Finding Inspiration in a Pool House

Welcome to Golden Dragon, a newsletter by Eric Diep about Asians in hip-hop and my takes on trending topics in AAPI pop culture. Golden Dragon is a rotation of interviews, reviews, news, critical perspectives, and random blogs about music I recommend.

• Mary H.K. Choi releases her fourth novel, Pool House, this month. I attended the Austin date from her book tour.

In my newsletter announcing my return to Golden Dragon, I mentioned that I was going through a creative rut. 

Between losing my job, stomaching another rejection letter, trying to freelance again, and watching my bank account fluctuate, somewhere in that heavy, anxious state, I lost my sense of purpose. I stopped writing freely because I only wanted to do it for money. No amount of positive affirmations from my inner circle could break through the narrative I was telling myself. I’m not a great writer. I should just quit journalism. No one reads your stories.

I often get inspired by writers I look up to. My fiancée calls them my “upperclassmen.” Using the high school analogy, these are the seniors who seem like they got life figured out and are doing what they love. Their signs of maturity include passing down wisdom and instilling confidence in people through their actions. They might not know it, but even the simplest interactions can give someone the boost they need to chase an idea to execution.

Mary H.K. Choi is a New York Times bestselling author who is promoting her latest book, Pool House, which was released on June 9. Pool House follows a complicated relationship with a former TV star, Delilah Moon, and her daughter, Stevie. This was the first book I purchased by Choi because I was drawn to how it deals with families and navigating through the tough situations of losing someone after my own experiences with grief.

I’ve been a fan of Choi’s writing since the days when she was on Rihanna’s 777 Tour plane and have read the many stories she’s written for high-profile magazines. She co-wrote DJ Khaled’s self-help memoir The Keys in 2016, back when Khaled was a Snapchat sensation and giving us major keys. When I had access to the XXL archives at Harris Publications, I pulled old issues to take home and read. I remember seeing her name on the masthead as a managing editor. She worked under Elliott Wilson, who was editor-in-chief at the time, and I thought that was pretty cool.

I was living in New York when Shea Serrano released The Rap Year Book in 2015. The illustrated book analyzed the most important rap song from each year, starting in 1979 to 2014. This had rebuttals from a who’s who of hip-hop writers at the time like Paul Cantor, Dave Bry, Rob Markman, Lauren Nostro, Meaghan Garvey, Jeff Rosenthal, and Eskay. When I got my book signed at his event, I asked him for advice. I don’t remember the exact wording of my question, but it was something along the lines of how a struggling writer can make it to your level someday. “You can do it if I did it,” he wrote.

When I saw Choi and Serrano would be in conversation at BookPeople in Austin, it felt right to be in the same room as two journalists and authors that I admired. Humor has always been the best medicine for me to get out of my funk. And this was a meeting of the minds between two creative and funny people, where they got into specifics about Choi’s deep-seated issues with her mom, the feeling most people will walk away with after reading Pool House, writing her characters, and more.

Serrano wrote his questions inside the first page of Pool House while driving from San Antonio to Austin. Choi admired his penmanship. A few highlights from their exchange:

• Choi said Pool House has a lot of “ick” in it: “There’s such a premium on smoothness, kind of seamless sort of fruition…this is kind of like crunchy and uncomfortable and hot.”

• Serrano asked what her creative process was for writing a 300-plus-page fiction book. Choi: “I think I just worry mostly about not having enough story.”

• Serrano said his favorite writer was Raymond Chandler. When asked Choi what her “thing” was as an author, Choi said, “I find it uncomfortable to be alive, and I just want every single book, no matter who it is written for, to just turn on a porch light. Being like, ‘Is anyone else seeing this shit? Or is anyone else feeling this?’”

• Serrano offers to Choi what her “thing” is: “I know when I’m reading through your stuff, like in Yolk or whatever, if there’s a page where it’s two people just going to sit down and have a conversation, like let’s fucking go. She’s about to write the hell out of this.”

• On writing characters from a blank page: “I just have to drag each one across the finish line and see how they interact with each other. Sometimes they hate each other, and sometimes they won't do anything. I keep calling it like Roombas in a corner, and they just won't interact.”

• On how her characters come to her: “The person comes in, and then they're just kind of like, well, what if like this detail or whatever that detail or what would happen if this person had a crush or what would happen if this person got their heart broken, and then they just sort of start telling me things. It's like your annoying narcissist friend. And, they just like start talking about themselves. And so it's giving like, Lorelai Gilmore. It’s giving Lena Dunham; they just talk. And you start writing things down and antagonize them by dropping them into a situation.”

As we made the three-hour drive back home to Dallas, the realization hit me that I need to believe in my writing again. Strip away the layers of distractions from the world. Focus on my craft and what makes me happy. 

Choi and Serrano showed me what’s possible when you build community and big up your peers. They showed me what’s possible with your writing talent, developing ideas across mediums like newsletters, podcasting, and television. They showed me that publishing a nonfiction book isn’t that far-fetched a goal for me. They showed me that words can jump out of a page and be visually descriptive. It left me confident in myself that this path of independent journalism will lead to greater things.

Pool House is available now.