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Review: Plan B

May 3, 2010 by Amy 10 Comments

Plan B.  It’s the route your life takes when you were trying to steer it elsewhere.  Maybe an unexpected sickness.  Divorce.  Infertility.  Singlehood.  Failed Business. Job loss.  Death.  The moments in which you begin to question who God is and why he moved the Do Not Enter sign where you had firmly placed it. 

But Pete Wilson’s book Plan B doesn’t dwell in the despair of Plan B’s.  He helps you see that maybe Plan B was the right route after all.  In a word, this book is hope.  Using stories from the Bible and modern-day experiences, Pete walks the reader through all kind of feelings and perspectives of those living out Plan B.

Can I be honest and say when I picked this book up I wasn’t sure I’d get anything out of it?  Not that I doubted Pete’s abilities in the least.  I’ve learned a lot from Pete in the past and I knew he’d have a word.  I just wasn’t sure if it was one for me.  I haven’t had a catastrophic or even alternate event in my life to make me doubt God.  But let’s be clear.  Plan B is coming.  As Matthew Turner says in his review, “if you’re working on plan A, Plan B is a good prerequisite.”  But I’d take it further than that.  I may not be in Plan B right now, but there are scores of people around me that are.  And I can’t tell you the hope the book has given me that I can offer others in need that are in Plan B.  God has not forgotten us.  There is hope in our Plan B’s.

While reading, I marked several passages and thought I’d share some of my favorite talking points.

  • For those in Plan B, you may feel like life is spiraling out of control.  However, in the chapter Don’t Run Pete explains, “Your dreams may not be happening, and things aren’t turning out the way you expected, but that doesn’t mean your life is spinning out of control.  It just means you’re not in control.”
  • In the chapter Your Jordan, Pete says that in most Plan B situations, it is a lot like standing at side of the Jordan river with the enemy chasing you.  It seems impossible to get through alive.  The fear can be overwhelming.  He asks the reader to identify that Jordan in your life and says that your Jordan always involves fear.  The good news is God has gone before us and we shouldn’t be afraid.
  • From Whiplash, “it’s often a process, not a final destination.”  He gives the example of someone not getting the job they interviewed for and the person assuming they’d missed God’s will by not getting it.  He says God may simply wanted the person to learn something from the interview.   It’s good to remember life is a process and God is in it all.
  • In the chapter Whiplash, Pete reminds us to trust in the person of God and not in our circumstances.

And my favorite passage of all:

“You’ve got to stop looking at your shattered dreams and your unmet expectations as something God is doing to you.  He’s not doing something to you.  But he might be doing something through you.  He might be doing something in you.”

God wouldn’t let us go through these Plan B’s for no purpose.  I always love Beth Moore’s saying, “He’s either doing it for His glory or your benefit.”  He’s not torturing us.  He doesn’t love us less.  But He is allowing it so that we might be transformed.

I can’t recommend this book enough for everyone.  If you aren’t in Plan B, I know there is someone you can hand this to you and say, “Here’s some hope.”  I’d love to hand this copy to someone here with the gift of hope.  Leave a comment on this post and I’ll draw a random winner on Wednesday at 9pm. 

 

Filed Under: book, Book Review

Non-novel: The Proof Edition

August 3, 2009 by Amy 3 Comments

Emma recorded me after receiving a copy of the proof edition of my non-novel.

Filed Under: book

Non-novel First Reaction

July 6, 2009 by Amy 4 Comments

This weekend I got one of the best emails I’ve gotten in a very, very long time.  Outside of those that helped me write, Sarah was the first person that read my non-novel and sent me her reaction.  And ya’ll, it was good.  Yes, there is a list of things that need work but I knew that.  It really didn’t get me down at all because these few sentences made my day:

I loved it, I really, really loved it.

I think it’s really wonderful. I cared not only about Sam, but about Dominic, about Beth, about all the peripheral characters. You made them interesting and real. And I forgot that I was reading something that you wrote – it just flowed and drew me in. I really, really loved it.

*squeee*

Thank you, Sarah!!!

Filed Under: book

The Time Traveler’s Wife

June 22, 2009 by Amy 3 Comments

I know I’m a little late on this one.  I mean, the movie is coming out in August.

When I remember this novel, I’ll remember that it read like a commentary (a great one).  I’ll remember the dual first-person point of view.  I’ll remember the short sentences.  The wit.  The humor.  The beauty.  I’ll remember Clare’s innocent-yet-not-love for Henry.  I’ll remember Henry’s frustration and yet determination to deal with the life he was given.  Their lust for each other. I’ll remember the mystery.  The game of it all.  The science of it all.  The innocence and wonder of Alba.  Just the smartness of the idea and plot.  The way it made you think about love and time.

I’ll remember it was a good book until the end.  I really, really feel like we were jipped out of that last scene.  So many times we only saw glimpses of Henry’s life and yet kept reading to find out we were given them later.  For example, Clare’s 18th birthday.  Such a big part of the story and yet we didn’t get it until almost the end.  And Henry told us about that last scene they would have together and I was so sure we’d get to see and was so disappointed when we didn’t.  It’s like watching The Notebook and never seeing them die together.

I’ll go and see the movie just because I think Rachel McAdams will be a perfect Clare and Eric Bana should do Henry justice but really?  Unless they fix that last scene, I don’t know if I’ll have a good feeling walking away.

Filed Under: book

She Dribbles, She Shoots, She Scores!

May 30, 2009 by Amy 2 Comments

OK, that’s about as close to any sports talk you’ll get on this blog and I’m not even sure I said it right.  And what I mean to say is I hit 50,000 words on my book!  It feels GOOD to see 50,435 on my word count!  Things are starting to wrap up in the book.  Just a few scenes left and I ended on a good note tonight.  So for now, I’m all smiles.

Filed Under: book

State of the Union at 49,541

May 30, 2009 by Amy 2 Comments

Not sure why I’m being so dramatic about this but here ya go…

Melissa wanted me to join Nanowrimo in November 2008.  Nanowrimo requires a participant to write 50,000 words to be considered a winner.   I didn’t participate but at first I tried to keep up with the 2600 minimum word count per day.  Near impossible.  We were right in the middle of TV season (which requires extra blog work for me), the girls’ birthdays were in November and Thanksgiving and Christmas were just around the corner.  50,000 words became a maybe-in-another-lifetime, or at least another-year, goal.
But a plot was forming in my head and characters and suddenly I was excited about getting the story on paper.  Not because it was the best  plot ever or the best characters or full of the best page turning moments but just because I had thought of enough ideas, that strung together, someone could, if given the time, write 50,000 words about.
But writing was still an effort.  I started with one scene that became the opening and then another that I figured would sit 3/4 of the way through the book.  The rest though?  I struggled through.  Filling in all the gaps of the plot was hard.  Figuring out who my characters are and where they came from and why they do what they do was really hard.  I started calling it my non-novel because surely I would never be able finish.

But I plodded on, maybe more out of a Type A, must-finish attitude than anything.  Or maybe it was just something else to fill my quiet nights with.  I don’t know but it’s six months later and it’s another one of those quiet nights.  I think I’ve figured out my characters, the plot has been written and I’m 459 words away from 50,000.

And it scares me to death to write them.

You would think being that close I would just start spouting off at the fingers and type any conversation I could come up with just to put me past the word count. I remember being in school and adding in all kinds of unnecessary words just to get to the word count goal.  But not with this.  I’ve spent all day fiddling with the end of my plot, recalculating the “big scene” and picking through my main character’s flaws.  I’ve written ideas and stared at the sky trying to come up with the best thing to say.  I think because part of me knows when I hit 50,000 words, I’m really close to the end.  And when it ends, I’m scared I’ll never go back to revise it, which it needs so desperately.  And if I don’t carefully write those last words, I’ll know that I didn’t do my best, that the words I wrote aren’t something to be proud of.  And maybe it’s not just the last 459 words before my goal, maybe it’s the whole book.  Maybe I’m scared that when I get to the end I’ll look back and six months of work and countless hours of planning, worrying and strategizing later, realize that it’s just 50,000 words strung together than no one wants to read.

Yes, I’m scared to fail.

And I guess in art, there is no such thing as failure.  But there is something to be said for the millions of manuscripts that go unread every year, written by millions of authors set out with so much hope and ending with thousands of words to themselves and no one with whom to share them.

Or worse yet, words that they don’t want to share.

So yeah, I’m scared to reach my goal, scared to finish. And yet, I’m going to type this last sentence, open my manuscript and write the best story I know how and just hope I’ll be able look back and smile.

Filed Under: book

Twitter’s #QueryDay

April 17, 2009 by Amy 1 Comment

I ran past the #queryday hashtag on Twitter today and somehow became hooked on it most of the day.  Basically what happened is a few agents took questions from the Twitter public about query letters and answered them publicly with the #queryday hashtag.  Honestly, I hadn’t thought about a query letter since school.  And while I don’t see submitting my non-novel in progress, I think it’s possible I might have one good enough one day to submit.  And really, some of the advice was directed towards the book itself, not just the query letter so I loved that.

I know a lot of bloggers are aspiring writers so I thought it might be helpful to share the tweets I favorited today.  A big thanks to all the people who gave such great advice.

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  • davidalexanderm@angelajames One thing TV drummed into me: get into the story as late as possible, and out as early as possible. #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerIf I can change my two-spaces-after-a-sentence habit after 25 years of typing, so can you. One space is standard in publishing. #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerTip: If you want to draw me into your novel, don’t write your query in a dry, boring, uber-business-like and/or academic style. #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerTip: Don’t send us something outside of our guidelines and try to impress us with how “out of the box” you are. It’s been tried! #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerTip: If you mention a previously published book, better make sure I’ll be able to find it on Amazon because I WILL look it up. #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerTip: I prefer your query NOT tell me what a great movie your book would make. If it has movie potential, trust me, I’ll notice. #queryday
  • ColleenLindsayAttached entire manuscript and a head shot. Fail. #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerChristian writers: Best NOT to say you’re going to explain something about the Bible that no one has ever understood before. #queryday
  • RachelleGardner@TerriMo I do everything by email. No need for hardcopies… everything goes on my Kindle. #queryday
  • achelleGardner@TerriMo Never, never, never phone an editor or agent unless they’re YOUR editor or agent. #queryday
  • RachelleGardner@MaricarMac No need to reveal entire plot in query; give the set-up and premise; make me want to read it. #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerTip: A query that talks only about the THEME of your novel is rarely effective. You need to tell about the STORY. #queryday
  • ColleenLindsay@luckychica Humor very very hard to sell unless you have a major platform or are a well-known comic. #queryday
  • DanielLiterary@moonbridgebooks Yes it’s fine, most agents expect it. Don’t really need to mention it. #queryday
  • moonbridgebooksIs it okay to query many agents at once; if so, do we need to tell agents this? #queryday #queryday
  • DanielLiterary@Selestial I don’t like to hear anything about series in a query. Often scares me off. #queryday
  • BostonBookGirlPass: The entire query is about how important it is that this person tell their own story. The query is written by someone else. #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerReality check: If you are your family’s breadwinner, plan to keep your day job even after you sell several books. #queryday
  • DanielLiteraryIf you don’t do enough research to address me by name or at least by my agency name, you’ll almost certainly be rejected. #queryday
  • DanielLiterary@ChristaCarol Only if you get huge traffic. 5,000 unique visitors a day at least. #queryday
  • RachelleGardner@gempari We need word count, not page count, to determine if it’s something we represent. #queryday
  • RachelleGardner@jennnixon Most agents only want to know if you WON a contest. The finals, MAYBE. Other than that, it’s not helpful info IMHO. #queryday
  • RachelleGardner@waterfallbooks I rarely find mixed comparisons helpful (“Jane Austen meets Frank Peretti”). Works in Hollywood but not for me. #queryday
  • skyladawn#queryday Don’t name more than 3-4 characters in your synopsis. I’m not going to keep them all straight. Just give me the MAIN plot.
  • michellewitte#queryday Last advice before I start work: Keep your spirits up. If you’ve written a great book eventually someone will want it. Persistence
  • ElaineSpencer@Daylilie222 depends on genre, & of course there are excptions to evry rule, you could have gr. novel at 50k, but that is not norm #queryday
  • LeighEllwood#queryday Titles can matter in romance. My mostly female readership might be turned off by “Biker Sluts Weekend in Vegas”.
  • RachelleGardner@christinerose You don’t need comparative titles in the query, but in the PROPOSAL, you do. #queryday
  • skyladawn#queryday Don’t send me a manuscript without any dialogue in the first twenty pages. Really. Don’t be afraid of people talking!
  • RachelleGardnerTip: DON’T say “the book gets exciting in chapter 5” or “the pace really picks up toward the end.” Make it shine from page 1. #queryday
  • BJMuntainRt @RachelleGardner loves queries that are straight-to-the point and don’t try too hard. The matter of fact approach is refreshing #queryday
  • ElaineSpencerIf ur novel is over 120k I can’t help but be a little afraid. Plz explain why (or at least acknowledge) ms is so lengthy #queryday
  • RachelleGardner@janastocks Listing comparable books is important, it puts yours in context, shows u know your market, helps agent “get” your bk. #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerWhen people send queries on Christmas, New Year’s, Easter… I WANT to auto-reject on principle! But I don’t. #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerFor me, previously self-published is totally irrelevant. Neither helps nor hurts. See my posts: http://bit.ly/spTIb #queryday
  • JoeBerkowitzAnd never sidestep the comp titles issue by saying “there’s never been any book like this before.” There totally has! Find them! #queryday
  • BJMuntainRT @RachelleGardner Query that makes me laugh is a great thing! Whether or not the book is for me, it definitely gets my attention #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerTip: This may be hard to hear, but I suggest you avoid being in a rush to get published. Take TIME to develop your craft. #queryday
  • RachelleGardner@mbsmith090801 You must include the genre. Publisher, bookstore, consumer all need 2 know! Find books/websites that discuss genre. #queryday
  • BostonBookGirlUnnecessary query info: I assume you have edited your work, have a writers group and have shown this to someone who likes it. #queryday
  • RachelleGardner@AdelleLaudan Depends on whether I feel assaulted. But cursing’s often used as shortcut; u should be able to express self w/o it. #queryday
  • LeighEllwood#queryday What kills the yes in a potential ms? For me, improbable situations, and characters who aren’t endearing.
  • zumayabooks@TheaRauth Beginners can replace lack of creds with info on how they prepared manuscript–critique, editor, whatever. #Queryday
  • DanielLiterary@jjochwat If I were a writer trying to find the right agent, I’d pay for access to Publishers Marketplace.com. #queryday
  • RachelleGardnerTOP reason I say “no” to queries is the story doesn’t sound unique, fresh, exciting. The problem isn’t the query, it’s the book. #queryday
  • Filed Under: book

    Weekend Randomness

    April 10, 2009 by Amy Leave a Comment

    I’ve spent a lot of this week on “Vintage Amy”.  Here’s some randomness from real life this week and upcoming weekend.

    • Looks like I’m going to Indianapolis for work the first week in May.  We’re doing a big system conversion in November and we’re doing a bunch of design stuff all week with the vendor.  I’m just looking forward to the King size bed and free WIFI in my OWN ROOM.  Lexi on the other hand is not so excited.  I told the girls I’d be gone and she said, “No, Mommy, stay home.”  She’s such a mommy’s girl.  I know she’ll do fine though.
    • Scott signed us up for dinner guests tonight.  Some guy my parents know is going to do something to our new TV to make it better.  And that’s all I know.  I’m just cooking the chicken fajitas.
    • The girls have an egg hunt tomorrow at church.  Hopefully the weather will clear up and they can have fun with that.  They are at a great age for that.  I still remember my grandmother having one every year for all my cousins.
    • Sunday we’ll be going to church and then eating the rest of the day between our parents’ houses.
    • I got done with our youth group’s web site!  Just need final approval and will put it out soon!  Yay!
    • That new Southland show was crazy.  I described it on Twitter like COPS on crack.  Very gritty but there’s some sort of reality trainwreck quality to it that makes you keep watching.  Ryan Atwood is good in it.  He will keep me watching if nothing else.
    • I’m really liking the new Dollhouse show.  I got caught up with it this week and really hope ratings improve so it will get another season.
    • We got XM Radio this week.  Loving the online version.  Waiting on some accessories to get the set hooked up in the car.  To use the “built-in” features for Honda, it would cost $475 for the setup.  No thanks.
    • Still working on my non-novel.  I’m sitting at 41,540 words right now.  I think I can hit 50,000.  And for those of you who have read this far, here’s another excerpt.  And for the record, it’s REALLY hard posting these.  Partly because I haven’t gone back to edit it but mostly because I don’t want to give anything away!

    “I’ve just made this worse. I shouldn’t have…” I got up and pulled away as he still was holding my arm. He let me go without saying anything else. I could see when I left he had one hand on his waist and the other was holding his head with his other hand. I was so selfish. I was torturing us both for no reason. I needed him to get over me and having him say that was unfair to both of us. Part of me was relieved. Relieved and happy that his feelings hadn’t changed. That they seemed as strong as ever. But part of me was even more heartbroken that they hadn’t. That mine hadn’t. That we were stuck in this situation. I stopped in at the lady’s room, let the door shut and leaned against the wall and squeezed my eyes shut, making a few more tears fall and catch on my shirt. I put my hands up at my chest and felt my own heart. Still a 180.

    Filed Under: book, what i did today Tagged With: Dollhouse, easter, Southland, xm radio

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    Hey! I'm so glad you're here. I'm Amy, working mom of 3 in the Southern suburbs. I love Jesus, my family, books, chocolate and coffee. I write about faith, parenting, adoption, marriage, fashion, and design. Read more here

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