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Vauhini Vara is a contributing writer at\xa0Wired\xa0and author of the novel\xa0The Immortal King Rao.\n\u201cWith a magazine story, it might be like six months or a year or two, if it's something that took you a long time. With this [novel], it was 13 years for me, but the sort of emotional arc felt similar, where there were these periods of despair and a sense that like, this wasn't going anywhere, and then these periods where like,\xa0I'm a genius and this is going to be the best book ever written. You go back and forth, as we do with our journalism. But then with every draft of it, I always felt like, all right, this is better than the last draft at least. I don't know what the next one is going to look like, but this is definitely an improvement. And I feel like that's what kept me feeling like I was at least moving in the right direction.\u201d\nShow notes:\n\n@vauhinivara\n\nvauhinivara.com\n\nVara on Longform\n\n01:00\xa0"Bee-Brained"\xa0(Harper's \u2022 May 2017)\n\n11:00\xa0"Special Counsel"\xa0(California Sunday \u2022 Jun 2015)\n\n30:00\xa0"New Workers of the World"\xa0(Bloomberg Businessweek \u2022 Jul 2017)\n\n32:00\xa0"Can This Startup Break Big Tech\u2019s Hold on A.I.?"\xa0(Fortune \u2022 Jun 2018)\n\n32:00\xa0"Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control: Inside Shein\u2019s Sudden Rise"\xa0(Wired \u2022 May 2022)\n\n37:00\xa0"Ghosts"\xa0(The Believer \u2022 Aug 2021)\n\n37:00\xa0"The Political Awakening of Silicon Valley"\xa0(California Sunday \u2022 Sep 2017)\n\n\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices