“Two things have transformed my productivity. The first: I made a writer friend! Specifically, one who actually wanted to meet up with me
two or three times a week and write. Margaret Wappler (whose gorgeous novel, Neon Green, published by Unnamed Press, also came out this year!) and I met at the Tin House Writers Workshop and once we returned to Los Angeles, we began pulling out our laptops at various coffee shops, bars, and restaurants across town. Having a compatriot in the mucky struggle of getting a novel onto the page was invaluable to me. Of course, this kind of creative partnership, which will ideally last years, only works if you have similar degrees of writing stamina (we generally work for around three to four hours), tolerance for chatting (high-ish), and food/drink requirements. And that takes us to the second thing: Treats. I knew I needed to make a real, concerted push to finish The Wangs vs. the World, so for about a year and a half I spent every single day working my day job and every single evening writing until midnight. Because I can only be disciplined about one thing at a time, I let myself eat or drink anything that seemed appealing—wallet and waistline be damned! Luckily, it worked. (Margaret and I are still writing together, but I’m not sure if my no-longer-quite-as-youthful metabolism will be able to deal with another round of treats!)”
—Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. the World (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016)
Photo credit: Teresa Flowers