Yellowface

“Donna Tartt spends a decade in between novels,” I sniff.

But I can’t quit the one thing that gives meaning to my life.

Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much. To stop writing would kill me. I’d never be able to walk through a bookstore without fingering the spines with longing, wondering at the lengthy editorial process that got these titles on shelves and reminiscing about my own. And I’d spend the rest of life curdling with jealousy every time someone like Emmy Cho gets a book deal, every time I learn that some young up-and-comer is living the life I should be living.

Writing has formed the core of my identity since I was a child. After Dad died, after Mom withdrew into herself, and after Rory decided to forge a life without me, writing gave me a reason to stay alive. And as miserable as it makes me, I’ll cling to that magic for as long as I live.

A popular Fox News cohost encourages all of his millions of viewers to support me so that Eden doesn’t drop me from their list, which has created a strange situation in which thousands of Trump voters are buying a book about mistreated Chinese laborers.

Anything to remind you that they’re still there. Anything to keep you from forgetting.

We say our goodbyes. Brett hangs up. I groan and turn back to my laptop, where I’ve been staring at the same blank, accusing Word document for weeks.

But I hadn’t realized that even if you capture the entire literary world in the palm of your hand, it can still forget about you in the blink of the eye.

and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald if Zelda had published more.

I am the victim here.

The literal definition of yellowface, writes one reply. I don’t think they know what “literal” means.

I want what Stephen King has, what Neil Gaiman has. Why not a movie deal? Why not Hollywood stardom? Why not a multimedia empire? Why not the world?