Musings
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Monday, October 22nd, 2007Arrived today at 7:44 p.m. from a friend. “Just saw a guy on the subway reading your galley. He is 70 pages on and loving it. His name is Ian Chin. Works at Hachette.” My friend was so excited that he interrupted Ian even as he was listening to his iPod. And the galleys only […]
The editorial spirit of the NYTimes best sellers’ list is churn and novelty
Monday, October 22nd, 2007Clark Hoyt, the New York Times public editor, takes on the New York Times best seller list this weekend. Basically what is revealed is that the New York Times list is subjective judgment as well as objective sales — it’s not literally the best selling lists in America at any given point. “The editorial spirit […]
Maybe they think “fortune cookie” is a euphenism for mysteries of the Chinese orient?
Friday, October 19th, 2007Ever since this post about my friend Adam’s first successful case on prosecuting a pedophile, I have noticed a lot of people landing at my site because of their search for “chinese porn” or “porn chinese.” (I wonder if these guys think “fortune cookie” really means “in bed”). Fortune Cookie Chronicles, as of this today, […]
Poem: “After Challenging Jennifer Lee to a Fight” (me, the bully version?)
Thursday, October 18th, 2007This poem, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, was sent to me in e-mail today by a friend After Challenging Jennifer Lee to a Fight I hesitate, because what would my father say? My aunts in India are swathed in sarees, glass bangles and crimson nails. Their perfect ropes of hair, oiled and glossy black, never betray them […]
I’m so Chinese-ish that I have a Bag of Bags
Monday, October 15th, 2007I was cleaning out my closet this weekend. Gave away one of my two air mattresses that I found there — neither of which I bought (how did this happen?) plus one of three extra blankets that has accumulated there. Deep inside the bowels of the closet found one of those huge Chinese red-white-and-blue plaid […]
Scrabulous! Hanging out with your friends without having to be in the same place
Sunday, October 14th, 2007I’ve recently become addicted to Scrabulous (as a WSJ article highlights) — which is like Scrabble on Facebook, only they can’t use the Scrabble name probably because of Intellectual Property reasons. I can play like 20 games simultaneously, often with people in many different countries or people I have not spoken to physically in years. […]
My galleys are here!
Sunday, October 14th, 2007Got an email from my editor who said my galleys have arrived as of Friday. He says they look great. Now am in the process of compiling a spreadsheet of journalists, food bloggers, and other people who would take an interest in a book on how Chinese food is All-American. They don’t have to write […]
God is Not Great is a National Book Award finalists (which affects my life just a tiny bit)
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007Christopher Hitchen’s book, God is Not Great (now with its own Wikipedia entry!), is a National Book Award finalist. Which is fantastic. It affects my life only in a little bit in that Cary called e-mailed me this morning to tell me we have to move my pre-pub dinners with booksellers up a week in […]
The scene of an accident. I wonder how the owner felt.
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007I (and many others) walked by broken Sanyo flat-screen television on October 8, 8:30 a.m. Corner of West 70th and Columbus in Manhattan. For some reason. I found this scene incredibly New York. I wonder where the owner is, what happened, and how (he? she?) felt when the screen hit the ground. Â
Hiking the High Line
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007I took a walk on the High Line this past weekend with my friend Josh as part of Open House New York — one of the first times that the public could (legally) walk along the High Line. And yes, the urban Cinderella experience is really as cool as everyone says it is.
“Jenny from the blog”
Friday, October 5th, 2007My friend, Noam, quipped that last night. (One of those weird world things…Oddly we went to the same elementary, middle school, high school, college, worked on the same school paper, now both work in the same company — but the weirdest part of all. we grew up in the same building in Morningside Gardens.)
Page proofs! Only $1.25 per change.
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007I got my page proofs back from Twelve/Hachette, along with a very stern warning: “This will be your only opportunity to review the typeset pages, so please be sure that all changes you wish to make are included.” It also says, “Each change costs roughly $1.25. However this is not a per line or per […]
Asian American Literary Award Winners Announced
Friday, September 28th, 2007The Asian American Writers Workshop (which is based in New York City interestingly, and not like San Francisco) announced their 2007 Asian American Literary Award Winners yesterday. Poetry Linh Dinh for Borderless Bodies (Factory School, 2006) Nonfiction Amitav Ghosh for Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) Fiction Samrat […]
Now more NYT Bestsellers coming near you! (More ways to be above average)
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007Josh Getlin of The Los Angeles Times writes about the expansion of The New York Times bestsellers list to differentiate between trade paperback (the bigger flat books) and mass-market paperbacks (the squatter ones). While the article doesn’t explicitly say this, it’s part of the NYTimes’ desire to value “impact/influence of books” rather than straight up […]
From Child Porn to Chinese Food…
Thursday, September 20th, 2007Today I watched my close friend, Adam, give his closing arguments in his first case as a federal prosecutor. It was a child enticement case where a 49-year-old man showed up in New York City with a condom and a camera expecting to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met online. Only she as […]
Books or Babies?
Friday, September 14th, 2007Last Sunday I went out for dim sum with my college roommate and her husband and their adorable baby Audrey. Audrey, who is about 9 months old, is normally very picky about food actually loved the rice porridge and the mango pudding. It was very adorable to watch. Random thought that occured to me. Have […]
I’m turning in my manuscript (for real this time)
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007Copyedited, factchecked, read-aloud, parsed, reworked. Yay. Done. I’m getting on the Subway to go to the publisher’s office. It is a paper document) From here it goes to galleys. It has been a three-month birthing process. During Labor Day someone asked me “How was your summer?” My first thought was “Why is he using the […]
I’m hibernating because I’m dealing with the copyedit…
Thursday, August 23rd, 2007Dealing with a book opyedit is sort of a strange process if you have never dealt with it before, though good advice can be found on the Internet. One thing: you need to buy colored pencils, and not of colors already used, to write responses on the manuscript to the copy editors questions. I bought […]
Manuscript is copyedited
Monday, August 20th, 2007So the manuscript is copyedited! I was surprised because I actually get back a physical copy where I have to enter my comments in on the manuscript copy in pencil. And then this hand-edited document gets re-typed in with our comments and changes by a typesetter. I was surprised they don’t just enter the changes […]
Done.
Thursday, July 26th, 2007i’m hungry.
Forget singing. Try reading aloud to yourself in the bathroom.
Thursday, July 19th, 2007So my editor, my agent and my friends have all recommended that I read the manuscript to myself out loud as I do the final fine-tooth line-editing. When you read it out loud, it is like music. If something is off, you can tell immediately. Each paragraph, sentence, word has to justify its existence in […]
Done! (4th time) Now for the factchecks…
Thursday, July 19th, 2007Woke up this morning to the UPS delivery guy at the door with the last hand-edited chapter of my book (both my Jon Karp and Nate Gray, his assistant). Entered those edits just now. Which means, I just have the changes that are coming in from fact checking. Yay. Then to the production side next […]
Imagine if America only had 100 restaurants today. That was China’s culinary scene in in 1976
Thursday, July 19th, 2007Oliver August‘s new book was released yesterday — Inside the Red Mansion: On the Trail of China’s Most Wanted Man (Houghton Mifflin, 2007). It is the product of seven years of working, hunting for Lai Changxing, a country-boy turned billionaire fugitive and a fascinating tale of how China is wrestling with its new freewheeling wealth. […]
Done! (for the third time)
Tuesday, July 17th, 2007Okay. I am done entering all the line edits and cuts (a lot of cuts) and major rewriting. Only one chapter was really in bad shape (out of 20ish, not so bad). I have completely gutted that chapter (2/3 of it is gone). Now all that is left to polish it — while not procrastinating […]
I’m done! (for the second time)
Sunday, July 15th, 2007Just handed in a draft of the last missing chapter to the editor. So I’m sorta done! I would feel like celebrating, but now I have to enter the results from the factchecking and the edits for chapters 12 onwards. It never ends… This does not compare in anyway to my friend Sugi, who has […]
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