The New World by Patrick Ness

Somehow, I missed the memo that Patrick Ness wrote a short story prequel for his Chaos Walking Trilogy. I didn’t hear about it until this week, when a former co-worker mentioned that she’d picked up the books, hoping they’d continue the story about Viola’s life on a generation ship. As you might know, generation ships are a subject near and dear to my heart. I’d also been somewhat frustrated by Viola’s sparse characterization in The Knife of Never Letting Go (admittedly, the only Chaos Walking book I’ve read so far), so I picked up a free copy of “The New World” for my nook, hoping it would give me some insight into her character.

Of course, much of what makes Viola Eade a compelling character in The Knife of Never Letting Go is her inscrutability, the mystery presented by her oblique, female mind in a world where narrator Todd is used to hearing the unfiltered thoughts of those around him. I was a bit worried that when we actually entered Viola’s perspective, there was no way that Ness could live up to that sort of promise.

But I was pleasantly surprised. Viola’s voice and characterization were easily the best part of “The New World.” She’s got a wry sense of humor that is both imminently readable and genuinely, thoroughly, and undoubtedly thirteen. Through this true-to-life voice, Ness builds a narrative of her life through jumbled flashbacks. And it’s in matters of adolescent characterization that he’s most successful here generally. Not only is Viola very precisely and accurately characterized, but her school rival Steff is also cunningly drawn.

“I’ll miss you,” Steff Talor said at our going away party, her voice twisting up high, making it sound even more insincere than it is.

All the caretaker families had gathered in the conference room of the Delta for the party, happy for any excuse to get drunk and say goodbye. Steff swept me up into her arms in a hug angled so that everyone around us would see her face, how sad she was that I was going away for a year. Then she let me go and collapsed into her mother’s arms with a wailing that was louder than anything else in the room.

Unfortunately, the broader premise of “The New World” is not nearly so incisively accurate. The idea is that Viola’s parents are picked to form a landing party, and so Viola, too, is recruited to be part of the first shuttle of explorers on the eponymous planet. But despite another character’s assurances that she’s brilliant and capable, the idea of employing a thirteen year old as a shuttle crew member (and locking her away for months with only her parents) strikes me as a preposterous one—almost surely a recipe for disaster. I had significant trouble believing that the generations who have prepared for this journey would not have anticipated the inevitable disaster we reach by this brief story’s conclusion.

And, worse, the emotional register of that disaster just felt off, loud and a touch cliché. That’s too bad, because Viola is a likeable character. But I found her plight more touching in The Knife of Never Letting Go–and she was a complete cipher there. Ultimately, though this is a nice bonus for Ness fans, it’s really not a necessary (or, as a standalone, even sufficient) read.

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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?

I finished this painting a few nights ago. I was working on it, very sporadically, for probably about six months. Still, I’m pretty happy with the result.

It’s based on a photo from a book I got from a used book sale–Foods of the World: Cooking of the British Isles. All the photos are like this, velvety darks and seventies color schemes. But I saw this one and knew I wanted a painting of it.

(The caption in the book? “Resting on the usual fish-and-chips wrapping, fried haddock and potatoes will be seasoned with salt and vinegar.”)

I pretty much adore fish and chips. There was a restaurant–if you could call it that–near my hometown called The Chippery. It was hardly more than a shack, and the ceiling was a repurposed boat bottom. There were wine-dark glass bottles of malt vinegar on the wall, and I always ordered “the Cabin Boy”–one piece fish, chips, and a little plastic container of cocktail sauce.

Plus some clam chowder for good measure.

I went there with my dad, and then later, with my mom and my pop-pop. My grandfather and I would continue to go there together into my twenties, after he had his stroke. The last time I was in New Jersey, Jordan’s dad (also a fan) told me they shut down. The loss I felt was palpable–like an aftershock of the grief I felt over my grandfather’s death years before.

So the food in the picture means more to me than just delicious food, though it means that, too. It also has something to do with memory, with family, with tradition.

There was a time when I thought I might be a painter. In high school, I’d stay up all night painting (this, too, has something to do with loss: my mother’s friend Chuck gave me free art lessons, my first canvases, my first set of acrylic paints. He taught me how to do underpaintings, value scales, teased me about Pern, took me to life drawing sessions at the Watchung Arts Center, then, over the course of a few months, faded away from cancer). I applied to art schools. Then I freaked. For years, I’d been struggling to define myself as either an artist or a writer. The kids’ at the portfolio review days seemed much better prepared than I was, and I worried I was making the wrong decision. So I changed my mind. Art will always be there for me, I told myself.

And it has been, but only in fits and starts. I probably do one painting a year, with other art projects thrown in now and then. You can find some of my more recent stuff here, among other places. I even illustrated a book last year, though it was a long, arduous process. I’ve seen copies in Publix, and although the experience was hard, I couldn’t help but feel proud. For some reason, I know that (so long as I push myself), I’ve actually matured as an artist–that feels fortuitous and slightly unearned and weird.

(Have I posted this picture? I don’t think I have. I made Jordan a pretentious portrait of himself for his last birthday. Most of the time these days, my art is a gift for someone. I rarely do art-for-art’s sake anymore. That doesn’t mean that it’s not awesome. Haughty White Jordan, as we call him, is definitely awesome, if I do say so myself.)

I’ve been thinking about this stuff a lot lately, thanks to SEAS RUN DRY. My heroine, Irene, is, at eighteen, supposedly about to embark on her own art school adventure–but she, too, is having second thoughts. Art is an emotional, loaded thing for her (as it is for most artists, I suspect), and she can’t help but wonder what her other choices are. All her life, she’s been Irene-the-girl-who-can-draw. She wonders what she’d be without that. Of course, a run-in with a certain merman gets in her way a little bit.

(I keep thinking about how, in her speech at our college graduation, my friend Tiff spoke about changing her own plans during college. I think that’s common. I think it’s a lot to ask of an eighteen-year-old, to know who she is and to make decisions about who she will be.)

Anyway, I’m rambling. Mostly, I just wanted to share my painting with you. I think it might go up by the eating area of my new apartment in my new state. Mostly, I just felt proud.

In other news, I bought a new, vintage-style bathing suit, which I absolutely adore. Polka dots!

Also, I really, really love this story, “How to Make Friends in Seventh Grade” by Nick Poniatowski, in this week’s issue of Strange Horizons–so much, that, when I finished proofing it, I sent the author a squealy fan-girl letter. Please do go take a look! It’s young adultish and so, so good.

Recently read this older story over at Strange Horizons, called “Relentlessly Mundane”. I found the subject matter haunting and thoughtful.

Then, today, stumbled across this comic on XKCD. Apparently, I’m not the only one.