Introducing the Novelist, Amy Michelle Wiley

I have approximately six abandoned novel files in my laptop right now—that’s just from the last five years. None of them go past three or four chapters, and few were abandoned after a mere page and a half. During my childhood I'd started another three or four books, never to complete them, and the number of storylines rattling around in my head is closer to a whopping fifteen.
All my life I've been a writer and aspired to be a novelist. I've started a novel with grand hopes, only to let them fizzle and die as I left it in the dust to pursue yet another novel. So never has that goal been attained.

Until now.

NaNoWriMo, and its support group hundreds of thousands of people strong (plus my own smaller wonderful support group of family and friends), was the kick I needed to get a novel out. I passed the NaNo goal of 50,000 in thirty days on Saturday, four days early, and today on the thirtieth I finished the epilogue and now have a completed rough draft of Reaching Sky. It's a fairly short book at a current 55,783 words, but it is WRITTEN!

I think NaNo worked well for me, despite the rushed time limit and the "no major editing" rule. The story is rough with a lot of holes (like the cat I introduced in one scene, never to mention again... and the fact that I don't mention the main character's name, the weather, or the location in the whole first whole section... etc.) but it's definitely a very viable draft that has some strong parts.

You can read a short story based on the characters here, Eureka in Yreka, to get an idea of the book. My aim is to get this one published through a traditional publisher, so here are my goals for the next year:

1. Go over the book again right now to add in all the scenes and details I remembered later but didn't have time to go back and put in during the competition.
2. Let it sit at least a month without so much as a glance or a thought.
3. Edit it with hopefully somewhat fresh eyes.
4. Give it to two trusted writer friends to give me lots of constructive feedback.
5. Write another draft based on that feedback.
6. Give the new draft to another three or four people—a mix of writers and just readers.
7. Rewrite it again.
8. Send it to a professional editor for a polish.
9. Send it to an agent!
10. Probably more rewrites for agents and publishers.
11. Have a publisher accept it! Woo!

Thank you all for your support and encouragement and for believing in me! Keep 'em coming! I can't wait to see what God does this this book, now that He finally got me to actually write it. ;-)
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An Open Book (a meme)

Joanne tagged me with this fun meme:



1. Do you remember how you developed a love for reading?
This is my all-time favorite picture of myself--pretending to read to my baby-doll before I was old enough to really read. I know my mom and older sisters were huge readers, so I’m sure that played into my love for reading. It goes back several generations--both my mom and my grandma used to get in trouble for reading after they were suppose to be asleep, and my sisters and I followed right in their tracks!


2. What are some books you read as a child?
I’m told my favorite book as a young child was Marvin K. Mooney will you please go NOW! by Dr. Suess. To this day I still have parts of it memorized, ha. Oddly, I didn’t like most of the other Suess books.

As I got a little older I loved mystery and historical fiction books, especially if they were combined. I read a lot of the TrailBlazer books by Dave and Neta Jackson (each book told the story of a famous missionary told from the view-point of a fictional child) and enjoyed the Sugar Creek Gang and Robert Elmer’s historical adventures. And yes, I read the Hardy Boys and some of the older Nancy Drew books. Another favorite series is the PepperMint Gang--they are now out of print but are fiction stories based on the life of a missionary kid in South America. They were especially fun because my dad remembers some of the events and characters in the books from his own childhood in South America.


3. What is your favorite genre?
I read pretty much any genre if it’s well-written and clean. I guess historical fiction and adventure are still my favorites, though.


4. Do you have a favorite novel?
Nope, sorry. I can’t even pick one favorite author--too many good ones.


5. Where do you usually read?
Where ever I get the chance. Lately most of my pleasure reading has been in bed right before I sleep.


6. When do you usually read?
Right now primarily in the summer because I'm in college.


7. Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time?
Often, yes. Sometimes I’ll have one book downstairs and one or two upstairs.


8. Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction?
Honestly I don’t read a lot of non-fiction. Most of what I read is for school so yes, I try to take notes as I read. I also have always had the habit of sharing interesting tidbits with my family as I read non-fiction. This can be rather annoying at times, I’m sure (especially during the home schooling years when everyone else was trying to do their own school!), but I love sharing cool facts and it probably helps me remember them, too.


9. Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library?
All of the above. I have a little bookcase in my room that goes half-way up the wall and it’s overflowing… Most of the books I own were either gifts or ones I found at discount or second-hand stores. My mom has six floor-to-ceiling bookcases that are full--many of them double-stacked.


10. Do you keep most of the books you buy? If not, what do you do with them?
Pretty much the only reason I would get rid of a book is if it wasn’t a good book. Then I either toss it or sell it, depending on how and why it was bad. I do have some old schoolbooks (from college) I’m planning to sell, though honestly I have a hard time parting even with those!


11. If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them? Were they some of the same ones you read as a child?
No children, but my nieces come over to borrow from “Grandma’s Library” often and are reading some of my favorites. :-)


12. What are you reading now?
I have been reading a lot this summer--making up for all the reading I didn’t do during the school year, I guess. I think I read eight or nine novels the last two weeks, (but a few of them were E.B. White children’s books). I think my favorite was a book called In Search of Eden by Linda Nichols. It was about a lady who had given up a child for adoption when she was a teen. Another good one was Abraham’s Well by Sharon Ewell Foster. It was a historical fiction about Black Cherokees during the Trail of Tears.


13. Do you keep a TBR (to be read) list?
Not really.


14. What’s next?
I found a couple of books I haven’t read when I was cleaning this week--a novel by Elizabeth Elliot and a non-fiction about a horse ranch for troubled kids. I’d also like to find a non-fiction book someone recommended to me, Pain: the gift no one wants.


15. What books would you like to reread?
I eventually reread pretty much all the books we own. Sometimes the mysteries aren’t as fun to reread because it’s missing something when you already know the secrets, but other times it’s fun to see the clues you missed the first time.


16. Who are your favorite authors?
Stephanie Grace Whitson, Jamie Langston Turner, Dee Henderson, some of Ted Dekker, A.A. Milnes (I love the way he uses capitalization for emphasis), Lewis Carroll, to name a few off the top of my head.


If anyone else would like to do this meme, let me know to look for it by posting here! :-)