Fill in the Gaps 100 Project

I'm super excited about this.

I found out through Editorial Ass (a blog I follow; it stands for Editorial Assistant, so don't freak out, Mom) that there is a fun, fun project going on called Fill-in-the-Gaps. You make a list of 100 books you haven't read yet, and set yourself a goal of reading at least 75% of them over the next five years.

This seemed a great chance to get organized with my reading, so (in my spare time) I compiled my own list. Most of these books are Young Adult (YA), because that's what I write. I badly need to fill in the gaps of my reading list with more YA novels and "tween" books. I didn't include too many classics since that's what I have mostly been read up to this point. The gap there isn't as startling as the YA gap, though of course I left some space for some of my all-time favorite classic authors: Charles Dickens, Eudora Welty, and Katherine Mansfield. There are also some adult books that sounded fun on the list, including a couple of Annie Dillard's, just because she's always amazing and inspiring.

So, here's my list: (in no particular order)

1. Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
2. Laura Amy Schlitz, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village
3. Lynn Rae Perkins, Criss Cross
4. Cynthia Kadohata, Kira-Kira
5. Kate Dicamillo, The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, A Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread
6. Avi Crispin, The Cross of Lead
7. Linda Sue Park, A Single Shard
8. Richard Peck, A Year Down Yonder
9. Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy
10. Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak
11. Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why abandoned
12. Elizabeth C. Bunce, A Curse as Dark as Gold
13. Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
14. Alexandre Dumas, The Man in the Iron Mask  abandoned
    
15. Leslie Conner, Waiting For Normal
16. Siobhan Dowd, Bog Child
17. Christine Fletcher, Ten Cents a Dance
18. Matt de la Pena, Mexican White Boy
19. Joseph Monninger, Baby
20. Terry Pratchett, Nation
21. Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamakim, Skim abandoned
    
22. Coert Voorhees, The Brothers Torres
23. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
24. Melina Marchetta, Jellicoe Road
25. Margo Lanagan, Tender Morsels
26. Stephanie Meyer, Twilight
27. Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Whimpy Kid
28. Richelle Mead, Vampire Academy
29. Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing
30. Scott Westerfeld, Extras
31. Jenny Downham, Before I Die
32. Laurie Halse Anderson, Twisted
33. Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
34. Eudora Welty, The Robber Bridegroom
35. Eudora Welty, The Ponder Heart
36. Eudora Welty, Losing Battles
37. Annie Dillard, The Maytrees
38. Annie Dillard, Living By Fiction
39. Annie Dillard, For the Time Being
40. Katherine Mansfield, The Aloe
41. Charles Dickens, Oliver
42. C.J. Sansom, Dark Fire
43. C.J. Sansom, Sovereign
44. Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
45. Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
46. Ayelet Waldman, Daughter’s Keeper
47. J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
48. S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders
49. Robert Lipsyte, The Contender
50. Chaim Potok, The Chosen
51. Paul Zindel, The Pigman
52. Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask Alice
53. Robb White, Deathwatch
54. Robert Cormier, The Chocolate War
55. Pamela Todd, The Blind Faith Hotel
56. Lois Duncan, Killing Mr. Griffin
57. Robert Cormier, I Am the Cheese
58. Harry Mazer, The Last Mission
59. Cynthia Voigt, Homecoming  abandoned
60. Bruce Brooks, The Moves Make the Man
61. Richard Peck, Remembering the Good Times
62. Brock Cole, The Goats
63. Gary Paulsen, Hatchet
64. Walter Dean Myers, Fallen Angels
65. Francesca Lia Block, Weetzie Bat
66. Jerry Spinelli, Maniac Magee
67. Michael Cadnum, Calling Home
68. Virginia Wolff, Make Lemonade
69. Karen Cushman, Catherine Called Birdy
70. Cynthia Voigt, When She Hollers
71. Rita Williams-Garcia, Like Sisters on the Home Front
72. John Marsden, Tomorrow When the War Began
73. Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963
74. Victor Martinez, Parrot in the Oven, Mi Vida
75. Edward Bloor, Tangerine
76. Robert Cormier, Tenderness
77. Virginia Wolff, Bat 6
78. Joan Bauer, Rules of the Road
79. Gary Paulsen, Soldier’s Heart
80. Paul Fleischman, Whirligig
81. Sarah Dessen, Dreamland
82. Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago
83. Chris Lynch, Gold Dust
84. Gary Paulsen, The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer
85. Judith Guest, Ordinary People
86. Joseph Bedier, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult
87. David Klass, You Don’t Know Me
88. Carol Plum-Ucci, What Happened to Lani Garver
89. Jerry Spinelli, Star Girl
90. Sonya Sones, One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies
91. Ann Brashares, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
92. Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust
93. Lois Lowry, The Giver
94. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
95. Michael Chabon, Summerland
96. Sarah Dessen, Just Listen
97. Marsha Qualey, Just Like That
98. Newbery Winner
99. Newbery Winner
100. Newbery Winner

Phew! Anyone else want to join me and compile their own list?

Special thanks to Ren Feathers for the cool artwork, and to Emily Cross who started a blog for those participating in Fill-in-the-Gaps.

Shiny

My toenails. They're shiny.

Not just regular, fresh-from-a-pedicure shiny.

Twinkling shiny.

The lady at the pedicure place put rows of tiny diamonds along the edge of my freshly painted toenails today. For free.

This is how it happened:

Olivia came in to visit Christina and me while we were getting our toenails done. She had been playing at the indoor playground down the hall with her siblings, but she came in for a few minutes and was pretty jealous that we were getting pedicures and she wasn't.

She looked awfully cute today, wearing a flowery dress and her hair in two braids. The pedicurist commented on how beautiful she was.

"Thanks," I said.

A little while later the lady commented again, "She's so cute. American children are so cute."

I smiled. "She's Tianjin ren." Meaning, she was born in Tianjin.

"Shi ma?" cried the lady, her eyes getting big. Really?

I swear, half the time -- no, more than half the time -- when people here talk about Olivia, they don't realize she's Chinese. They just make comments like, "Her hair is darker than yours," or "She doesn't look like you." Then they're absolutely amazed when I tell them she's adopted. Flabbergasted, in fact.

"Yes," I replied. "She was in the Tianjin Orphanage."

The lady promptly gave me the thumbs up. "You're wonderful. You're wonderful." Her eyes were wide as she looked at me; I thought she might start crying. "You're wonderful."

I don't know how to respond when people say this to me. Usually I just try to defer the praise to Olivia. "She's wonderful. We love her." I want people to know she is a blessing, a gift, a fulfillment of a dream to us, more than we could ever be to her. After all, we chose her, not the other way round. Getting her adoption finished after all those years of waiting was nothing short of a miracle. We are thankful, brimming-over thankful, that she's our lawful child.

But my Chinese isn't good enough to say all that.

The pedicurist continued looking at me with round eyes, looking at Olivia, teasing her, spoiling her. Olivia even got a free nail painting.

And before I knew quite what was happening, the pedicurist was edging my toes with diamonds. When I asked why, she looked at me and said, "You're wonderful."

All I could do was shake my head, severely humbled, wishing I could give praise where praise was due.

After all, Olivia's adoption was so much more than simply bringing a child into our home. It was a journey, one that started for me long before Olivia was born.

As a senior in high school I visited an orphanage in Fujian province. Wandering the halls, I heard a sound coming from a room that at first appeared dark and empty. When I peeked in through the cracked door I saw there was a baby with a cleft lip and palate left there to die because it "couldn't eat." I left that orphanage sobbing, praying, wishing I were old enough, rich enough, powerful enough to scoop that baby up and smuggle it back to Hong Kong with me. I wasn't and I couldn't.

Seven years later I moved to China and met Olivia in the baby room of the Tianjin orphanage. I looked at her lying there in the crib, six weeks old, with her bright black eyes and fell heart-stop-beating in love. Her cleft lip and palate just cemented it for me. This is the baby I want.

Seven years later Aaron and I finally finished Olivia's adoption. That was a year ago this month.

Phew. It gives me goosebumps. This has nothing to do with me. I couldn't have come up with a story like that, not to mention timing like that.

I feel touched when I look at my twinkling toes. Maybe that was this woman's way of saying thank you to me -- xie xie. For what? For cherishing one of our children....

All I can say is, "Bu yong xie." There's no need to thank. Believe me.

Great Family, Great Wall

We have visitors. Aaron's brother, Benji, and his lovely wife, Christina, are here visiting us for one week.

We spent Monday and Tuesday in Beijing, showing them the sights -- the Forbidden City, the Great Wall -- and saying goodbye to those places ourselves.

We rode up to the Great Wall on a ski lift-type contraption. I was impressed by the silence and the smell of pine trees. Snowflakes fluttered down.

The Great Wall is always breathtaking, but especially so behind a soft-falling curtain of snow. We stood mesmerized, gazing at this man-made thing snaking over the jagged range, away into the distance. Just when you thought you were seeing the end of it, there stood another half-crumbled guard tower on a distant peak.

We walked up and down a thousand stairs, some shallow and gradual, some high and steep. The Chinese people we met seemed proud. Laughing. Confident. They deserve to be proud. Their heritage is amazing. I looked at Olivia and thought, "Your people accomplished this!" I wonder if any of her ancestors worked to carve out this wall, if any of their bones are buried under the foundations.

When it was time to leave, time to board our toboggans for our slide back down the mountain (yes, I took Sophie down the mountain on my lap in a toboggan!), I told our children to touch the wall, to say goodbye. They did it, reverently. We don't know when we'll be here again, breathing in the sweet smell of pines in this swirl of snow on this seemingly eternal wall. Maybe never.

"If you haven't been to the Great Wall, you aren't a real man."

- Chairman Mao

Sophie is now, officially, a real baby.

Closet Writer

I feel like I'm at an AA meeting right now.

"Hi, my name's Amy Sonnichsen and I'm an aspiring writer."

I've been a closet writer for a long time. One of the reasons I started this blog was because I thought I was ready to come out of the closet. Unfortunately, I've let fear get the better of me, and I've stayed mostly in the closet. I'll lurk at the door and peek out, but mainly I stick with the safe things: writing about my kids, about funny China things, avoiding the fact that I spend a good chunk of time writing novels for 12- to 15-year-old young adults.

So, here I am - ta da!

Why have I felt foolish coming out in the open about the fact that I write novels?

Probably the main reason is fear: fear of rejection, fear of failure. What if I'm never published? What if I go on being an aspiring writer the rest of my life? Is all this time I'm spending on my novels a waste of time?

I think what's finally given me the courage to come out is that I've realized what I'm doing isn't a waste of time. No matter what happens.

Why?

Because this journey I'm on is faith-stretching and makes me grow.

The world of publishing is a jungle. I didn't realize this fact when I started this expedition. I started off on a pleasure walk, and have ended up somewhere close to the Amazon fighting wild boars and wading through piranha-infested waters.

A blog I follow, QueryTracker.net, gave the following statistics:

"Writing can be a discouraging business. Less than 1 out of 100 writers who completes and queries a novel receives an offer of representation from a literary agent. Those lucky and/or talented enough to be in that 1% are still not guaranteed the joy of seeing their book in print. Only something like 60% of agented books sell to publishers (That includes books from established authors)."

Bottom line: aspiring writers like me have a tough go of it. And there's no guarantee of light at the end of the tunnel. Rejection is real, almost constant. Even if I'm the next Eudora Welty, there's still no guarantee anyone's going to feel passionate enough about my books to represent me. They need books that will sell. They're in it for the money. No one's pretending otherwise.

Where's the encouragement in all this? Why should I come out of the closet when there's so much set against me?

1. Humility: realizing it's okay to fail at something in front of other people
2. Transparency: letting people know my struggles
3. A chance to grow: I'm learning stuff all the time

In the spirit of that last point, if I'm learning things, maybe I can share them. Maybe they'll help other people who are going through different, but similar, struggles. It's not just aspiring authors who can relate to the fear of failure, the fear of watching a dream die -- we all can relate to that in some way or other.

We're in this journey together. Cheesy? Definitely. True? Absolutely.

So, greet me, get to know me, give me a virtual hug. I'm Amy Sonnichsen, and one of the many hats I wear is the dunce's cap of an aspiring writer.

Pudge

Anyone wanna kiss a baby?
Isn't she scrumptious?

So Much for Spring

We woke up this morning to snow flurries. Sheesh!

Those radiators, cool to the touch, aren't so great to touch anymore. Now, I just keep hoping the government will have a heart and send a little bit more warm water trickling through the pipes.

Hauled out the winter coats from their vacuum bags. They were all so nicely laundered too.

Worst of all, my owls are missing. I noticed a few days ago that someone had moved one of the toppled over satellite dishes from one side of that roof to the other. I hope they didn't mess with my owls, because I haven't seen tail or feather of them for about five days. growl. Hopefully they just had a little scare and are lying low. I hope they didn't move their nest all together. I'm missing them already....

At least I got a picture of one of them (or at least his back). It's the best picture I've been able to get.

Miss Puke

Yes, that's me on coronation day. Thank you very much. I received the coveted Miss Puke sash. I've been crowned and robed. Quite a spectacle.

I have so many people to thank! But most of all, the person who made this all possible ... my baby daughter Sophie. She gagged on phlegm and chose me to barf all over. Thanks, honey! I'll never forget it.

Spring

Radiators cool to the touch.

From my window, tree branches fuzzy green.
Up close, tiny, folded leaves.

Leave the window open.
More sunlight, more air, more blue.

Spring tickles my nose -- achoo!

Glass and Paprika

Mistake #1: I somehow didn't communicate to my son that when you push the button lock on a door and then close it, the door is locked. And if you are not inside the room when the door is locked, well, then you're locked out. After he did exactly what I have just described, and I said, "Gabe! You just locked us out of the laundry room!" -- he looked at me and smiled like he didn't believe me. He tried the door himself. It didn't budge. Of course.

Mistake #2: I let Anna sit on the kitchen counter. She was helping me make cookies. She was supposed to be stirring the eggs and butter together.

Mistake #3: I left the room for five minutes because Sophie was crying in the other room. Five minutes.

Crash! "Mah-om!"

Dashing back into the kitchen, I found rusty brown powder spewed from one end of the kitchen floor to the other. At the end of the trail was a factured spice jar with "Paprika" printed on it. Scattered broken glass winked at me from the white tile.

"What happened?" I demanded, picking my way through the kitchen to where Anna was sitting on the counter, wide-eyed.

She explained that the paprika had fallen off the shelf. It was an accident.

"But why were you in the cupboard?" I asked.

"I needed to put in the ingredients," she replied.

That's when I looked in the bowl and saw the entire contents of our bag of sugar dumped in and stirred up.

"Okay, everybody stay where you are," I said, turning to fetch the broom.

I tried the handle to the laundry room where the broom is kept right next to the door.

Locked.

Sweeping up the glass and paprika with a dolly-sized broom and dustpan borrowed from my two-year-old is a brand of tedium I hope never to repeat.

Friend Owl

I have a friend, an owl friend.

He lives on the roof opposite us. I see him sitting up there, his head just peeking out over the lip of the roof. Sometimes he sits on the roof's satellite dish. Usually he sits there in the morning or as dusk is falling, and his silhouette stands out black against the periwinkle sky.

I love looking for my friend Owl. I check for him when I open or close my curtains. When I wake up in the morning, I automatically peek the crack in the curtains to see if my he's there.

We don't see much nature here in Tianjin. Even bugs are pretty special. Seeing my friend Owl makes me feel like I'm watching the National Geographic channel.

At night I lie in bed and listen to my friend Owl. His call is a short, low whistle. Not a hoot at all.

Tonight I had a wonderful surprise. I came into my bedroom, the curtains were open, the sky was fading from blue to black, like a bad bruise, and the first thing I saw was my owl sitting on the satellite dish ... with his mate.

Two owls.

Maybe I've been watching two owls all the time and didn't know it.

I've always been a bit sad that my friend Owl was alone. When I'd hear him calling in the night, it sounded lonesome; the sound evaporating into the cold night air.

Now, I know he's been calling to someone. And someone answered.

The Rigmarole II

More mundanity (a word that may conveniently rhyme with insanity) from the Sonnichsen household....

Woke up this morning. Dashed around getting Livi and Gabe out the door for school. Once this was completed I looked around the house. Complete disaster area. I was out late quilting at a friend's house last night, so I didn't really do my usual "tidy up" routine before heading to bed.

Sophie woke up and I changed her clothes. Her diaper had leaked a little on the side, so I had to change everything, even the onesie.

I put her in her ultrasaucer and tried to start tidying. After all, it was Tuesday morning.

A little while later, Sophie started to fuss. Picked her up and smelled the poop smell. Carried her into the bedroom and laid her down on my unmade bed. Didn't even check her back.

Note to self: Always check a poopy baby's back before laying her down on the bed.

Realized very quickly that Sophie had pooped up her back. So now there was poop all over the clothes I'd just dressed her in, and all over the sheets ... and as I removed the sheets, all over the mattress pad.

Ran bath water. Anna walked in and wanted to take a bath with Sophie. Great!

Anna stripped off her clothes.

I started the dribble-dribble of water. (We love living on the sixth floor, but lack of water pressure is one of the downsides.) Anna jumped in and got out her cups. Favorite game lately is standing in the bathroom filling up cups of water and emptying them out into the tub, or setting them in a row on the side of the tub. Free entertainment for hours.

Stripped off Sophie's clothes. Wiped her down as best I could with a wet wipe. Carried naked baby into the bathroom and sat her in her bath ring.

I love her bath ring. I think it would be next to impossible for her to drown in the tub while in the bath ring. With this in mind, I felt comfortable leaving the two girls in the tub (with about an inch of water, due to the dribble-dribble and all the cup-filling) while I pulled the sheets off the bed -- and the mattress pad -- and started the washing machine.

Came back in to check on the girls. Anna's sitting there with an empty bottle of baby body-and-hair wash.

"Mommy, I wanted bubbles!" she said, as soon as she saw me.

Of course, she'd used the last of our baby body-and-hair wash to get bubbles.

Anna got a stern talking-to. The only thing that saved her from a bottom slap was the way she looked up at me with her big eyes and said, "Sorry, Mommy. I didn't know."

Nevermind that I've told her about ten times to ask me for bubbles and not to try to make them herself. Call me a softy.

As I started washing Sophie, I realized that most of the baby body-and-hair wash had been poured on the side of baby bath ring and was now all over Sophie's arms and hands and in her mouth.

The bathwater was also extremely slippery. I tried to wash Sophie, but rinsing her just made her soapier. Soapy Sophie. Ha!

Took one of Anna's cups (much to her chagrin), stood Sophie up and rinsed her with clean, dribble-dribble water that could not decide on a consistent temperature.

Carried Sophie out, hoping she wouldn't pee on the fresh sheets I just put on the bed. Dressed her. Put her in ultrasaucer, crying.

Rinsed Anna. Got her out of the tub. She got dressed.

Looked at the clock. 8:30. Still in my pajamas. The house still a disaster area. Sophie squawling in the ultrasaucer.

Picked up my robe. Noticed saffron-yellow baby poop smeared on the collar. No idea how that happened. Added robe to towering pile of laundry.

No need to continue. You get the idea....