On Writerly Recycling
First, some blog business: I’ve decided that I’m going to try an experiment . . . regular blog posts! Like on a schedule, and things! My plan is to put together a post on my writing on Tuesdays, a post on some non-writing topic on Thursdays (expect lots of posts about TV, because i’m an asocial dork!), and to post a book review on Saturdays. The recent kerfuffle about reviewing has made me realize how important blogging is to me, and to viewing myself as a professional. And so this–treating writing as a job–feels like a natural next step.
Second, some good news! On February 15th, my short story, “The Long Summer,” will be appearing in Kettlestitch Press‘s Plaything of the Gods, an anthology of Greek myth retellings for teens. I know, I know. I was quiet about this one. 2010 was a year of sobering and thorough rejection for me (also a year of making ill-advised youtube vids about sobering and thorough rejection), and so when I finally got some good news, well, I felt kind of afraid to jinx it. But it turns out that the deal is real; final edits have been submitted and contracts signed and I’m really, really psyched to get a chance to share this story with some readers in a few weeks.
Which brings me to the point of tonight’s blog. “The Long Summer” was one of the first fiction pieces I wrote when I decided to take this whole fiction thing seriously, way back in 2009. It’s a contemporary update to the myth of Hades and Persephone, and basically is all about what happens when Demeter decides to try to trick persuade her daughter into staying with her once summer ends.
One of the reasons I’m so excited about actually getting to share this story is that I originally came up with the idea for it in 1997.
You know, when I was in seventh grade.
Worse, it was strongly inspired by an episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (shush!).
One of the things I liked about Hercules was that it wasn’t afraid to take slightly untraditional character interpretations of classical mythological characters. Hades was one that I felt usually got the short shrift in modern retellings–painted as closer to Satan than the sad guy that I always imagined he must be, hustled from the darkness of his father’s body to the darkness of hell. I saw Hades as fundamentally sympathetic; I wasn’t always so sure, too, that Demeter was quite the goody-goody many myths painted her. And so when I saw this episode of Herc, my little thirteen-year-old brain began to bubble over with story ideas.
I was feeling inspired. Only problem was, I had no idea how to write a full short story of original fiction then (fan fic was another story). And so it remain tucked away for years and years and years, way back into my hindbrain.
One day years later, after grad school, when I’d started writing fiction again, I was chatting with a friend about fidelity and monogamy and relationships. And it sparked something. I remembered my story idea, the one about the goddess lured away from her healthy (if in some ways oppressive) marriage by her mother. It took me nearly three weeks of writing to get the whole story out–and another year of editing before it was polished enough to garner an acceptance. But in the end, I was a much better realization of my original concept than I’d ever hoped. Somehow, instead of the story festering or becoming irrelevant, I grew into it.
It’s happened to me before. Two of my trunked shelved novels were based on ideas I originally had as a teen. There are story snippets and characters and themes I still hope to bring to life at some point. Hell, even some of my trunked shelved work might eventually come off the shelf to be dusted off, revised, rewritten, and improved. I figure that, if it worked for Sherwood Smith, it might as well work for me.
In the scheme of things, I’m patient. I don’t care about success right here, right now–but rather realizing a story as best I can. This is a process that takes time. But it’s nice to know that the stories wait for you.
How about you, gentle reader? Have you ever revisited an earlier plot or story idea? Ever unshelf a shelved book? How did it work for you?
Phoebe
Phoebe is a 20-something writer who lives in New York State with her husband and cat. She is a dork, not a geek or a nerd.
Her debut novel, Starglass, will be released from Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers in Summer 2013.
15 comments
Whoo! Looking forward to weekly posts! I think I kind of remember that Hercules show…kind of? I remember very VIVID technicolor, heh. I was seven.
Congrats on the publication! I'm also a huge fan of Greek Mythology. The Illiad was like my bible when I was in middle school.
Heh, I'm rewatching the episode of Hercules mentioned upthread as we speak and . . . ugh. REALLY cheesy. I loved it, though–showing that I was cheesy even then!
And thanks! I was always more of an Odyssey girl than an Iliad girl, but I'm glad I wasn't the only Greek mythology dork.
Both of my book ideas are things I made up in my head around 13 or 14. This one especially. As I've said elsewhere, crushes on youth pastors had everything to do with it.
Again, congrats on publication!
Hehe, I love that your inspiration for your deeper themes is from back then. As a teen, I didn't think thematically at all (which is why I suspect I can pull off books/stories a bit better now), I was just all, this story needs aliens! Sad mermen! And dragons!
Now I get to reuse those ideas, but layer them with deeper meaning.
And thanks.
Well I wouldn't say I had the themes, although maybe I did, because I had the character arcs down pat. With sequels. X_X
I have this one idea for a story (which I might have mentioned before) that I've tried to write…three times? Four times? I forget. Anyway, I came up with it when I was about 15 or so.
It never seems to work out, for some reason. It's perfectly compelling and interesting as a premise, I just get to the third chapter and think 'This really isn't working'. My current WIP actually recapitulates a few of its themes, so maybe this is my way of smuggling it out of my system, or something.
Hey Phoebe, I was talking to a friend about this hypothetical situation and was thinking about you, especially with so many posts about either reminiscing or revisting the past. You may (probably) have answered this at some earlier point it time, but figured it wouldn’t hurt asking you here.
Basically, what would your 16 year old self think of you now? Not just who you are, but what you’ve become, or even more pertinent to this post, what you would think that an idea would have stuck around for a decade or so in your head only to be revisited again?
Hey Inha, cool question! I dig it.
I think it's kind of unavoidable for people who read a lot of YA/write YA to think about their pasts and how they would address their teenage selves, but rare to look at it from the other side.
When it comes down to it, I suspect it would depend on what age we're talking about. 16 year old me? Might be disappointed that I'm not writing beat poetry and, like, living in Europe and in a band or something. She was all about being adventurous and living a certain kind of lifestyle. 14-year-old me, on the other hand, would probably be totally cool with it. At that point, I'd been plotting stories in the same universe for years already. Being imaginative like that back then was kind of like having a parallel world running right alongside yours. So I think I'd be able to understand how stories can have longevity and vitality and scope. I think she'd also be psyched about the type of stories I write. At least that's what I hope. I think in a lot of ways my life goals are to impress the 14-year-old in me. But maybe that's normal? How about you? How would 16-year-old Inha feel about grown-up Inha?
It's really interesting to see how just a few years can mean such a big difference in terms of reactions (the contrast between a 14 and 16 year old). My girlfriend made that same distinction, and I think she mentioned the same ages also (14 and 16).
I think the 16 year old me would be, for the most part, impressed, or happy that most of the things in life that I sorta wanted to happen is happening or starting to happen to some degree. Especially keeping up with the science and music aspects of life. Political and religious leanings are different and more liberal, but I'd like to think that 27 year old me would be able to explain to 16 year old me that certain ideas are dispelled when you get to know more about the world.
It's also interesting that you almost seem to channel more your 14 year old self rather than 16 year old self. Would you find yourself explaining to your 16 year old self how life came to be? And would she be more understanding of it if you were to do so?
I've been thinking most of the day about whether my thoughts as a 14 year old are much different from that when I was 16, or even 12 year old me, and I don't think I had that finite of a difference. Sort of my life goals have been pretty consistent for a very long time. I wonder which is more common. But heck, if I told my younger self that I'm right now studying to get a PhD and be a full-fledged scientist that still reads comics, watches cartoons, plays videogames, and played in a few bands, yeah, I'd probably give myself a high-five, then cause a cataclysmic anomaly like in Time Cop.
Ha! Time Cop FTW!
You should take a look at my next post, because I decided to write about this more there.
I almost wonder if this is a gendered thing, feeling like there's a big difference between early adolescence and later. Because I'll be frank–a lot of the punky, over-the-top persona I was projecting in late high school was the result of attempts to cultivate attention from guys I liked. And, uh, to a large extent, it worked. Sure, ditching my braces and glasses and stuff did, too, but I can remember certain dudes from our school coming into Acme when I was punked out and telling me how "I was hot now," etc (oh, teenage boys!). I think there are other ways I could have tried to garner male attention at that age–I could have, for example, grown my hair long and blow-dried it out and started wearing make-up. I saw being punk as being true to my weirdness, just a more obvious outward expression of it. But I still had to try pretty hard to make myself feel like I was gelling with any societally approved modes of femininity.
I suspect that's normal. I think for a lot of girls, coming in to their sexuality, taking ownership of that and entering the dating arena, means that you learn how to disguise parts of yourself. Which makes me sad to think about, I guess. I don't think that's so true for boys. I don't think there's the same constructing of appearances and identity–I don't know if many, or as many, boys go through that same sort of metamorphosis between middle school and the senior year of high school.
See also, Lindsay Weir from Freaks and Geeks, the best media example of this I've ever seen.
The hindbrain coordinates motor activity, it is not where you keep old story ideas!!
I was making a Doctor Who joke!
lol whut