SPEAKER_00 0:00

Later, I found out that you really only need to write for who you are and what your background is. Your story being unique makes it authentic. So if someone's gonna call you out because that's not the way they grew up, well, that's right. That's the way you grew up. This is how I grew up.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacy Fraser, a formally repressed creative soul, turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write It Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories: the one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully. Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers. Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Write It Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi, writer. Welcome back to the Write It Scared podcast, where we talk about the brave and messy act of writing our novels so that we can do it with more clarity, more confidence, and a little less self-doubt and not feel so damn alone. I'm your host, Stacy Fraser, and I have an amazing guest interview to kick off season three for us. Today I'm in conversation with Stan Yan, who is a graphic novelist, and his debut upper middle grade graphic novel, The Many Misfortunes of Eugenia Wang, is coming out on September 30th, 2025. And if you are a parent, a librarian, or you work in the school system, you are definitely going to want to hang out until the end of this podcast because Stan has an amazing giveaway that is happening for his street team. Those who help him promote the book, and that amazing giveaway gift is a school visit from him, which is so cool. So you can hear all the details of how to become a part of Stan's street team at the end of the episode. So without further ado, let me give you Stan's bio and then we will jump into his interview. Stan Yan is an award-winning first-generation American-born Chinese, Denver-based writer, illustrator, graphic artist, and instructor. He is currently the co-regional advisor for the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. He's a professor at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and co-founding professor of the Cuttlefish Arts Academy, Kidlit Art School, his late middle grade graphic novel debut, The Many Misfortunes of Eugenia Wang, is the 2025 Junior Library Guild Selection. Hi Stan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I'm so happy to have you. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Oh, pretty good. Thanks for having me, Stacy.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Yeah, so we get to pretend that we haven't just talked for like the last 10 minutes and just roll right into this podcast. This is the part where we pretend, and now we go into the questions.

unknown 3:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

So I already gave you a bit of a bio, but could you please share a bit more about your journey to becoming a graphic novelist? And then we will get into talking about your debut graphic novel.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

It's been a long, long journey. In fact, like my earliest memories of holding a pencil were of drawing the same stick figure over and over again in these boxes that I later found out were called comic panels. I was doing comics before I realized that what that was what I was doing. But for me, I think comics has always just been kind of a the medium for me to be a storyteller. Because I I can remember like drawing these things before dinner so that I could show them to my mom and dad before we had to eat. So I had to draw fast. And so at that point, I didn't really have a ton of pride in my artwork. You know, I drew all my characters as stick figures so that I could get them done quickly. But that's all what I've always been, you know. So when the the first self-published comic that I made was actually an elective uh for my elective illustration course at the University of Colorado when I was studying of all things accounting. So I didn't even study art or writing or anything like that. And really, I I made this comic mainly to entertain my friends. But then I ended up taking this comic to these local comic swap meets, and so strangers were buying this photocopied saddle-stitched book from me, and then they'd come back and tell me how much they liked it. And to me, that was the juice, man. That was the thing that addicted me to being a storyteller, to have strangers come back and tell me how much my comic affected them in some way, shape, or form, or made them laugh, or whatever. So my whole journey to where I am right now has really been kind of trying to widen my reader base so that I can have more strangers tell me how much you know my book ruined their lives or whatever. That's that's cool too. I'm okay with that. As long as there's like a real visceral reaction by them to what I'm trying to do. And so yeah, I I did the comic convention circuit for about 20 years, towards the end of which I decided that, you know, this I I felt like I was just spinning my wheels. I was limiting my reader base, and I needed to widen it even further. So I started pursuing traditional publishing after I found out about it by writing my first children's book, after which I joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators to find out, you know, how I could get it published or if I should self-publish it or whatever, and found out, hey, there is actually a roadmap into traditional publishing, and I'm gonna do it. I mean, it was it was something that was delusive for me in you know regular comic books because it seemed like everyone that you heard of that got into you know drawing for Marvel or DC or whatever got into it in a different way, and it was a way that they weren't telling anyone because you know the thing that they're telling anyone is you've got to come to Comic-Con, you gotta get in this big long line, and you've got to get into this lottery system for a chance to get your portfolio looked at, and then we're gonna just throw your name out because we've seen a hundred thousand different portfolios, and we're just thinking about where we're gonna get a drink afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

So joining SCBD S C B W I, I always mess that up. Uh sounds like it was was kind of the step that it was life changing, yeah. New direction with life.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

So so yeah, having having a three-year-old son that suddenly became afraid of coming down to my basement studio because of all the zombie characters hanging around changed my whole life. So he changed the trajectory of my life by getting me to think about doing children's books. Because my whole life, my relatives have said, Oh, you should do children's books, you should do children's books. And I'm like, Yeah, you know, I'm not really, you know, motivated to do that. But then you have a kid, and that changes all of your inspirations, and now that's all I want to do. I mean, he's 15 now, but I still wouldn't want to do anything else.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Oh, you're so speaking to the choir. I totally get it. I totally get it because my daughter's nine. It's so funny. I also pursued a very analytical ground in college. I have a degree in economics and uh in medicine, and I don't do any of that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Well, I never did accounting. I mean, I was a stockbroker for 13 years. Oh, and that helps me immensely. But I do think having an analytical background does help you in this industry because you have to be an entrepreneur in so many different ways. And so, like, you know, the accounting thing, well, if I don't have to hire someone to do my taxes, well, that's a plus because you know, you don't go into this hitting the ground running and making a ton of money. In fact, it's just the opposite, like it's a pay-to-play kind of thing, like doing the comic book convention circuit. Yeah, I you have to front all the money to produce your product to take it out there and hopefully make some of your money back.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yeah, and now it sounds like you're in a position to where you get to do what you enjoy, but you also are in positions to give back. I mean, I know that you're part of the board for the SCBWI.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Well, I'm I'm a part of the Rocky Mountain chapters regional team. So yeah, not the board of the CBWI. But but it it does count. And I I do feel a lot better placed being a part of the regional team as opposed to the national.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Gotcha, gotcha. Well, thank you for sharing more about your background and how you got into it. It sounds like it was always a part of you, something that you love to do, and it's gradually morphed into the genre specificities that you produce now. So, why don't with that, why don't we roll into talking about this book, The Many Misfortunes of Eugene Rang? Listeners can't see it, but I have this amazing picture in front of me of the cover. And I am spoiled. I got to see a sneak peek of the whole thing. So tell us what the book's about, and what do you want? What do you want listeners to know about it?

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Okay. Well, I think like the best way to introduce people to it is something that my marketing team came up with at to Simon and Schuster, because they came up with this great bookmark for ALA to give away to people uh to for those that don't know, it's the American Library Association conference, and it happens every summer but in a different city. And they they sent me out to promote my book, and so you know, they made all the stuff, and they came up with this great tagline for the front of the bookmark that I wish they had come up with before they printed all the books, because I wish this was on the books as well. It says, most birthdays bring cake, Eugenia Wangs brings disasters. And then on the flip side, it goes on to say in this heartfelt graphic novel, a girl born on a day considered unlucky starts to wonder if she is really cursed when she's troubled by visions of doom. But if you want a little bit more concise explanation about what this book is about, the back of the trade paperback probably does a better job of that. So it says, Eugenia Wang never gets to do anything fun. She's uh never celebrated her birthday on her actual birthday, April 4th, because of her mom's belief in the Chinese superstition that four is an unlucky number. Her mom won't even let her go to a comic art summer camp because she thinks art is waste a waste of time. This year, though, Eugenia's determined to defy her mom, and that means applying for camp, partying on her actual birthday, and maybe inviting her super cute crush Enrique to the party too. But then Eugenia gets hit in the head with a sneaker during P and starts getting weird, unnerving visions of impending doom about her upcoming birthday. It might be the after effect of her head injury, or maybe she's just anxious about turning thirteen. As the visions get worse, Eugenia suspects an unseen force may be sending her messages through her artwork. And if she's haunted after all, Eugenia will have to figure out why before it's too late. Even more horrifying, she might have to do the unthinkable. Admit mom was right.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Ah. Why don't you you know their that back cover blurb is so good? I mean, it just takes you through this character's status quo right up to that inciting incident, right up to the point where we jump into the second act of the book and then leaves you like, oh, what's gonna happen?

SPEAKER_00 12:40

That was really well done brought from the publishing team. Well, it was a team effort. It was a team effort, yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah, so this is a story about a little girl who is, you know, facing the this this big number, 13 years old, right? Parental pressure, right, to perform, societal pressure, peer pressure to relax, maybe take it easy a little bit, have a little bit more fun, but also to conform. And so it seems like you're delivering some big questions and problems in this media.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

And I I wonder if that's why 13 is considered an unlucky number in Western culture, because it seems to be like when we reflect upon our childhoods when there's like the most grief and angst. You know, I never thought about that. But that's kind of good because you know, it's a balancing because I you know, based on the back cover blurb, you know it's about the number four, but it's also about the number 13. It's about east eastern superstitions versus western superstitions. Yeah, you know, and it it's all coming to the head, my story, because mom is the one that believes in the eastern superstitions, and she's kind of discounted it because she's grown up in a western culture, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Right, and doesn't understand like why can't we just let this go?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Right.

unknown 14:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

And even like the way I color the book, you know, it may not be obvious, but there's the eastern versus western superstition in that too. Like, I don't even say anything about it really until the last page of the book.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Oh okay. Well, we can't give it away.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

No. But that's just a little teaser for everyone. But when you do read the book, don't just flip to the back cover or the back page. That is just so not my style.

unknown 14:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

And if my friend Amy is listening to this podcast, I'm talking about you, Amy.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Oh right.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

She does that.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

What I want to know is you seem to incorporate a lot of horror elements in into your stories and use them. So, for example, in this, I mean, just looking at the cover, which is not a giveaway, right? We've got flames. There's there's a feel of a vibe of fire and a little girl hanging from a rope like she's going to drop to her dude.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

And just, you know, to make it clear, it's not a noose, it's a PE rope. Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

One of those climbing ropes, which are horrifying by themselves. Anyway. Okay, so tell me what your thoughts are on writing horror with humor for young readers and why you like that. Why works for the stories that you want to tell.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

I mean, I think it works on a lot of different levels because for me, like my my roots as a writer is all about the jokes. The things that I wanted to do growing up was I was, you know, it was inspired by newspaper comics. So you have a joke every three or four panels, you know. And but I I think for the horror genre, I think it's useful to have a little bit of a rhythm. And you don't have that rhythm if it's just heavy, heavy, heavy the whole time. And so and I I feel like the the stories and the movies and everything that are the most memorable to me are the ones that have kind of a back and forth rhythm.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

You know, yeah, I think goosebumps.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

When I was making this book, it was the you know, the seed, the root of it was that I wanted to write and illustrate a comic that actually scared me because in spite of like the storied history of horror and comics, it never really did it for me the same way as as scary movies and spooky novels did. And and so this was a challenge to myself. But as I kind of reflected on what you know, hop culture or spooky pop culture really stayed with me. It was there was always like a child involved. And so I'm like, okay, I need to make my protagonist a child. And in that way, this book accidentally became a children's book. I didn't go into it with the goal of making a spooky children's book at all.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Well, sometimes books they become what they're supposed to be if we stick with them long enough to let them know.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Yeah, right? Oh yeah, and and this this book has gone through all sorts of changes, which I'm sure you'll we'll talk about a little bit more as we go into you know what kind of scared me about writing that led me to making this book. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm because I I know that this is what this podcast is really about.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, it takes me a while to get there, but you are right.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

That is what this podcast is about.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Well, tell us a little bit about your writing and illustrating process. Walk walk it's walk us through what it's like for you to go from an idea to a polished novel that's ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Yeah, I mean it it's it's evolving as we speak, and it's continually evolved. So, what it used to be when I was back in college was me just thinking of a funny idea and then writing it down, and then later on, I'd take all these funny ideas and try to shoehorn them into a particular main character story in a particular Phronal. And thought I think that's as close to a pantser as I've ever been. But my current process actually goes with me kind of brainstorming a list of unlikely main or characters, not necessarily main characters, because a lot of these characters may end up in the same story, which is happening in the current story that I'm writing, which I don't know if I can talk about because it hasn't been announced. But then what I'll do is I'll I'll like uh take one of the characters and and come up with a backstory behind that character, or or all these characters that I I feel like should be the main characters in a story, and then I'll write what's a lot called a log line. So it's it's like an elevator pitch, one to two sentence elevator pitch that basically tells you very briefly what you need to know about the character, the conflict, and the stakes in a story. And and that's the foundation on which I want to build a plot. Then I'll go ahead and outline a plot. You know, granted, as my caveat, up until now, I haven't used this particular pro process for any of the stories that I've written. Like I said, it's an evolution and process, but I do find that as I'm coming up with new ideas, this is how I'm going about it. Because, you know, everything that I'm doing is really time consuming. And so anywhere I can be efficient is great. You know, the the this story, the the many misfortunes of Eugenia Wang, was a 264-page full-color graphic novel. I did everything in it, the lettering, the coloring, the penciling, the inking, the covers. And after I took out like all the time that I was waiting for editorial notes back, I figured out I actually drew the whole thing. All the the artistic process of this book happened in one calendar year. As I've ever drawn. And so and every step of the process is like that. So I'll I'll get to plotting it, then I'll script out the first 20 to 30 pages, I'll draw those, I'll do the character designs and maybe some environmental sketches. And all of this not necessarily in that particular order, mind you. Because sometime along the way, I'll like say, oh, you know, it would be a great way of drawing the evil twins, I should draw them like this, and then so I'll have to do the character designs or some sketches or things like that. And then once I've done that, and of course, wait for editorial to come back, then I can do the whole script. And then once I've done the whole script, then I'll do page panel layouts, which is something that I kind of learned from someone that I used to teach with at the art school at the community college of Aurora that went to Svan Art College of Art and Design, and I was like, oh, that's brilliant. So that you can kind of even tell based on these little thumbnail page panel layouts where like your climax is in the story, where you know important moments are based on like where your double page spreads, full bleed spreads are, or where a large panel is going to be. And and then once I've done that, then I'll actually draw you know the first 20 or 30 pages, make sure I'm on the right track and figure things out. And and a lot of this is you know, and once I'm I'm okay to go through and you know dummy out the full story, then I actually do. full page loose pencil layouts with all the lettering in it to make sure that I was honest about with myself about how much space I needed to leave for the lettering. And then I figured out since I'm working almost all digitally it I I go in and go straight to inks from there. Because I I find that penciling it is a little redundant and you can easily change things because you're working on different layers. So I'll go straight to inks and then go to colors from there. And then what I'll do is once I've got the final artwork, I actually turn off the lettering and then export it to InDesign and re-letter it all over again.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Which makes it a little bit easier because if editorial decides you know we need to change this character's name wherever it appears all the way through the story, they can do so very thoroughly, completely, and quickly five minutes. It might take them five minutes to do it. If I actually had to do it in Procreate where I draw, I might miss a few instances of it and it might take me literally a week to do the same thing that would take five minutes. So that's why it sounds like it takes a lot of time to re-letter it all over again but really we're saving a whole lot of time. Yes. Yes absolutely and I don't know how many of your listeners are also illustrators.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

So this may mean nothing to people that are only writers but I I do have a a lot of listeners and I know a lot of writers who are debating about whether their idea would work better as narrative fiction or whether they want to you know atta attempt a graphic novel. So that's that's part of the reason I was so interested in having you on. So just to put all of what you shared kind of in a box. I mean the process is very similar. It's like you come up with an idea and then you got to test the legs will it go anywhere right of all of these ideas, which is where the log line or the premise statement or the you know the ability to compare the desire and the conflict and the stakes right is what you come up with.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Then you know it sounds like you I feel like I'm getting the vibe of you don't want to draw like full color a hundred pages before you realize it doesn't work in the foundation as bad. Right. And I see that so much as as a comics instructor sequential art instructor where students will come in and like I've been working on this book and I want to like work on the next chapter in your class as my project. I'm like nope we're not doing that. Yeah we're starting with some starting from scratch because inevitably they'll skip some of the learning objectives because they've been doing it this way for so long.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

You gotta make sure it's a story I'm there to teach them you know yeah yeah the story has to the story has to come first. I mean it Yeah you don't want to devote yourself a year of your life to something that has no hope of selling to anyone.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

So so like we were saying you you have an idea you kind of pressure test the idea with that log line and then you your process now is that you're starting to outline it.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Yeah sounds like in a screenwriting format, you know, where it's really kind of abbreviating yeah I mean and for a lot of people that that aren't familiar with that or aren't used to it I've seen people do it other ways too you know where you write it as prose and then you let whoever you're maybe collaborating with on this pitch or this query that you've hired on, I should say that you're not collaborating.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

You've hired them for their time to create these character designs, you know, create this world building and rough out the first 20 or 30 pages for your pitch packet with the understanding that if this gets sold that they'll be the artist that's going to get brought on to quite so just in that vein is like how do you know if an idea that you have might work well as as a graphic novel because it's got to be something you can convey right story both visually and with dialogue and narration. Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

I mean I think it's probably a little bit easier if you're already a published author because that can be a discussion that you're having with your agent or your editor or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

All right well we don't do easy so let's talk about it for everybody else.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

But otherwise you know what I would recommend is to have like a critique group you know put together a critique group and it doesn't even have to be a critique group of people looking to do graphic novels necessarily but when you're brainstorming the foundation so the log line they're the ones that are going to tell you that oh yeah that one is is the one that you want to run with you know and it it may and that at that point you don't know whether it's just going to be a novel or if it's it's going to be a graphic novel or what it's going to be. But you know if you've got something that can be compellingly visual and is something that an illustrator can add something to because what an illustrator is going to bring to your project is not linear. You know I think a lot of times when collaborations happen and the writers have an idea of what needs to be drawn and they give art notes the problem almost always inevitably is that whatever they're saying in the art notes is too on the nose. It's redundant and a lot of times what you want an artist to do is to illustrate something that is maybe a a another storyline that is running underneath like subtext. Yeah the subtext exactly or to actually circumvent the text you know in fun ways smoking ears yeah yeah exact you know so you say one thing but the character really feels something but but don't describe it that way. So like the character says yay but they're saying it with a sad face you know so you know that they don't really feel like that. So while all their friends are gung ho, the main character is not really sure if they want to go along with this plan kind of thing that's such an interesting way to put it I mean we do it in novel writing too it's just using different pieces of the writing process to show the meaning of the moment of that moment because there's there's often plenty of I mean and there's a lot of different ways that you can handle it. I mean you can handle the interiority as a caption box you know so if you're using captions to have internal dialogue for the character you can reflect the interiority that way sometimes that's more effective but sometimes it's better just to say nothing and to draw it. That makes a lot of sense it sounds like the drawing is much more than just enhancement oh yeah absolutely right and I and in fact I think sometimes it can be detrimental like who was it I think Dynamite Comics they decided that they were going to do a comic series retelling of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which was the short story or novella that inspired Blade Runner. But their constraint was they weren't going to leave anything out that was written in the novella. So everything that he wrote is going to be written in the comic and if you were familiar with the way Philip K. Dick writes, he jumps around a lot which makes it really difficult to illustrate. And I have to admit I I had my local comic store put that series in my pull box because I'm obsessed with Blade Runner I haven't finished reading it because it is so hard to read and they did no favors to the novella by illustrating it. So it doesn't always work. You you have to write to your medium.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Makes absolute sense write to your medium and write to your audience yeah yes so if you were to take all of what you told me and give let's say one or two tips to someone out there who thinks they might have an idea for a graphic novel but has no idea where to start or where to go with it. What would you tell them to do first?

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Start small. Okay because you're not gonna know whether or not this is something that you're passionate about until you do it. But don't start with your epic you know you it's gonna be your 12 issue graphic novel series. Yeah don't start with that start with something really small you know a short story or even just a comic strip just to see if like you you can communicate what you're trying to and evoke the reactions that you're trying to in this medium.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Okay let's say this person does that and they love it and they're into it then what would they do?

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Then just keep doing it. And I would say make sure that you're writing for yourself more than anything else. Because find out why you loved it and and because the only thing that's guaranteed in this really really time consuming process. Now and just to give you context so the many misfortunes of Eugena Wang or from the point that I started writing it, I started in 2016 and it's getting published what nine years later.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Thank you for sharing that I really appreciate that. And so will listeners because that those are facts that kind of get glossed over is how some how long something really takes yeah to bring to fruition. And I thought I read in your acknowledgement section or somewhere in there that you had considered writing this as a novel or that you did try to write I did.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

I started it as a novel and I liked it and it was coming out pretty nicely but I mean my my yeah my my muse is comics.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

That's how I envision everything and so why try to retrofit it to something that is actually harder to sell into the market okay well let's transition here because as you said earlier a big part of this podcast is dedicated to telling the truth about why creative endeavors can be so hard whether that's creating graphic novels or it's writing narrative fiction. And one way we do that is by exposing unhelpful internal narratives that hold us back when we try to craft our stories.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

So and you know my philosophy is that we if we talk about this stuff, if we share it, then it gets normalized and nobody thinks oh I'm a bad writer I should just give this up I shouldn't you know I shouldn't bother because the reality is it takes from 2016 to 2025 to bring a project into the light in the way you want it the way it was meant to be right right yeah I mean my my original vision of it is very far removed from what this is but you're you're correct that description is exactly what it was and and is is a stronger product because of all the steps that it went through and all the hoops that I had to jump through. And if you if you talk to most people that know me as as a creator I'm I'm pretty positive and optimistic and I wouldn't be someone that you would describe as having what do you call it? Imposter syndrome? Imposter syndrome yeah yeah so but I I kind of did in a way without realizing it. So the original version of the story didn't in include a character that was Chinese in fact it was a character that was named Morty Rose. So when I first started writing the story I told you I'd I'd written a picture book I'd written and illustrated a picture book that I ended up self-publishing called the There's a Zombie in the basement inspired by my son's fear of my zombie artwork. And so I even named the main character uh my son's name but I drew him as a white ginger but then I started reading a bunch of books by Chinese American authors like Andrea Wang, Grace Lin, Kelly Yang, Lisa Y. And they were really inspiring, but it made me think well why didn't I draw my main character to look more like my son or more namely someone like me? You know, why did I draw him as as a ginger instead? And so it made me do a lot of soul searching and think back to you know when I was a child what were the books that had Chinese American character or Chinese characters in them and I could only think of one in my school library and it was the five Chinese brothers which didn't make me very proud of being Chinese and so I think I I felt like I didn't really have permission to make a main character in my book Chinese until that point because of the lack of representation. Even though I was already in my 40s as an adult it was a reflex. I never even considered making my character look Chinese I went straight to making my character look white and I had all these rationalizations but when it really came down to it I just it never dawned on me to do that. And I was like well I don't want to be a part of the problem because if a future writer or illustrator reads my picture book and doesn't feel like they have the permission to make a a character that looks like them then I'm a part of the problem I'm not a part of the solution and that was something that I needed to come to grips with and so at that point I made Morty Rose, Morty Chen, and then that eventually became Eugenia Wang. Wow wow so I think that's just representation matters.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Yeah yeah representation matters and also I mean just what you shared thank you for sharing it because it was quite vulnerable sometimes it takes having things brought to our attention in different ways for us to examine our internal motivations because they've been planted from a long time ago and they may be holding us back or keeping us from doing the best work that we can in the world.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

And I and I think the imposter syndrome part of it just came from me going I don't want to make my character Chinese because I don't know that I'm Chinese enough and why should I speak for you know a population of over a billion people out there? Why why is my voice and my story right? You know am I going to be called out for being inauthentic or you this doesn't represent and I mean later I found out and it was something that was confirmed with me when Grace Lynn came to speak at an event that you really only need to write for who you are and what your background is. Your story being unique makes it authentic. So if someone's going to call you out because that's not the way they grew up well that's right that's the way you grew up this is how I grew up I love that that's your thumbnail for the podcast or not thumbnail but I think my head's in a graphic novel. But that's your that's your caption box my superiority yes yeah well thank you for sharing that and for what it was like to struggle and how I kind of came to the realization that your story is yours and who it's and you're never too you know old it's the whole you know old dog can't learn new tricks kind of thing that's not true. We do get stubborn as we get older fight the stubbornness that's what I am telling everyone fight your stubbornness. I love that I I love that well what do you think gives you the most joy and satisfaction when it comes to the work that you get to do what do you love the most about all of it uh the the reader reactions i i think i told you that earlier but but i i do you know one of the things i wanted to get to is that this is a long process so because it may not sell the process of creating it needs to give you some joy and and feed your passions so even if no one ever reads it I mean I I think a lot of artists have been talking about this on social media recently where you know not everything that you create needs to be put on social media or has to be publication ready sometimes you just need to make stuff for yourself and I think with a project this long you need to do it for yourself first and foremost you know so don't be saying oh I need to do this because I'm chasing this trend because by the time your graphic novel comes out that trend is long gone yeah yeah yeah I often talk to the writers that work with me about narrowing the focus because we always kind of get distracted by the great big picture of done yeah right the end outcome the end all whether that's the book is done or whether that is the book is published. Because you know that's when all those people are making these exciting videos on social media when they're done.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

That's because they yeah so like us watching that is flipping to the end of the book right Amy and and instead you know we can control any of that so but we can definitely can control where we put our attention and our time management into right so we might as well put it into something we enjoy I don't know about you but I'm doing this stuff because I hate it you know I I'm doing it because I like it and it's a challenge right because it's quick easy money. Oh yeah baby it's guaranteed bucks man so if you is there any particular piece of creative advice that's inspired you or that you've held on to over the years the the thing that I've learned that has been the most useful is to kill your darlings.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

You gotta do it. You gotta do it. And you know and that's like this whole process with you know my editor and my agent who's also editorial that has helped the most I mean do what needs to be done in the service of your story because you know the the darlings it doesn't mean they aren't great. In fact I I'm going to be putting all of my discarded darlings into a PDF for all of my team misfortune members. So on PubDate I will send you a PDF of all of the cutting room floor of the director's cuts and the commentary along with those. Because I still love them but yeah I I agree they interrupted the pacing of the story or they weren't necessary and in the service of the story you know as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

I can't wait remind me of the pub date again. It's September 30th so it's not long from now 30 days away wait it's just around the corner yeah yep.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

So anything that you're currently working on that you'd like to share about and if you don't have anything you mentioned before that you might not be able to I don't think I can officially say anything but it's it's probably more than a hint but the universe that my next proje my current project exists in I've been doing as a a weekly webcomic called Peter Cadaver. So if you go to my website because I don't think it's petercadaver.com should I say it Salem Charteracademy.com well that was actually kind of the next question is where can people find you so please tell us all the well yeah you can find me at stanyan.me and if you specifically want to get straight to information about the many misfortunes of Eugenia Wang I did not buy the URL the many misfortunes of eugeniawang.com because that's just insane to make people type in. So I went with Eugeniawangcomic.com and I can get you there and I can get you to really really easy ways of joining my street team which is the team misfortune that I spoke about because you you can do like basically almost nothing and officially join it and get all the freebies I'm gonna be sending you. Do officially almost nothing really totally there's so little that you need to do like all these people out there that qualify that like routinely share my stuff on social media. That's all you need to do to join Team Miss Fortune but you have to join it to remind me to send this to your email address. So all of you that are watching this that have routinely supported me get on my list so I can send you my outtakes. Okay cool. Well I will make sure to include a link that says you know Team Miss Fortune Street Team like go here for free stuff that you have to actually win like stuff like t-shirts and mugs like because every month I'm giving out like merch team misfortune merch but the my pub date giveaway is going to be the biggest one because I'm giving away an a school author visit. Oh so if you if you are an educator out there a library a school librarian principal a teacher get on my list because you could win that.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

And the place to get on your list is that that is at the Eugenewangcomic.com and then you scroll down and click on team is fortune.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

Perfect thank you so much for your time today for coming on the podcast you have been an absolute delight it was so cool to learn about how graphic novels are developed and what your process has been like and I just wish you all the best with this book.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Well thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Yes and thanks for having me thank you for listening to the Ride It Scared podcast. If you enjoyed today's show please make sure to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode and please leave a review. Reviews help other writers like you find the voices and messages they need to hear to continue to write their stories. Let's lift each other up remember you can be scared and still be unstoppable. I'll see you next week