Tagged Truth Tuesday

Rosalind Adam tagged me with seven questions, and since it was Truth Tuesday, I figured it could be a Tagged Truth Tuesday. Time constraints demand economy, right? Thank you, Rosalind, for the tag!

Are you hot?
Yes, definitely hot. I'm one hot momma.(Kidding, kidding.)

Upload a picture or wall paper you are using at the moment. 

This is the dashingly handsome sidekick's fault. I don't know why he chose this as our wallpaper, but it's a nerdy picture of our family from Easter. Whenever I look at it, I laugh, which is probably the reason he chose it. We had a hard time corralling the children to all look at the camera at the same time. I guess they are all *looking* in this one. Sort of.

When was the last time you ate chicken meat?
Two nights ago. I made fettuccine alfredo. There was chicken in the sauce.

Songs you listened to recently?
We listened to music in the van coming back from Boise. The last CD was a Beach Boy's Collection (my nine-year-old's request - she is a Beach Boy's fanatic). Before that we listened to Great Big Sea which is a Newfoundland folk group. The DHS and I picked that one.

What were you thinking as you were doing this?
What was I thinking as I was listening to the music? Well, I was mostly wishing my daughters would stop fighting in the back seat. It was a long drive.


Do you have nicknames?
Not really. I had some in high school, like Amer and A-moo (the latter because I had an affinity for cows -- don't ask me why). Now people call me Amy or, more commonly, Amy Lynn (because my sister-in-law's name is also Amy Sonnichsen, so we have to find a way to differentiate between the two of us).

Tag eight blogger friends.
Oh, it's hard to choose just eight! I love you all so much.

1) Kristin Creative
2) Krista V. over at Mother. Write. (Repeat.)
3) Faith Elizabeth Hough
4) Myrna Foster, a.k.a. Night Writer
5) Kelly Bryson at Book Readress
6) Catherine at The Writing Room
7) Vijaya at Reading, Writing, Ruminating
And last, but not least...
8) Kim at Asiaramblin

You're it, ladies! Have fun playing!

A Very Boring Post

Have you seen my pile of laundry?

No, you say? Because you're sitting in front of the computer screen and my pile of laundry is in my basement?

Well, that just shows how much you know! Go to your window, or better yet, step outside. If you are east of me, look west. If you are south of me, look north. If you are west of me, look east. I doubt too many of you are north of me, but you know where to look if you are.

Did you look? Did you see it? That laundry pile on the horizon? It's visible from the moon, so I know you can see it.

This is the kind of laundry pile you get when:
1) you are gone for five days with five children.
2) one of your kids wet the bed before you left on your trip.
3) two kids wet the bed when you got back from your trip.
4) your swimsuits didn't dry before you left the hotel.
5) your two-year-old decides it's time to be potty-trained, but doesn't have a clue about getting to the toilet in time to pee.

For those of you who are wondering:

Yes, I survived our trip to Boise.

Yes, "survived" is the best word to use.

Yes, I was crazy to go. Absolutely crazy.

Will I go next year? Probably.

I'm leaving on another trip on Thursday and this one is BIGGER and LONGER. This one is to Hong Kong. I'm going with my almost-ten-year-old daughter and my littlest, five-month-old daughter. The other three children are staying home with my dashingly handsome sidekick who is especially dashing because he's now on summer vacation.

So, if I seem to disappear for awhile it's because I'm doing laundry-- trying to make a dent in it so I have something clean to wear on the airplane. I know my mom will take care of us when we get there, but I don't want to leave the DHS with this mountain of dirty clothes. That would not be nice of me.

Hong Kong is technologically advanced, so I will be online while I'm there. But I'll be playing a lot, so ... you know how that goes.

Okay, enough procrastinating. Back to laundry now.

What's on your horizon?

Am I Insane?

The dashingly handsome sidekick (DHS) is going to football camp in Boise, ID, and since I'm madly in love, I'm following him ... and dragging our five kids along with me.

I have this habit of going with my DHS on trips whenever I can. If I'm allowed to go and we can afford for me to go, I go. And the kids come too, of course.

When we lived in China, I got sort of a reputation for following my husband on insane trips. The one I took every year was to a seaside town called Qingdao. At our school in China there was no American football team, so the DHS coached basketball. The big basketball tournament between our network of schools was in Qingdao, so we'd take an overnight train there and back, and I'd always go with babies in tow.

I won't mention how difficult this trip was-- traveling all night there and back with a host of high school and middle school students, with a night in between at a Qingdao hotel. I won't mention the time my son fell out of second-story train bunk bed on his head, or the mad rush to get off the train at our destination because we only had two minutes to get EVERYONE off the train, including all our baggage and fifty-plus sleepy students (not to mention my slumbering infants).

Those were the days, I tell you. I was young and brave and incredibly fit. I had to be, hauling children and bags off a train at four in the morning. (Good grief! What was a thinking?) 

Now that we're back in the comfortable United States, I'm keeping up the tradition by following the DHS to Boise State University football camp. In America we do things the easy way, though. No overnight trains, just a packed up mini-van. My mother- and father-in-law are also going, as is my sister-in-law and her brood, and a close family friend and her daughter. We're all staying together in a hotel. A hotel with an indoor swimming pool that's walking distance from the Bronco stadium.

Should be a blast!

Apparently there's a WiFi at the hotel, so I shouldn't be out of touch ... but just in case, see you Sunday!

And just out of curiosity, do you think I'm crazy?

Can Success Come Too Quickly?

"The worst thing that can happen to a man is that he succeed too quickly."

~Author Unknown

What do you think of this quote? True, false? 

We are studying the life of Joseph in church and this quote came up in the sermon yesterday. But it can apply to the writing life, too.

• We all know getting published often takes years (and years and years and years).
• What if someone had published your first book? You know, that piece of crap you have hidden under your bed, the one you take out occasionally to giggle at. Are you ever glad that first book wasn't published? 
• And if it had been published, would your second book have been equally crappy because you didn't have to try very hard with the first one? 
• What would your sales have looked like with the first book? Would those sales kill you mid-career? Would your projects be immediately dismissed because you don't have the advantage of being a debut novelist with no track record? Instead, you're a published author with a poor track record. 

Maybe I'm being harsh, but the point is, there's a time for everything. Even a time for being published. There are worse things than a rejection from an agent. Premature success could be one of them.

My goal is to put out something great and lasting, not simply to publish a book. For me, yes, success could come too quickly. Call it lack of confidence (which it may be), but I don't consider myself a good judge of when I'm ready. I'm just trying my best and taking what comes.

Thoughts?

WiP Wednesday: Top Speed Organic

I'm up to 40,000 words on my work-in-progress (WiP).

I generally shoot for at least 50,000 words on a first draft. Usually they're a bit over that word-count by the time I type THE END. Then the rewrites seem to make them even longer. My word counts usually hover around 70,000 by the time I start querying.

It's funny how you start to notice these patterns when you've written several books.

If I keep up the pace at which I've been writing the last two days, I could be done with this first draft by next week.

I took a little writing break because I didn't know how the story would end (and I was distracted with querying). But now I know my direction so I'm plowing forward at top speed.

Can you tell I'm an organic writer? I had the premise in place, but I didn't know how my characters would respond to certain situations until I started writing about them.

There's no point being slow with first drafts, in my humble opinion. It's a vomit fest and I'll probably rewrite 99% of my words by the time I'm done. No point holding back and attempting perfection.

Writers: how does what I'm describing compare with your writing process? (I'm probably driving all you plotters out there crazy, aren't I? *grin*) Non-writers: considering your personality, what kind of writer would you be if you were a writer-- an intricate plotter or an organic go-with-the-flow?

Truth Tuesday: I Drank Bugs

I'm always parched with thirst in the morning when I wake up.

So I've gotten in the habit of leaving a glass of water by my bed.

This morning I woke up and glugged my water. I was about half-way through my glass when I looked down....

And saw about six gnats floating in it.

I don't know how many bugs I drank.

Extra protein? Any other positive ways to spin this? Leave them in the comments.

And have a fantastic day!

Summer's Coming!

Summer is creeping up on us. Here's how I can tell:

1. We put the kids to bed WAY after their bedtime, but it's still bright outside. 

2. Flowers like this are blooming in our yard:

YAY poppies!

How gorgeous can you get?

3. The Dashingly Handsome Sidekick has started coaching football again (which means hello single motherhood!). 
4. The kids' activities are slowing down. We're done with gymnastics and piano, but not ballet.
5. My preschooler has graduated.
6. Everyone is tired.
7. I'm getting lots of paper notices from my kids' schools reminding me about field trips and pajama days and end-of-year parties, etc.
8. The DHS is staying up until the wee hours of the morning grading papers.
9. The calendar says it's flippin' JUNE already.
10. I'm not getting any writing done whatsoever thanks to reasons 1, 3, 4, 5 & 6.  (Hopefully I can figure out a summer schedule soon that includes a big afternoon or evening chunk of writing time.)

How are you coping with imminent summer? Excited, scared, indifferent?

Memorial Day

When we lived in China, Memorial Day came and went without us thinking much about it.

But last year, since we're blessed to live so close to the Dashingly Handsome Sidekick's family, we started a new-to-us tradition of visiting the cemetery on Memorial Day.

Here's our big family today. (I'm the photographer, so don't go hunting in the picture for me.) The DHS is the dashingly handsome man in the middle of the picture with the orange shirt. I know there are a lot of children in the picture. Five of them are mine. Can you tell which ones? :)

 

We spent some time together at the DHS's paternal grandmother and grandfather's graves, and then walked across the cemetery to visit his maternal grandmother's grave.

 

We cried together, especially because just one year ago we visited the cemetery with Grandma Helen, the DHS's paternal grandmother. She passed away last October.  Also, my mother-in-law's sister passed away last week. My in-laws, fresh home from a trip to Israel, are driving out tonight so they can attend her funeral tomorrow. We'll miss you, Aunt Irene!

Here are the kids last year with Helen. This has become quite a special picture, because we didn't know when this picture was taken that it would be our last Memorial Day with Grandma.

Memorial Day always reminds me to treasure the days I have with my loved ones.

I'm also reminded to be thankful to our veterans and those in service, who risk their lives for our freedom. Two of our Prosser friends are veterans. It's fun to have someone to look in the eye when I say, "Thank you!"

Letters to the Future Blogfest!

Dear Me-in-Five-Years,

I'm nervous writing to you because you're probably so much more accomplished than I am, so much more mature. Gosh, you're going to be forty next year. Dude, you're getting old! You're probably reading this letter, rolling your eyes, and thinking, "Boy, that old version of me was an idiot! Forty isn't old at all!"

Right now, I have five children. (Please don't tell me that in five years I will have more than five. If that's what God has planned for me, I'm glad I don't know about it.) My baby is four months old, which means in five years she'll be FIVE. Heading to Kindergarten.

Which means, in five years, I'll have LARGE CHUNKS OF QUIET TIME IN MY HOUSE.

What do you do with all this time, Future Me? How do you spend it? Hopefully you're writing, putting out the best books you've ever written, because, you know, you can actually sit down for longer than ten minutes and put what you're thinking down on paper. Enjoy that!

Hopefully you are not wasting this time watching soap operas and eating bon-bons or frittering it away on Facebook. If you are, I'm glad I don't know it now, because I would be tempted to kick your futuristic butt.

And while you're making the most of your quiet time, rest assured that I'm enjoying this stage -- having all these little people at home all day, kissing baby feet and cheeks, changing diapers. I'm relishing it because I know how quickly it will be over.

Don't look back and wonder if you spent too much time writing; don't regret it. I'm enjoying my children (our children?) and I love every moment with them, and most of the time I carve out for writing is when they're asleep. I know you have a propensity for looking back and feeling guilty about things. Don't. I love this stage of life-- living my dream of being a mommy-writer. I'm happy, you're happy. Be content. And keep working hard, now that life isn't so demanding (though I know you're still a car-pool mom and will be one for many years to come).

I don't have an agent. I don't have a book deal.

I've never signed an autograph. I've never written a dedication page.

I wonder if you have.

I wonder what your dreams are. Are they the same as mine, or have you fulfilled some of them, moved on to new ones?

I have so many questions for you, but when it comes down to it, I'm glad I don't know the answers. It'll be fun to find them out for myself.

All the best,

The Me of Now

THE DEVIL SHE KNOWS: Winner!

First of all, congratulations to author Bill Loehfelm on the release of THE DEVIL SHE KNOWS!
It's so nice of him to celebrate with all of us: giving a book away, no less.

The winner is (selected using Random.org):

BRITTANY GALE!

Brittany, I think I have your email address from your comment, so I'll email you today. If you want to beat me to the punch, you can email me at a2sonnichsen (at) gmail (dot) com. I'll need your address so Bill can mail you the book.

Congratulations, Brittany! And thanks to everyone who entered.

Stick around ... I'll be posting a letter to my future self for Kristin Creative's Blogfest later today.

On Restlessness

I've been so restless the last few days, it's not even funny.

You see, I'm querying.

And querying = roller coaster. Ups, downs. Highs, lows.

Most of all, I think it's the adrenaline rush. Let me explain:

1. You send out a query. ("I hope he/she likes it! I hope he/she likes it!" = adrenaline rush)
2. Wait. (Check inbox 20 times per day = boring)
3. A request for partial or full. (Happy dancing + Squealing + Running around the room in circles, startling all young children in the immediate vicinity = adrenaline rush)
4. Send off requested partial or full. ("What if he/she hates it? What if he/she hates it?" + Occasional nightmares of agents sending hate mail and brandishing weapons to ensure you never write again = adrenaline rush)
5. Wait. (Jump every time the phone rings + Check inbox 200 times per day = boring)

See those waiting times there? That's when restlessness sets in. 

This is why working on a new project is GOOD.

This is also when it's important to use your self control-- force yourself to make good choices. For instance, "No, I do not need that extra brownie," and "Yes, it's okay to go on a walk and be away from the computer the house for an hour.")

Poor Dashingly Handsome Sidekick. This is a typical conversation when he comes home from work:

DHS: How was your day?
Me: Eeeh.
DHS: What happened?
Me: Nothing. Nothing happened. That's the problem: nothing happened. (Unspoken: I checked my inbox 200 times instead of doing all that laundry that's piled up like Mt. Everest in our bedroom! I'm sorry! I'm a miserable failure! Just put me out of my misery!)

The good news is, tomorrow will be AWESOME!

I'll announce the winner of THE DEVIL SHE KNOWS giveaway, and I'm participating in Kristin Creative's blogfest -- writing a letter to my future self. Phew, something to do to stop the insanity.

See you then!