the feminist chinese women during the turn of the century and i wanted to write about my japanese culter't have the story or the culture unfortunately because i was born in san francisco, half chinese and half japanese but raised in the chinese culture. when it was time to write the second book and i knew i wanted to explore my japanese side it was going to be difficult in the way that i didn't know the culture. right away i had to learn a lot. it was something that was not engrained in me besides the story. i sat down and thought about the story my mother told me about her brother being ill. he at one point went from hong kong to japan to recuperate. he was the one that wanted to be an artist and wanted to paint. i thought about that because it must have been hard growing up in hong kong to be far away from everything and have a dream and get sick at this point. i thought u is there a story here? that's the way it begins for writers. people think things jump out and we have it in our head. it's the opposite we have nothing in our head. we turn on the machine and praying for something to

steph any culter joins us next.wed by starbucks. ♪ jfk, blown away, what else do i have to say ♪ now you can apply sunblock to your kids' wet skin. neutrogena® wet skin kids. ordinary sunblock drips and whitens. neutrogena® wet skin cuts through water. forms a broad spectrum barrier for full strength sun protection. wet skin. neutrogena®. for full strength sun protection. brniny so, i'm working on a cistern intake valve, and the guy hands me a locknut wrench. no way! i'm like, what is this, a drainpipe slipknot? wherever your business takes you, nobody keeps you on the road essiro coal aer [ flo speaking japanese ] [ shouting in japanese ] we work wherever you work. ♪ ♪ >>> welcome back to "morning joe," 26 past the hour. a live look at washington d.c., a beautiful shot of the white house as the sun comes up this morning. joining us now from chicago, obama deputy campaign manager stephanie cutter. stephanie, good morning. good to have you on the show. >> thanks for having me. >> so how you doing? >> good. >> yeah? >

steph any culter joins us next.wed by starbucks. ♪ jfk, blown away, what else do i have to say ♪ now you can apply sunblock to your kids' wet skin. neutrogena® wet skin kids. ordinary sunblock drips and whitens. neutrogena® wet skin cuts through water. forms a broad spectrum barrier for full strength sun protection. ♪ ♪ >>> welcome back to "morning joe," 26 past the hour. a live look at washington d.c., a beautiful shot of the white house as the sun comes up this morning. joining us now from chicago, obama deputy campaign manager stephanie cutter. stephanie, good morning. good to have you on the show. >> thanks for having me. >> so how you doing? >> good. >> yeah? >> how are you doing? >> we're good, we're good. we're talking about mitt romney, bain, the things you might have said perhaps about things being a felony. are you walking back those remarks as i might have seen on another network and any regrets this morning? >> no, no. i mean, if you look at what the discussion was that we were having, you know, last wee