me, it’s your nineteenth. Nineteen! You’d think the daily task of writing would get easier. Nope. Now come on, on this one you had a co-writer. He handed you a complete plot, beats, highs, lows… Okay, that part was much better. But the actual day-by-day, word-by-word writing? Nope. The editing process? What? Changes? Are you mad? Yeah, yeah, okay, actually, the editor’s right when you look at it her way… So you make the changes.
Then you’re done, the publisher takes over, and there’s very little until you start waiting for the reviews. Arrggh.
But the reviews are good, or better than good, and you begin to relax, and then the LA Times, talking about the fight scenes, invokes Chow Yun Fat! Wheeee!
And then the launch. Worry, worry, worry. Will people come? Will the books come? Will the bookseller (P&T Knitwear) come? Are there enough books (for all those people who might not come)? Is the place (The Granddaddy Cafe) too small (for all those people who…)? Will the rain stop?
And then.
It looked kinda like this:
That’s John Shen Yen Nee (my writing partner), me, Master Paul Koh (our kung fu consultant), and Kristen Rosenfeld, Master Koh’s assistant.
And here’s the video, from Lia Chang of Backstage Pass.
Thank you everyone! For working on the book, for being there for me and John while we worked on the book, for coming, for lion dancing — it takes a village and this is a mighty one!
You can buy THE MURDER OF MR. MA at your local indie, at that big giant online store, or here.
