Heroine's Journey, the third book in my series starring Asian American superheroines, came out last week. It's the end of a trilogy -- but also the launch point for a new one because I just signed on to continue the series with three new books and a novella! I could not be more thrilled and I still can't believe I get to write more adventures, romance, and ridiculous battles against things like demonic cupcakes for these girls.
But there was a moment when I definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent thought I would never finish Heroine's Journey. Like, ever.
The issue was, shall we say, multi-fold. First, since becoming a "professional" "author," I have more demands on my time, more deadlines to stay on top of, and more reasons to procrastinate on Twitter. Second, I chose personally difficult subject matter. Heroine's Journey belongs to Bea Tanaka, little sister of Evie Tanaka, the fire-wielding protagonist of the first book. Bea is impulsive, tempestuous, and bad at sharing food. She has a power that's akin to mind control and a moral compass that could easily turn supervillain when things go bananas. She's also still grieving the death of her mother a decade earlier, and her conviction that this loss has messed her up for the rest of her life is a big part of what she has to deal with in the book. I lost my own mother to cancer right after I graduated from college, and all these years later, the topic still feels delicate to write about, talk about, or even bring up. I never thought I'd put it in a book -- but that's where the book, and Bea, wanted to go.
And third, of course, is the general state of the world these days, which feels like an endless stream of trash fires raining down upon us, our basic human rights, and any social and political progress we've made the last few decades. I don't know a single writer who hasn't been affected by this, who hasn't struggled to get words on the page since the current administration took power.
