Kidlit Blog Tour

R.T. Freeman tagged me in the Kidlit Blog Tour. Thank you, Rosemary!

What are you working on right now?
I'm about halfway through my second round of revisions for my middle grade verse novel, RED BUTTERFLY.

How does it differ from other works in its genre?
My book fits quite nicely in its genre, but I still hope it's unique. There are other wonderful books that are contemporary, multi-cultural, middle grade novels in verse, too, but I haven't read one (yet) about adoption in China. My character, Kara, is stuck in an unusual situation: she's a Chinese orphan raised by American foster parents in China. The story is about loss and abandonment and finding yourself when nothing of your old life remains.

Why do you write what you do?
I started RED BUTTERFLY as an experiment, because I had a YA manuscript that wasn't working the way it was. I love MG verse novels, so I wanted to see if my protagonist's voice would work better if she were a younger person, and if she told her story in poetry. It turned out to be a good decision!


How does your writing process work?
As Rosemary noted about her own process, mine is also evolving. I'm still a "pantser" (a writer who starts with an idea and lets that idea carry them along without a plan) who admires "plotters" (writers who make detailed plans before they start writing). Once I get the whole idea out in a rough draft, and am pretty sure it will work, I do revisions and then finally hand it off to a trusted critique partner who will tell me if I'm crazy or not. (I have one YA manuscript that is currently shelved after a critique partner told me, very nicely, that I WAS crazy. I have to figure out a completely different plot. So, yeah, I take my critique partner's advice very seriously.) If I'm not crazy, then I keep revising, keep sending it out to other critique partners until it's as close to perfect as I can get it. When my critique partners hand my manuscripts back to me after a few days and say they couldn't put the book down, and they've given me minimal feedback, then I know it's ready for my agent.

Any departing words of wisdom for other authors?
Write about subjects you find fascinating, something you could talk about for hours. When you have that much passion for a subject, it will show in your writing. It was incredibly fulfilling to finally discover a fictional plot for a topic that is so important to me--adoption and the plight of Chinese orphans. Of course, don't start out with the purpose of getting on your soap box. That could derail your story. At the same time, it's cool to write about something you love and to witness your own passion bleeding onto the page.

I'd like to nominate my pals, Julie DeGuia and Melissa Sarno, to continue the grand tradition of the Kidlit Blog Tour. Hope you decide to participate, ladies!

Olivia's Gotcha Day

A bunch of you probably already know that our oldest daughter is adopted from China. Her name is Olivia and this post actually comes at a very good time (I'm participating in an adoption blog carnival through the invitation of my amazing friend Kim) because recently we celebrated Olivia's GOTCHA DAY.

Here is Miss Olivia, looking happy, holding a plate full of Whoopie Pies, the baking of which is our Gotcha Day tradition:

Olivia is twelve years old, and for those of you who don't know what a Gotcha Day is, it's "The Day You Get Your Child" in normal adoptions. Most of the time, this is the day you first meet your child AND within a few days, usually, this child becomes your legal offspring.

Our Gotcha Day isn't quite as straightforward.

I first met Olivia when she was a few days old, in the Tianjin Children's Welfare Institute where I was volunteering. We had just moved to China a couple months before to work at an international school. Olivia was a tiny newborn in a crib closest to the baby room door and I noticed her right away because of her huge, sparkling black eyes. Talk about instant love!

We got to bring her home as our foster daughter when she was six weeks old (because during her short stint at the orphanage she'd become failure to thrive). The bringing-her-home part of our story is humorous--stuff of Sonnichsen-clan legend.

I'd wanted to bring Olivia home for several weeks and I'd been talking her up to the dashingly handsome sidekick (DHS a.k.a. my husband). Well, when I actually got permission from the orphanage director, the DHS was away at fall camp with his school kids and I had no way of contacting him. So, he got home from camp and....

SURPRISE!

We have a baby!

(Yes, he has forgiven me and we're still happily married.)

Fast forward six and a half years and we were FINALLY allowed to adopt our sweet Olivia and make her officially ours (gotta love China's adopting-parent age restrictions!).

So, as you can see, our Gotcha Day isn't quite like most adopting parents'. We decided to celebrate on the day I brought Olivia to our home when she was a baby, instead of the day she was officially adopted.

a snapshot from her baby book

Celebrating Olivia's Gotcha Day is important for so many reasons. Obviously, it's important for her, to remind her of our love for her, to give her a special day that's different from her siblings, because her situation is unique. 

Probably the biggest reason it's important, though, is that it's a marker every year for us to remember God's faithfulness to us. Navigating the adoption system when you have a specific child you want to adopt is difficult. When we set out on this journey we had empty hands--not enough money, no parenting experience, we weren't even old enough for the Chinese law! We had a child with a medical condition that required surgery and we weren't sure how it would all work out. (The $20,000 initial surgery price tag was a little daunting, to say the least.)

But God worked everything out. Even while we were still fostering Olivia, He provided a Chinese passport and American visa multiple times so we could bring her back to the U.S. for surgery at the Shriners Hospital in Portland, OR--a hospital that doesn't usually accept international patients, but they made an exception for us and give her all her surgeries free of charge until she's 18 years old. Besides that answer to prayer,  the fact that our adoption even went through is a miracle. So many people worried for us, told us that we'd be fostering too long, that there were no guarantees ... and they were right to caution us, but I'm so thankful we took that leap of faith.

Gotcha Day helps me remember that all this happened, even though it seems a lifetime ago. We've settled in the U.S. now and are growing accustomed to American ways, but I never want us to forget where we came from and what we've been through.

So, Happy Gotcha Day, Olivia! We are blessed and you are loved.

Anyone, anyone?

Happy Fall!

Life has been so crazy lately. (gymnastics + home school + lots of kids + football-coach hubby + writing = head exploding)

This is when I want to start pouring out apologies for how bad I've been at keeping up with all of you and this blog ... but I will refrain because apologies are boring and you all understand how life can be. (I know you do.)

But I WILL give a couple boring excuses:

BORING EXCUSE NUMBER ONE: I want to visit other blogs, but since Google Reader disappeared, I feel a bit lost. Any advice?

BORING EXCUSE NUMBER TWO: I would also like to blog more, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what to blog about.

I know a couple of you had mentioned that you'd like to hear more details about my publishing process. Do you have any specific questions I could answer? I just turned in my first round of edits a couple weeks ago (phew!). As long as everyone understands that this is all new to me, too, I'd love to be forthcoming about my experience. I just don't know what all of you would LIKE to know, you know?

If you have any questions that I can answer over the next few weeks, leave them in the comments. Thanks!

Photo credit: rosevita from morguefile.com