Ideation Is a Practice: Interview w/ Fresh Voices Finalist, Nicole Zhu
We are delighted to highlight one of the seven impressive finalists of this year’s Fresh Voices Fellowship, which seeks to bring visibility to emerging writers of color.
Nicole Zhu is a writer and engineer based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Catapult, Eater, Electric Literature, The Margins, and elsewhere. She was the winner of the 2022 Pigeon Pages Flash Contest and is a 2023-2024 Center for Fiction/Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow. She has received support from Tin House, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.
Read her short story “What I Eat in a Day” here.
What were your first experiences with art like? Is there an art encounter that remains vivid in your memory?
The first novel I remember reading that made me aware of the elements of writing was Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. (Perhaps it’s my most vivid early art encounter because there’s a picture of me reading this book at age eight wearing butterfly clips and blue capris.)
It follows Salamanca (Sal) Hiddle, a 13-year-old girl, as she road trips with her grandparents to see her mother. Along the way, she tells them about her new friend, Phoebe Winterbottom, whose mom goes missing. It’s a mystery and a coming-of-age story that talks very frankly about new relationships, family dynamics, gender roles, and grief and loss. At that point, I’d never read anything like it, in terms of both story structure and subject matter. The parallel narratives of Sal and Phoebe were so engrossing and opened my eyes to different ways stories could be told.
What is the best writing advice you’ve received? How did it alter the way you think?
Ann Friedman and Jade Chang taught me that ideation is a practice. I used to think inspiration needed to strike before I could start writing. This meant I only wrote when I was in the mood (translated: sporadically). They taught me that it’s possible to cultivate surprise. It takes work and intention to actively develop ideas, to make ideas more compelling, specific, or easier to realize.
One idea development strategy I like to do is compost, which is basically keeping a long-running note with things I find interesting (quotes, articles, links, random “what ifs”). I then periodically review the compost file and see what might be interesting combinations of subjects or themes in order to spark ideas. Ann calls this “the Venn,” where the goal is to find unexpected and interesting overlaps.
In your development as a writer, what is one thing you have discovered that is completely different than what you first imagined at the start of your writing journey?
Not to get all existential, but my relationship with time. I’m an engineer and a writer, and my conception of time in both disciplines is really different. In the most obvious sense, I don’t think I grasped how slowly publishing moves (for a variety of reasons). Engineering and web development move very fast. I also didn’t realize how much time I would need for my own writing.
It took me many years to learn that the writing itself needs time—time for me to draft, put it away, get feedback, revise, and revise again. Writing really resists optimization and that’s partly why I love it. It makes me reevaluate how I conceive of “time well spent.” Some topics require a lot of emotional distance for me to write about them. I feel a lot more comfortable putting stories or even whole novel drafts in the drawer. I’ve become more careful about separating the act of writing from the process of submitting or publishing.
While I love writing because it feels so antithetical to engineering in many ways, I’ve also come to appreciate the ways in which engineering processes or approaches can be applied to writing. Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks was a great read for this exact reason. It reminded me of the iterative nature of engineering, how “radical incrementalism” and small steps teach you to build patience. Burkeman’s “fixed volume approach” is not dissimilar to the way engineering teams often work in two-week sprints with pre-planned work. This means setting a limit on the number of things you’ll focus on in a given timeframe. You don’t add things to your to-do list until you’ve finished others. Both of these ideas have given me more tactical ways of actually finishing things (!!) and have helped alleviate broader anxieties about my writing.
Do you have any rituals or practices that help keep you focused when creating? Or do you let the chaos of the world seep in as you write?
First, I need to have a fun (preferably caffeinated) beverage. Depending on the season, it’s tea, coffee, Diet Coke, or seltzer. Second, I can’t write at my desk. I either write on my couch or at The Center for Fiction nearby. I think it has something to do with separating my day job from my writing, but the change of scenery helps get me into a creative headspace. Third, I set a Pomodoro timer. This is the most useful tool for me to focus on writing.
One habit I’ve been trying to stick to while working on my novel is inspired by Amitava Kumar’s advice to set a daily writing quota of 150 words. I similarly keep a notebook with each day’s date, and I put a checkmark next to it if I reach my quota. If I don’t, I have to mark an X. It’s helped me stay in my manuscript more consistently, because it reminds me that a shift in character, setting, plot, etc. is all possible—even in 150 words. Also, I really like the satisfaction of the check marks.
Is there anything specific (project-wise, writing-wise, other-wise) you are currently working on?
I’m working on the first draft of a novel about siblings, mental health, and 2010s digital media. I’m really interested in the blending of personal, professional, and creative relationships and how people use contemporary technology to cope and connect. It’s extremely messy and I cringe reading through some of what I’ve written so far, but I’m trying to remember that, as Jane Smiley says, all a first draft has to do is exist.
Getting up on your soapbox, what are three books you would recommend to anyone and everyone?
These are some of my favorite books about sibling dynamics and female friendships, topics which I’m currently exploring in my own writing:
I’m an absolute sucker for stories about multi-decade relationships. Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho is an interconnected short story collection about two Asian American women and the ebbs and flows of their long-term friendship. The stories alternate in perspective and structure, and Ho does an incredible job zooming in and out of key moments of their lives to highlight the yearning, tension, and grief Fiona and Jane feel toward each other.
I was first introduced to My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante a few years ago in a class on writing complex characters, and I continue to return to it both for its language and ideas. It traces the friendship of Lila and Lenù, two bright girls in Naples in the 1950s, from childhood through adolescence. It’s a constant rearranging of hierarchies, rivalries, perceptions, and class amidst poverty and violence. In particular, it captures the intimacy and jealousy of female friendship—the struggle of wanting to be with someone, to be them, or to be free of them.
Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi is one of the most nuanced depictions of eating disorders I’ve ever read in fiction, particularly featuring Asian American protagonists. Two estranged sisters, Jayne and June Baek, come together to help each other cope with physical and mental illnesses. The sibling dynamic is heartbreaking and hilarious, touching on family communication and dysfunction with such poignancy. I immediately bought a copy for my older sister to read.
I’ll sneak in a bonus essay, “An Education” by Cathy Park Hong, from her book Minor Feelings. I’ve reread this multiple times, once even with a writing group. It recounts Hong’s college years and her origins as an artist, the female friendships that shaped her, and the intersection of mental health and creativity. It explores the painful yet fulfilling process of formulating an identity as an artist, including the community and competitiveness that both enables and challenges you.
What are you looking forward to in 2024?
A lot of big things happened at the end of last year: I got engaged, started a new job, and got a yearlong writing fellowship with The Center for Fiction. Change came all at once and I’m so grateful for it, but in 2024, I’m honestly just excited to feel settled in each of these things.
