World's Quickest Interview: Tess Hilmo

It's Tess Hilmo's book birthday today, so of course I had to invite her over for a World's Quickest Interview (WQI)! Tess' debut, WITH A NAME LIKE LOVE, is on store shelves TODAY. She's running a contest over at her blog to give away a free copy, so don't forget to pop over >>there<< to enter.

I have to preface the WQI with the world's quickest story. I first *met* Tess (or, in this case, Tess' book) in a Miss Snark's First Victim Secret Agent contest. We were both entrants. I don't remember how either of us scored with the agent, but I do remember her first page. I loved it. So later, when I stumbled upon her blog and found out that same book had not only landed an agent, but was getting published, I was ecstatic! Congratulations again, Tess!

Now, on to the interview.... (Tess took me seriously. This is QUICK.)

Describe your book in one sentence.  
Southern murder mystery full of heart and soul

How long have you been writing? 
9 loooong years!

Who or what inspired WITH A NAME LIKE LOVE?  

Old southern spirituals like Amazing Grace

How long did it take you to write WITH A NAME LIKE LOVE? 
Five months

Besides writing, what do you like to do most?  

Making my kids laugh 

Larry, Mo or Curly? 
Curly :D

What's your favorite holiday and why? 

Thanksgiving = family

If you could meet any one person from any point in history, who would it be?  

Florence Nightingale 

What's your favorite food?  

Tikka masala or curry 

Any advice for aspiring writers? 

Believe!

Thank you, Tess!

Make sure to tell Tess Happy Book Birthday in the comments. And stop by her blog >>here<< to enter her totally-easy-to-enter contest for a chance to win WITH A NAME LIKE LOVE.

Balloon Rally

It's Balloon Rally weekend in our little town of Prosser!

This was the view from my deck this morning. They look like Christmas bobbles suspended in the sky, don't they?

If you missed the story of our close encounter with a balloon a couple weeks ago click >>here<<.

Have a wonderful weekend!

What If Your Truth Doesn't Ring True?

One of the craziest parts of writing a novel is in the details.

What do you do when there's truth in your details, but that truth doesn't ring true to your reader?

Usually the answer is fleshing out the details, giving them some explanation.

But sometimes it's the wrong place for that explanation and slows the momentum of the story.

I run into this problem because I write novels set in a different country and culture. I'm sure fantasy, memoir and historical writers have a heck of a time with this, too.

See, I have China in my head when I'm writing, so I forget not everyone has experienced it. It's hard to know how to weave in an explanation that will satisfy the reader without bogging her down with a big info dump.

I ran into this problem with my first (shelved) novel, which was set in Hong Kong.

Most apartments in Hong Kong have a two door system. First, there's a gate. Then, there's an inner wooden door. The outer gate is there for security. The inner door is there for privacy.

This is something I grew up with. It came out naturally: my mc opened the gate and then unlocked the door....

But this detail threw my critique partners. All of them.

So, I needed to find a way to explain the gate system without over-explaining the gate system, without  hosting a lecture in the middle of my novel about how doors in Hong Kong work.

Small detail, right? But it derailed my readers. They were confused about the gate system, so they couldn't completely immerse themselves in the novel.

I've experienced this with my current novel, too. When I mentioned my MC catching the school bus, my CP Christa asked, "Are there school buses in China?" Now, I know what she's thinking-- the big yellow bus with the flashing red and yellow lights. No, there aren't those kind of school buses in China, but all international schools hire buses to pick up and drop off their students.

But do I want to take the time in the novel to explain this?

It's a tough decision. Sometimes it's best to remove the detail. Other times, it's good to explain.

Whatever you decide, I've learned to take my critique partners' questions seriously. Assume that if he is dragged out of the story now by your little detail, innocent readers later on will be confused, too. In other words, emailing your CP with an explanation about school buses in China won't solve the problem. Right? Of course, right. (And don't ask me how I had to figure that out for myself after confusing ALL my CPs with the gate issue. *blush*)

Writers: How do you handle the details in your books that you know are true, but don't ring true to your readers?
Readers: Have you ever noticed this in a book you've read--pulled out of the story by a detail that just seemed off?

World's Quickest Interview: Medeia Sharif

A big welcome to Medeia Sharif, author of BESTEST. RAMADAN. EVER. (Flux, 2011)!  You probably know how World's Quickest Interviews work. I ask really short (sometimes silly) questions and Medeia gives me really short answers. (Think: an interview on Twitter, but on a blog instead.)

 

Got it? Are you ready? Let's go!

 

 

Describe your book in one sentence.

Fifteen-year-old Almira Abdul is fasting for Ramadan for the first time ever, but the month does not move smoothly at all.

How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing novels for seventeen years. I started when I was a teenager.

Who or what inspired BESTEST. RAMADAN. EVER.?

I wanted to write about a character celebrating the holiday. An idea for a MG novel with a male MC led to a YA novel with a female MC.

How long did it take you to write BESTEST. RAMADAN. EVER.?

About 9 months.

Besides writing, what do you like to do most?

Read, of course. :)

What do you think of Justin Bieber? 

I don’t think about him. I'm not hating, but I don’t listen to that type of music.

Tell us three things you'd do on a perfect day.

Nap, read, and watch Netflix.

Dogs or cats?

Cats. I love the little munchkins.

All expenses paid vacation: where would you go? 

The Maldives. They look gorgeous in pictures, like a watery wonderland.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

If one manuscript doesn’t work out, work on another and another. Many published first books are not the writers’ first manuscripts.

Thank you, Medeia! (I love cats, too! And I don't think much about Justin Bieber, either. For the record.) Make sure to congratulate Medeia in the comments. BESTEST. RAMADAN. EVER. is her debut novel and it just released this summer, so while you're thinking about it, run out and pick up a copy. Click >>here<< to visit Medeia's awesome blog.

How Do You Work?

I'm curious ...

What are your best working conditions?

I like (and we're talking ideals here):

• Quiet
• Something to drink (ie. tea, water or Dr. Pepper, depending on time of day)
• Privacy

But I'm not picky about:

• Location
• The tidiness of the room in which I'm sitting

And I find trying to eat while I work distracts me.
So does music, though I can handle it playing in another room.

hard at work

How about you?

Truth Tuesday: The Charmed Life

In case you're tempted to think I'm living the charmed life over here....

I'm a soccer mom now. Officially. I have two kids in soccer, two in ballet, two in gymnastics.

Raising these wonderful, outgoing children requires a level of organizational skills I do not possess.

Case in point:

1) Time for ballet for Child #1, soccer for Child #2. Plan: Quick drop off of Child #1 at studio, followed by quick drop off of Child #2 at soccer field. Watch half of soccer game. Go fetch Child #1. Return to soccer game.
2) Cannot find soccer socks (five minutes until ballet)
3) Frantic searching
4) Child #1 announces that her mother (who, me?) forgot to sew the band on her new ballet shoes.
5) Frantic sewing
6) Knots in the thread
7) Thread breaks
8) If I could use curse words around my children, I would; replaced curse words with inarticulate mumblings
9) "Oh, well, never mind! We don't have the socks! Here're your shoes! Let's go!"
10) Check back of van for fold-out chairs for soccer game
11) Ensure all five children made it into the car and are buckled in
12) Drive madly down hill (five minutes late for ballet and counting)
12) Driving past the elementary school, Child #1says, "Mom, the back of our van is open."
13) Screech! of brakes. "Our what?"


Yep. I did that.

Moving on....

Feeding said wonderful, outgoing children also takes a certain set of (*ahem*) skills:

1) Drive to the grocery store
2) Pull into parking lot
3) "Shoot! Forgot my coupons!"
4) Drive home
5) Get coupons
6) Drive back to store
7) Retrieve children from vehicle, as well as shopping cart cover to protect seven-month-old from germs
8) While putting protective cover onto cart, I notice something slimy yellow smeared on it.
9) Glance down to find shiny yellow substance smeared on my shirt
10) Notice shiny yellow substance oozing from the sides of baby's diaper
11) Make decision only a professional mother can make:
LOGICAL POINT 1: The baby already has poop all over her.
LOGICAL POINT 2: So does the shopping cart cover.
LOGICAL POINT 3: My shirt? Oh well. I can cover it with my arm.
LOGICAL POINT 4: I have coupons.
LOGICAL POINT 5: I'm at the store.
LOGICAL POINT 6: I'm going shopping!

So, yeah, I grocery shopped covered in poop. It was a very hygienic day. 

How's your charmed life going?

We Will Not Forget

My seven-year-old son drew these pictures during church this morning. 

He wasn't born yet when the 9/11 tragedy struck...

...but he will not forget.

And neither will we. 

Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who lost loved ones in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Reflections on the Journey

The other day I posted about signing with literary agent Emmanuelle Morgen and so many of you chimed in with your congratulations. Thank you for that!

Heather made this comment:

Please give details on how you hung in there and kept the faith, despite the rejections! I'm in the trenches right now!

Everyone’s journey to publication is different. You hear that all the time, right? For some it happens quickly, for others slowly. Insanely talented people are rejected all the time and sometimes the scum rises to the top.

You also hear that finding an agent willing to represent you isn’t the same as “arriving.” 

This is true. If authors have “arrived,” that arrival happens when they get their first book published, when that first advance check posts to their savings account, when they receive their first fan mail from a total stranger. 

 

But even these milestones don’t feel complete without great sales and another best-seller-hopeful in the making. We’re always striving for the next big thing. So it’s logical to conclude that if we’re not content where we are (even as aspiring writers), we probably never will be content. 

And maybe that's good. We're driven people. That's why we're even attempting this. If we weren't driven, we'd be writing stories in our closets, hidden away from the world.

But don't let the fact that you don't have an agent yet steal the JOY you find in writing. We love it first. That's why we write these insanely long bodies of work. Let agents reject. They can't (shouldn't) steal the JOY we find in the process (for long, anyway).

Embracing these truths early on helped me to keep going through the query trenches, helped me through the pain of being one in a slushpile of thousands.

That, and I believed I could succeed. I knew it would take the combination of a unique, marketable idea, a ton of hard work, and great writing, but it was possible.

This assurance didn’t come with a timeline, though. I had this fuzzy idea that I’d give this aspiring writer thing twenty good years before I gave up. Okay, maybe thirty years. (Fine, I'd give it forty.)

So, it’s been four—going on five—years and I just signed with an agent. Phew. Check that off the to-do list.

So far having an agent is euphoric. And terrifying. And wonderful. And crazy. Rather like standing on the first ledge of a very high cliff.

Which leads me to this invitation: 

If you're interested in a play-by-play of my writing journey so far, click >>here<<. My former critique partner, amazing author S.J. Kincaid, offered to host me on her blog. She wanted all the gory details, so be prepared. 

I hope something I wrote here helps those of you in the trenches. I'm soon to be in the trenches again myself: the submission trenches. I'll keep you posted on which trench is worse....

Until then, happy writing!

Saturday Morning Suprise

Yesterday morning my seven-year-old came charging into our bedroom at the crack of dawn. And it wasn't even Christmas!

"There's a hot air balloon outside our window! And it's so close!"

I straggled out of bed. Our local balloon festival is in a few weeks, so I figured there were balloons rising along the river, or maybe even over the highway half a mile away. But when I got to the window, this is what I saw:

Yes, that is the tree directly off our deck. When I first saw it, the balloon was over our backyard, gaining altitude to make it over the tree. Yep. That's close.

I was standing there in my pajamas, waving and laughing. Then I remembered to grab the camera ... and put on a robe. Oops. It felt so much like Disneyland, I kind of forgot there were real people inside the balloon who could see me in my Where the Wild Things Are "Make Mischief" T-shirt. Ha!

They were so close I could talk to the woman inside the basket. She apologized for the inconvenience of their balloon being in our backyard. All I could say was, "Oh, no! Really! It's wonderful!"

It hung out over our neighbors' yard for about fifteen minutes before they decided to touch down on the road below us. My son ran down the hill to watch them fold up the balloon.

the landing

This was such a cool way to start a three-day weekend!

Speaking of weekends, have you been over to >>Karen G's BBQ<< yet? It's a lot of fun! A great way to socialize around the blogosphere! I'm layering a chocolate brownie trifle for the occasion. See you there?

My Big News

I don't know how to say this, so I'll just say it in big red letters:

I HAVE AN AGENT!

And not just any agent. I have a wonderful agent. She's kind, professional, and she has an incredible vision for my book. Emmanuelle Morgen is with Judith Ehrlich Literary Management. You can read her bio by clicking >>here<<.

Wow.

I still can't quite believe this myself. I wonder how long this news will take to sink in. I've been walking around the house, doing my regular thing, feeling totally normal, and then it will hit me all over again: "I have an agent!"

I'm sure I'll get my act together and be able to fill you in on all the details soon: what it was like to persevere through countless rejections, endless rewrites, reams of feedback. This road to publication isn't an easy one. We walk it because we are determined to succeed. To be honest, I think I'm just as terrified of the future (submitting to real editors!) as I am giddy with excitement. But that's all part of the journey. I'm learning to face my fears.

The Dashingly Handsome Sidekick and I haven't had a chance to celebrate yet because it's (*cue funeral dirge*) football season. But maybe we'll get a chance this weekend after the big televised game tonight (you read that right--the Mustangs are going Live!). After all, we get three days to party (very responsibly), right? I hope you all have a marvelous weekend.

Now I must descend into the realms of MASSIVE REVISIONS (well, maybe not MASSIVE, but I do have to change a few things). Thankfully, this is not a dark realm. I'm excited to make my book stronger. I'll keep you posted....

We Have Winners!

I am blown away! 

(And not because we had a huge windstorm here the other night.)

Thank you for the wonderful response to my BIG GIVEAWAY. You are all amazing! Welcome to all new followers. I know most of you found your way here through Krista V.'s blog, so a BIG thank you to Krista!

I'm ready to announce the winners, but first I want to say how shocked I am that so many people entered for a manuscript critique. I wish I had time to give a critique to everybody! When I host giveaways in the future, I'll make sure to continue offering manuscript critiques, so even if you didn't win this time, keep checking back for more opportunities. Thank you!

And now the winners (thanks to Random.org):

Reader #1: Janet Johnson

Reader #2: Teish

Manuscript Critique: Michael G-G

Congratulations! Winners, please email me at a2sonnichsen(at)gmail(dot)com for prize-redeeming instructions.

Thanks again, everybody! Any plans for the Labor Day long weekend?

P.S. If you are able, check back here tomorrow because I have some fun news to share.