Aimee Jonson, and The Heart as an Organ on Fire

“Moments before sleep are when she feels most alive, leaping across fragments of the day, bringing each moment into the bed with her like a child with schoolbooks and pencils. The day seems to have no order until these times, which are like a ledger for her, her body full of stories and situations.” (1)

I got to meet Michael Ondaatje back in college. In case you don’t know, Michael Ondaatje is most famous as the author of The English Patient, which was also made into a movie, though he has written many other beautiful, wonderful works.

I was standing in line at the Starbucks on campus, and this older man was in front of me, taking his time. I was a young, very impatient college student who didn’t want to be late to class, because we were going to meet the author of the book we’d just read, a book I had fallen in love with. I kept shifting my weight and sighing irritably. Finally, he got to the register and ordered his drink, then stepped out of line.

I got to class and sat down next to my friend, complaining about the slow guy in front of me. A few minutes later, he walked in. It was Michael Ondaatje.

Needless to say, I wanted to crawl under my chair and stay there forever.

Fortunately for me, he either didn’t notice I was the impatient girl behind him at Starbucks, or he didn’t care. Either way, I got to sit in the presence of an AMAZING author and poet, one who I aspire to be like. There are still several Michael Ondaatje books I haven’t had the chance to read, but so far I’ve read The English Patient, Divisadero, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, and Coming Through Slaughter.

His books often shift from time and place in a fluid motion, which for me is such a nice change of pace from the typical linear model of story telling.

One of the things I love most about Michael Ondaatje is the way he writes women. They are beautiful, complex beings, with immense depth. I also appreciate the way he writes their sexual agency, in that his descriptions are poetic, which makes sense, since he’s also a poet. It’s been my experience that men who can write women’s sexuality in a tasteful, beautiful way are rare. Unfortunately, most male writers I’ve read are more along the lines of THIS (Apparently, our breasts can react to a variety of situations, and we have a hard time peeing.)

I can’t give Ondaatje credit for Aimee Jonson though. While his books have certainly inspired me to write female characters in a different way, I always had a sense of who Aimee was when I started Otherside: The Serenity.

Aimee Jonson is Alanis’ best friend. She is so much fun to write because she’s who I identify with when I’m feeling a little snarky. But mostly, she’s the opposite of who I am as a person. So, it’s always fun to write a character who is the opposite of yourself. Aimee is unabashed — she’ll just say what she wants to say. She doesn’t hold back. She’s fearless and she loves to have fun.

She is more affluent than the rest of the group. Her parents have a big house outside of town. She’s also academically driven, and she has big dreams of going to a top college, of becoming a scientist. In this book, it’s mentioned that she wants to go to college, and in the sequel, I will explore more about the process of her making this decision, and how it affects her relationships with her friends.

She takes AP classes and she has extra curricular activities. Plus, she’s in the band with Alanis, Josh, and the others. She is the other guitarist in the band, and she sings back up.

Aimee’s got this punk rock spirit to her. I would also say she’s my most sex positive character. She’s very open about her sexuality, and she’s straight, but she’s not ashamed of the fact that she likes to have sex. I wouldn’t classify it as her defining characteristic, but it puts her in her own category, aside from the other girls in the group. It introduces a conversation about what it’s like to be a girl in a small town who has a strong personality, and you get the reaction from her friends and the people around her because of her openness. I think there’s some good conversations that can come from that.

Next week, I’ll tell you about Paul Peterson, White Clover’s bassist and rebel, along with some other rebels who I’ve always been fond of reading.

Otherside: The Serenity is currently available on both Amazon and online at Barnes and Noble. You can get the book in both Kindle and Paperback versions. If you have read the book, and would like to review it, you can do so on Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes and Noble.

(1) The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje, 1992