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There are some stories that don’t quite ever leave your mind or your heart.
For me, a recent read that's left that mark on me is Gabrielle Zevin’s incredible novel, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
Spanning 30 years, this imaginative story follows three friends who meet in childhood, later begin a successful video game company together and navigate all the ways that "life continues to life" in between — and it’s about so much more. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is at the intersection of art, technology, and human experience, examining identity, disability, failure, redemption, class, the passage of time, and our deep need for connection.
As Gabrielle says in her description, “Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.” I agree. It’s an astonishingly creative, touching, and epic work.
Can you tell how much I love this book?
So when Seattle Arts and Lectures asked me to interview Gabrielle for a conversation at Town Hall Seattle, this April, I jumped at the chance.
With 10 novels under her belt over two decades, Gabrielle was refreshingly candid about the highs and lows of the industry that I’m just only starting to understand (1 and a half books in!) Writing a book is HARD, and getting it published is doubly so, as she confirmed.
I learned so much in our short time together; here are just a few valuable takeaways.
Photo Credit: Libby Lewis Photography
Time is an asset
The passage of time is a major theme of Tomorrow (as I'm going to refer to it here) and it is explored through both the character’s personal perspectives and the change in society. Think of how much has changed in our world in just the past 5 years (let alone the 30 years the book spans). Think of how much you’ve changed. Time is relative, and gains meaning with perspective. Embracing this relativity allows us to recognize that today's challenges are literally what’s shaping our tomorrow.
Gabrielle reminded me of how valuable time also is to our growth, especially when it comes to our work, “I don’t think all of my books before Tomorrow are bad or anything like that, but I think as I’ve gotten older, I can write in a richer way because I have some sense of time. Time is actually an asset.”
Honestly, when you read amazing novels like Gabrielle’s, these words make so much sense.
It’s so hard to capture those nuances of people and life’s events if you haven’t lived a lot of life yet. I definitely feel this change in myself already, from writing Inclusion on Purpose in 2020 and working on Uncompete, my next book, four years later, especially with the perspective of an ongoing pandemic, various wars and so many of my own personal experiences–painful and joyous, alike–in between.
In hard moments, the idea of time as an asset has taught me to seek perspective – what is this moment in time trying to teach me? How will I look back on it, and what would I have learned?
In good times, I try to really stay present, knowing that each moment is fleeting and while other good ones are (optimistically) ahead, these particular moments won’t come back. Anyone who has young children in their lives will know how much more these words ring true.
Create for yourself
No matter what job we have, we’re often busy focusing on others’ reactions or praise. Even more so for us in a creative industry, especially in my role as an author.
Keeping an audience in mind is important, but when working to please others becomes your singular focus, it can hold you back. Gabrielle started writing Tomorrow at the end of 2017, and she admits that she struggled in the beginning:
“For the first couple of years, all I did was research… And I was kind of scared of the concept, of knowing enough.”
The pressure of reader reactions and expectations had, in many ways, kept her a little frozen in place, she admitted, and she took a break from writing the book.
After a few years, she ended up writing the bulk of Tomorrow during the early pandemic. And that time, horrible and traumatic as it was, also gave her a sense of freedom for her to write for herself. She said:
“I didn't know if there'd be publishing again, or if I'd ever publish a book again, or anything like that. When I wrote Tomorrow… I cared more about myself as an audience.”
Doing something solely for someone else won’t bring long-term satisfaction; that can only come from within. The drive that comes from wanting external acclaim is ultimately unsustainable, but intrinsic motivation is a renewable resource. When you focus on creating in a way that’s first and foremost true to yourself, even if it’s not a commercial success, you can always come back to the fact that it’s made you happy.
And sometimes, as in Gabrielle’s case, that can even lead to creating something that literally touches millions of lives.
Don’t be afraid to create beyond what you know
I love the book's diverse cast of characters and its unflinching look at how our identities shape the way we experience the world. In our increasingly-global society, we have to consider how to forge bonds with people from inherently different backgrounds, identities, and worldviews. It is our differences that make this world a more interesting place to live, but also what creates misunderstandings and even conflict.
I found that tension portrayed very truthfully in Tomorrow, which features Sam, a protagonist with a physical disability, interacting with characters from a wide variety of differing backgrounds who don't have a physical disability.
In my discussion with Gabrielle, I found that first, conceptualizing, then writing about Sam's disability was a very intentional choice for her.
“When I went to write Tomorrow, I decided that I would not be fearful. I feel this as an Asian person; when I read books about Asian people, I would rather you try to depict me and get it wrong than to depict a world that is only one kind of person… I decided that I wanted to fully write about the world as I saw it.”
I found this perspective to be really intriguing. It got me wondering: would I rather that white authors never feature characters of color and only write about white characters? Truthfully, no. In fact, it’s becoming harder for me to read fiction where all the characters are white, and I’ve even abandoned books halfway that were huge commercial successes. I've learned that I just can't enjoy a book that lacks a diversity of voices. If I'm not seeing the world from a new perspective through my reading, I'd rather not spend my time with that book.
Of course, there’s a lot of nuance to this and how to do it right without perpetuating stereotypes or gratuitously inserting a character of color, or one with a disability or any other historically under-written identity, to check a box. But as Gabrielle told me and the audience that night, as someone who doesn’t have a physical disability, she did not want that to deter her from writing a protagonist with one. She took a lot of care to get it right. And it shows.
Gabrielle and I only spent an evening together, but our conversation remains etched in my mind. The gift of time, the value of pleasing yourself, the importance of seeking to understand one another and portray as many perspectives as possible — these are lessons that resonate deeply, not just in the context of writing, but in every aspect of life. If you haven't picked Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow up yet, I hope you do. It might just leave an indelible mark on you, too.
In solidarity,
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