For the first year, I'm attempting to write a novel for NaNoWriMo. I always thought about putting down my history on paper. It's not egotistical... Okay maybe just a bit. More than that, I'm interested by my past and where I came from.

I never really knew what my grandparents went through. They don't talk about World War II, and I can't even begin to imagine what they went through. And without the Communist Revolution, I wouldn't exist. Several generations ago, my mom's side was fairly well off and living in a city, while my dad's family were and are mostly farmers. Without the equalizing forces, they wouldn't have a chance to meet and I wouldn't be here.

My own life is quite unique as well. I still remember the discrimination I faced living in the small college town of Goettingen in Germany. The locals were inundated with all these foreign immigrant families with husbands, mostly, getting their PhDs. My beat friends Hannah and I were the first local/immigrant beat friends, and we forced our friends to hang out with each other. Same thing happened in Houston when I first moved there. The Hispanics would shout down the street "China! China!"

So I want to put this all down on paper, and NaNoWriMo is a great community to do it. I love their philosophy ofbiust write and edit later. Get your words down first.

If your interested in supporting my efforts, I need to raise $200 to join some of the community events. I'd really appreciate any help that you can give.

Click here to donate. I'll keep you post on the novel writing process and will post segments as I'm working.

I'm also going to do a lot of research into Chinese history and interview my relatives to get more insight on the first parts of my novel. My goal is to write something as colorful and descriptive as Junot Diaz and Gabriel Garcia Marquez... we'll see.