Author Archives: Wendy Lu

About Wendy Lu

My name is Wendy Lu. I love to write stories about ordinary people who do extraordinary things. My notebook includes bits and pieces of poetry, random dialogue from overheard conversations and the occasional light bulb idea.

Reconnecting With Myself After 2 Years

A headshot of Wendy wearing glasses, red lipstick and a white t-shirt. She's wearing silver earrings and a tracheostomy tube. A scenic painting hangs behind her.
A headshot of Wendy wearing glasses, red lipstick and a white T-shirt. She’s wearing silver earrings and a trach tube. A scenic painting hangs behind her.

I remember the moment it hit me that everything had changed.

It was September 2021, and I was sitting in my bedroom in New York. I’d taken all of my fall and winter clothes out from storage, ready to switch closets in time for the new season. When I saw what was in my suitcase, memories came flooding back.

Here was my beloved orange blazer, which I bought during a special trip in Europe and wore for a major HuffPost video. It was once my signature piece, one that gave me courage and made me feel like I could do anything. And here was my floral bomber jacket that I used to wear to in-person panels and that made me fall in love with jewel tones. And there were my ripped jeans that looked good with everything.

I had not worn any of these clothes in well over a year — since before the
pandemic. They were like a time capsule, reminiscent of a more innocent, joyful and vibrant past. They had an aura of purity, untouchable, as though if I put any of them on now, they would become tainted.

Looking at them, I felt the ghost of who I used to be. I used to walk into the office every single day wearing a different shade of lipstick. I wore lipstick not because I was insecure about my looks, but because I loved the way it made me feel. Even if I went to work bare-faced with nothing but lipstick on, I didn’t care. It
empowered me. I put on knee-high suede heels. I wore flower garlands. I
experimented with fashion and put together new outfits that made me feel
confident and beautiful at the same time.

When I saw those clothes in my suitcase, I fell apart. I felt ridiculous for mourning over a bunch of jackets and pants. But a part of me also knew that it was about more than just clothes. I’d spent the last year in total quarantine, terrified of losing my life and the lives of my loved ones to COVID-19, working remotely and helping to take care of my newborn nephew. I somehow dodged a brutal round of layoffs at HuffPost (one of many), though my narrow escape came with a lot of survivor’s guilt and bitter frustration over the direction of the media industry. I was editing and reading stories every single day about the state of the world — the mounting coronavirus death toll, the hate attacks against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, the worsening climate change, the sheer neglect of people with
disabilities being left behind during both crisis and recovery.

It was one thing after another, an entire year full of collective and individual and generational trauma. One year became two. I endured months of uncontrollable anxiety and worked with multiple therapists to help manage my life better. The fall of 2021 saw some of my worst anxiety attacks, even though at that point things had drastically improved COVID-wise. I think my body and my mind were both catching up to everything that had happened. It was like I’d experienced a lot of micro-shocks in the first year and a half of the pandemic, and then in late 2021 I got hit with one big lightning strike. Every day, I woke up and could barely
function. I sat on the couch, frozen, convinced that somehow I was doomed. It wasn’t just related to COVID. It was everything. Everything made me feel this way.

To get out of my own head, I started spending more time with family. It helped because I was forced to take care of myself so that I could take care of others. I got a new therapist and met with friends outdoors a couple of times. I started a new Instagram video series about my fiction writing journey, which brought me a lot of joy — a strange yet familiar feeling, like an old friend I hadn’t talked to in a long time. When I’d been fighting so hard to survive for so long, things like putting on lipstick and dancing in my apartment seemed silly and unnecessary, even
selfish. On an intellectual level, I knew that it wasn’t. But I needed to catch up
emotionally and realize that these things weren’t self-indulgent or superfluous — they were necessary if I wanted to feel alive again.

If there’s one thing that I wish I could get back from the Before Times, it’s my
ability to appreciate good things when they happen and to accept what’s right in front of me. Now, anytime there’s good news, I find myself bracing for something to go wrong. The first thought that came to mind when I learned I’d been listed under Forbes 30 Under 30 was that the judges had made a terrible mistake and I was a fraud. When I saw that one of my plants had finally sprouted, I immediately
worried that whatever I’d done well was not going to last and it would eventually die. Living during a pandemic for two years has kept me on edge, skeptical and overly cautious, unconvinced that everything will be okay — because, let’s face it, many of us have not been okay for a long time.

It’s also become more difficult for me to believe that I actually deserve good things to happen. I managed to share my Forbes news but I felt rather self-
conscious about it, and I told my partner not to tell anyone about a second award I’d won around the same time because, oh man, I was really going to look
braggadocious then!

What people saw on the outside did not match what I was feeling on the inside. And that made me feel like an absolute imposter. It also made me feel extremely guilty. I was employed, I had a supportive partner, I had housing, and I was
experiencing some of the biggest highlights of my career. Who was I to complain about literally anything? At one point, I wrote a tweet and then decided not to post it because I didn’t want to “bring anyone down.” Here it is:

My depression hit hard this week, and it’s times like these when I wonder if I’m just destined to be miserable & constantly feel like a colossal failure despite all the good in my life. What do I, of all people, have to be sad about? Nothing, and that’s the cruelty of depression.

Even though I didn’t post this tweet, I think about it a lot. I have to believe that I’m not the only one who feels this way. This is what anxiety and depression do to you, right? Sometimes they come after a trigger, and sometimes there’s no reason for them to show up at all — they just creep up on you. Some weeks are amazing and I feel really happy, and other weeks feel like…well, like an alternative reality. I’m learning to be okay with that, and to prioritize myself when things are difficult.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that the things that brought me joy before the pandemic are somewhat different from the things that bring me joy now. I am still figuring out how to reconnect with myself and discover new things.

Here are a few things I’ve learned about myself over the last couple years:

  • Taking care of your mental health isn’t a linear process. Even when it feels like you are taking one step forward and then two steps back, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure.
  • Only I can determine my self-worth. Not anyone else. My identity is made up of more than just one facet of my life — it encompasses my family, my
    relationship and friendships, my love for children’s books and fiction writing, and so much more.
  • Instead of being a gatekeeper, I want to open the gates and make the
    journalism industry more equitable. I have a responsibility to pay it forward and help people who have less access to resources. (That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have boundaries. I won’t be able to help anyone if I can’t put
    myself first.)
  • Oppression Olympics serve no one. It’s important for me to acknowledge my privilege and validate my own experiences and emotions. I can give myself permission to grieve the things I’ve lost over the past two years, while using the privileges I do have for good.
  • This one fragile life that we have is filled with curveballs, both painful and happy moments. When the happy moments come around, we need to catch them, like glow worms, and hold on to them for as long as possible.
  • Self-forgiveness is self-love. I tend to be really hard on myself for making even the smallest mistakes, and instead of mentally punishing myself indefinitely, I am learning to let go.

    If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading. Thanks for being here. Things are tough, and they have been for a while, but I believe in you. You’re doing an amazing job. We’ll get through this together.
A signature of my name, Wendy

How I Won NaNoWriMo While Working A Full-Time Job

The NaNoWriMo 2019 winners badge features a gold time machine against a blue background.

If you’ve been a long-time follower of my blog, you may know that I’m a huge fan of National Novel Writing Month. In case you’re unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo is a global writing challenge where thousands of people around the world write a novel of 50,000 words (50k) during the month of November.

The first time I attempted NaNoWriMo and won, I was about 15 years old and Barack Obama had just won the 2008 presidential election. The book I wrote for it turned out to be the cheesiest, cringiest, most cliché romance novel you could think of — starring a teacher who’s recovering from heartbreak and a mysterious, brooding man who emotionally “saves” her and teaches her how to love again. Gross, right? This was way back before I even knew what feminism was and before I knew how to write beyond the tropes I saw in mainstream media.

I participated in NaNo a few other times, on and off throughout the years, but never quite as seriously as I did in 2008. I’d always wanted to write a memoir about growing up as a Chinese disabled woman in the United States, but I never got further than 20k words. School and work always got in the way — or so I told myself — as did my own constant anxiety about “just getting it done,” despite rarely sitting down to actually put in the work.

How I Got My Book Idea

Then, last summer, something changed inside of me: I wasn’t thinking about creative writing all that much, but I was starting to burn out from work and putting all of my energy toward disability reporting, public speaking and social media. It felt like I was just repeating the same message — “Disabled people are people, too,” “— over and over, and it was exhausting. I would get impatient and frustrated with politics, with people on all sides of the table (including progressives who would completely leave behind the disability community in their work), and with the world in general. Even though on a conscious level I knew a lot of progress had been made, it felt like we still had a long way to go.

Sometime in July, I channeled those frustrations into conceptualizing an idea for a book about a group of theater kids who are putting on their school’s fall play, and the main character is a talented disabled girl who’s vying for the lead role. (I was working on a story about disability representation in Hollywood at the time, which is probably where I came up with this idea.) It was different enough from the everyday news and politics stories I wrote and edited for work, but it still contained a plot about the things I’m passionate about the most.

It started out casually enough: I would daydream about the plot on my subway ride to work, brainstorm in the shower and jot down notes on my iPhone whenever ideas hit me. Unlike other aspects of my life, I had complete control over the narrative of this book — the characters, the setting, the conflict, the themes. It was exciting and challenging.

Very early on, I grappled with what category and audience I thought the book was best suited for. Should it be YA? That’s the ~*hot*~ category in the book world now, right? It definitely wasn’t a book for adults, and I didn’t want it to be. I already write for adults all the time as a journalist, and getting that core message across — “Disabled people matter!” — is honestly an everyday battle. I’ve learned that it’s incredibly difficult for grownups who have consumed harmful narratives about disability for their entire lives to change their mindsets.

But I wondered: What about kids? Childhood — especially middle school — is the period of time when we really absorb social norms and dig deep in our identities and sense of self-worth, right? I finally decided that my book would be an upper middle-grade novel for kids ages 10-13, not unlike the ones I used to pick off the bookshelf in my school’s library or order off of the Scholastic Book Fair catalogue. More than anything, I wanted to write a story that I’d wanted and needed as a disabled kid in integrated classrooms, but that I never saw.

This book became my NaNoWriMo project last November. It was a massive 30-day journey that required me to write an average of 1,667 words daily while also working 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and even some weekends. This month was particularly busy because of Thanksgiving and unexpected work obligations. Even now, I can’t believe I actually pulled off. I remember thinking after the first week that it’d already felt like an entire month. On some days, I didn’t even start my writing of the day until 11 p.m. or even midnight. But with the right amount of dedication, pressure and support from my friends, I made it to 50,000 words.

Not only did I win NaNoWriMo, but I actually finished the first draft of my book! (50K to 60K is the average length of a middle-grade novel.) Right now, I am mentally getting to a place where I’m starting to edit and revise my novel. It’s going to be a huge undertaking that will take several months, if not the entire year.

Before I start that process, though, here a few lessons I learned about myself and my writing process during National Novel Writing Month in case other writers — particularly those who are also juggling a full-time job — are struggling:

1) I am an extreme plotter.

In the writing world, there are typically three camps of writers: plotters, pantsers and plantsers. Plotters are people who love to outline and map out every aspect of their story — the characters, the plot, every scene, the beginning, the ending. Pantsers like to fly by the seat of their pants (hence the term “pantsers”) and make things up as they go. Plantsers are somewhere in between.

I used to think I was a plantser. When I wrote my first NaNo novel in 2008, I only outlined a little bit and developed a basic plot, but I made up most of the details as I wrote. For NaNoWriMo last year, however, I developed my plot over the summer and then started outlining the whole thing in October, working on it a little bit every day until November came around. I created a detailed plan for who my main characters and supporting characters were, the background for their school, the town they lived in and all of the scenes.

Plotting beforehand helped tremendously. NaNoWriMo is all about momentum, and on days when I got stuck or wasn’t sure what else to write for a scene, I knew exactly where to go next. I didn’t have to stop and think, “Hmm, what’s the logical step forward?” I’d already done that work for myself beforehand.

I did end up adding more scenes to earlier parts of the book toward the end of NaNoWriMo. I finished writing the final scenes of my book just as I was hitting 40K, which meant I had still 10,000 more words left to go! I had to go back and make up a few more scenes, add more personality traits to characters, anything I could do to up my word count. But if I hadn’t mapped out everything else before the start of NaNoWriMo, I would’ve been even more lost.

2) High-pressure deadlines and fear of public shame are my biggest motivators.

I mostly already knew this about myself when it came to journalism and writing articles, but I didn’t know if it would work for a lengthy project with a marathon turnaround time. Self-discipline is typically hard for me since nobody else is pushing me. I feel like there are low stakes and the consequences aren’t that bad. And the reality is that nobody was going to come after me if I didn’t finish my book in November. I had very little to lose and a lot to gain.

Turns out, the 30-day deadline and decision to announce my project on social media were very effective. I documented my entire NaNoWriMo journey on Instagram Stories, which you can still view under the Highlights on my profile @wendyluwrites. I updated my progress every day, showed my word count tracker and shared both the good days and bad.

It was one of the best things I did. I had so many followers rooting for me and messaging me words of encouragement throughout the whole month. One of my friends told me she even checked my profile each day to read my updates — it was that suspenseful. Having that core group of people cheer me on kept me going, even on days when I hated everything I wrote or when I wrote only 300 words. (If you’re one of those people who followed along and didn’t give up on me, thank you! You’re the best.)

On the topic of deadlines, I have to give a shoutout to word sprints. During a word sprint, a group of writers compete to see who can write the most amount of words in a given amount of time (e.g. 15 minutes, 1 hour, etc.). I got in thousands of words just from doing word sprints alone. NaNo is about quantity rather than quality, so even though you may not be churning out the most beautiful, profound sentences, you still get into the zone and put all of your ideas down in some form or fashion. Even if that kind of pressure freaks you out, try it at least once — you might be surprised how much work you can get done.

3) I created my own writing ritual, which now vastly increases my productivity when I stick to it.

Before last November, I didn’t really believe in writing rituals. They seemed like more of a distraction rather than an aide. If you’re going to write, you sit down and write, right? (Sure — although look how far that got me before NaNoWriMo.) I decided on a whim at the start of NaNo to burn a candle next to my writing desk whenever I sat down to work — a nice little act of self-care to channel my inner Jo March. I picked an apple candle since it was fall and burned it almost exclusively for the whole month.

Then, something magical happened: That apple candle quickly became my go-to writing scent, and just the smell of it compelled me to sit down and write. In fact, it got to the point where if I didn’t have my apple candle burning, I wouldn’t have as successful of a writing day. Something about the smell and associating it with sitting down at my desk turned on the writing switch in my head. The candle burned out sometime around the third week, so I resorted to burning the closest-smelling candle with a gingerbread scent. I’m not saying my writing got worse after that, but I’m just saying there was a significant correlation!

4) “I don’t have time” is no longer a valid excuse for me to not write anymore.

In the past, writing for any reason other than work used to make me feel guilty. I would tell myself, “I’ll only journal after I finish this article,” or “How can I make time to work on my novel if I can’t even finish this piece for my editor?” Part of the struggle was that I use time outside of my everyday job (I’m an editor myself) to write stories — that means weekends and evenings. As a journalist, I feel a constant sense of urgency in writing about the news because that’s the nature of our industry. But when my whole life is consumed by news, it weighs me down.

Fortunately, doing NaNoWriMo meant I was forced to make time to write my goddamn novel. I had to. And that’s when I learned (finally) that it wasn’t not having enough time that was the issue — it was my inability to prioritize my writing each day with the set amount of time that I had.

In the end, not only did I find the time to write — and finish — the first draft of my novel in a month, but I also got to write an important story for work and I spoke at a conference and I attended family festivities for Thanksgiving. Don’t get me wrong — it was a hard freaking month, and there were absolutely days when I didn’t get to write as much or I had to make sacrifices, whether that was sleep, Netflix or time with friends. But I realized I have a lot more control over what I spend my time on, and if I really want to get shit done, I will.

5) I have to write a first draft before I edit anything.

Having so many things going on at the same time meant I couldn’t be too hard on myself during NaNoWriMo when my goal was to complete a whole draft. Even when I knew there were parts that wouldn’t work or that I needed to change, I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t written them in the first place. As I look over my draft in Scrivener now, I see just how many notes I made on the side — alternative sentences, thoughts that I imagine are running through my characters’ heads, dialogue that I want to flesh out more, etc. Jotting these down first put less pressure on myself to make those decisions and changes right away. I could just keep going and then come back later — and that’s where the revision process comes in.

That’s it! Those are the five things I learned from doing National Novel Writing Month. Again, if you’re interested in keeping up with my editing process and other writing adventures, follow me on Instagram. Thanks so much again to everyone who’s been so supportive, and I’m excited to keep working on my novel again!

Putting My Journalism Career Into Perspective

A Chinese woman with black medium-length hair sits on a plastic round bubble chair with pillows. She's wearing a flower bomber jacket and burgundy pants. The background has pink polka dots and shows a giant picture of Bliss skin care.

#DailyWings: “It takes courage to rest and play in a culture where exhaustion is seen as a status symbol.” — Brené Brown

Wow. It feels so surreal to be writing for my blog again, but here I am.

My life is vastly different now than it was a year ago. I started a new position as a video producer at HuffPost back in October — my first full-time journalism job ever — so a lot has shifted over the last few months. I’m learning an entirely new skill set, I’m navigating a different company culture, and I’m working harder than ever before. I have to pinch myself every day to remember that all of this is real. READ MORE

My Year In Journalism: Where I Published (And Appeared) In 2017

AmpLit Fest, writing festival, panel, journalism

#DailyWings: “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”
–Robert Collier

Even though this blog post is abominably late…um, Happy New Year, everyone! January started off quite zen for me, but things quickly became a roller coaster as I took on more journalism and work projects than I’d planned to. (Already broke a New Year’s resolution, y’all.) This year, I hope to take better care of myself physically, mentally, and emotionally. That means reading novels for fun, eating lots of cheese, putting on more evening face masks, and not feeling guilty for spending an afternoon doing nothing — because sometimes, that’s exactly what we need.
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How To Survive Columbia Journalism School: A Non-Exhaustive Guide

Wendy

#DailyWings: “I’m a story-teller. I tell stories. In some stories, I am the story. But the story transcends me. How? Hear my stories.” Guy at your J-school

Happy November! It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally finished putting together this blog post about my experiences at Columbia Journalism School (as promised), along with several nuggets of advice for prospective students — brought to you by the Class of 2016. :)

For those of you who might be new to my blog, I’ve talked about my journey to New York City in previous posts. I often tell people that going to graduate school for journalism was one of the best things I’ve ever done, even though it was also one of the most difficult. I had already obtained a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which is considered an excellent program and taught me the fundamentals of professional writing, editing and reporting. Columbia Journalism School was on a whole other level — basically UNC’s j-school on steroids.
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Why I Stopped Blogging For Two Years

journalism, New York Times, why I stopped blogging

#DailyWings: “Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and seeing what happens.”
-Louise L. Hay

Hi everyone. It’s taken a long time for me to come back to this website and have the courage to hit “publish” on this blog post. I’ve missed writing here. A lot has happened since I last blogged in 2015, and I feel like I owe you all — my readers — an explanation for why I stopped blogging, which was once a sacred part of my life as a writer.

Those of you who’ve been around for a while know that I started a blog for the first time on Blogspot in January 2010. It was my safe haven for many years, with a short break in the middle so that I could migrate to a new location — this website. Back then, I didn’t know things like SEO existed that could drive or inform my editorial content. My blog was simply a creative outlet for me to share my writing journey and my hobbies outside of journalism with the outside world. That was it.
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The Columbia Journo Diaries: Journalism Bootcamp, My First 2 Weeks in NYC

Columbia Journalism School

#DailyWings“One belongs to New York instantly. One belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.” -Tom Wolfe

The Columbia Journo Diaries is a series on my blog where I share my accounts of what it’s like to be a journalism master’s student at Columbia University in the City of New York during a time when the media landscape is relying on digital innovation to survive. 

It’s Friday night, and I’m raising a solo cup filled with red wine in my right hand. Someone sitting a few feet away whistles to get everyone’s attention.

“We made it through the first two weeks! Cheers!”

“Cheers!” I place the cup between my lips. The wine warms me from head to toe.

It’s the first night I’ve actually gone out with friends – mainly, other journalism students at Columbia who decided it would be a good idea to celebrate the end of our second week of reporting bootcamp. We have a picnic set up in Riverside Park right by the Henry Hudson Parkway, barely five minutes away from my apartment. I’ve been living here since the end of July, and not once did I notice before how beautiful the sun is when it sets over the skyline. I remind myself to do this more often. No matter how stressful journalism school gets or how many times you fail, I say to myself, never forget to appreciate what’s right in front of you.
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Book Review: “Fakebook,” Memoir of a Social Media Prankster

Fakebook

#DailyWings: “Social media has given us this idea that we should all have a posse of friends when in reality, if we have one or two really good friends, we are lucky.” -Brene Brown

Some of you may know that I spent the better half of my senior year in college writing an honors thesis on social media personas. The idea of online personalities has always intrigued me, ever since I discovered Neopets and realized I could build character profiles not only for the virtual pets, but also for myself as an online user.

In this millennium, it’s easier than ever for people to customize an identity for themselves through blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other online social tools, even cloaking certain sides of who they are (which may or may not be a subconscious act). In this way, social media acts as a “veil.” My thesis was about the bridge between bloggers’ online social media personas, the way their readers (“followers”) perceive them to be and how they view themselves.

I’ve been asked before, “Where did you get the idea for this thesis?” While my majors/genuine interest in journalism and psychology kept me interested in the topic for nine months, the idea itself started cooking after I randomly met a young nomad on campus the spring before senior year and then, around the same time, learned of a memoir called “Fakebook.”
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What It’s Like to Turn 23 When You Still Look 15

birthday peach bellini

#DailyWings: “We lived our lives as if life was forever. To live one’s life without a sense of time is to squander it.” – Diana Trilling

Most of this blog post was written on June 22, the day of my birthday, but I haven’t been able to post it until today. As I wrap things up with my current marketing role, I will be able to blog more and more. Huge thanks to everyone who sent me well wishes after my career announcement!

It’s 12 o’clock in the morning, and even though I technically don’t turn 23 years old until 9:15 a.m, my birthday is officially here and I’m starting to feel nostalgic – which is pretty typical when you’re about to start a new year of living. I’m about to be 23, and yet I’m still very much happy, free, confused and lonely. Those feelings haven’t gone anywhere; if anything, they’ve intensified.

To be honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to my birthday this year. In fact, I was dreading it. As someone who grew up absolutely loving surprise parties and sheet cakes and party favors and the special meaning behind birthdays, I can tell you this isn’t normal. Everyone tells me that when you pass all the exciting ages (meaning ages 13, 16, 18 and 21), the magic behind birthdays disappears and you just feel, well, old. When birthdays lose their charm, it means you’ve “grown up.”
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I’m Moving to New York City to Live (Not Chase) My Dreams

#DailyWings: “You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” -William Faulkner

Happy June, writers and friends! Wow, has it really been a month (and some change) since my last blog post? A part of me is appalled that I took a month-long hiatus from writing, but the other part of me wants to remind myself that there is a very good reason why I haven’t been around.

Four days ago, I was finally able to make an announcement that I’ve been waiting to make for months. It’s the kind of announcement that is usually made right after a college graduation, when people are moving to new places, taking on summer internships and full-time jobs, and traveling to other countries. Honestly, it was hard for me to keep blogging without being able to share this announcement with you; I felt like keeping it inside was more difficult than not blogging at all.

Thankfully, I’m finally in a good place both emotionally and professionally now where I can share this publicly with you and my friends here on social media.
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