Min Jin Lee

It was garbage.

Like that was the word you used.

It was garbage.

Really?

It was garbage because it was really boring.

Again, it was really boring.

And I think that this is, if I really think about the evolution of my writing, it's really about my inability to understand what it means to be an artist.

What do you mean?

And I take that quite seriously when I say that I don't think I understood about vulnerability.

I didn't understand the risk that you need to take in order to really make a mark in the world of what you want to say and to stand in your position of what you believe.

I thought I could lean on my competence.

lean on my ability to do things in a very acceptable, admirable way.

And I think being admirable and being competent is very different than being an artist.

It's almost like the difference between being pretty and being beautiful.

It's like a really different level of vulnerability and exposure.

And I think by the time I published Prefers Millionaires, I really decided that, you know what, it doesn't matter.

I'm going to write things that could get me judged

Your opening line of the book is competence can be a curse.

That makes sense now.

Now I see the little threads all coming together.