Interviewing Amy Wallace

Amy Wallace is a wife, homeschool mom of three, writer, Bible study teacher, and chocoholic. But getting to the heart of who she is can be summed up in a few short words: Amy is a daughter of the King learning to live and love with laughter. Her greatest passion in life is to know God and show others how He heals hearts and how to they can glorify God by enjoying Him forever. Amy is the author of Ransomed Dreams, book 1 in the Defenders of Hope series, a contributing author of God Answers Mom’s Prayers, God Allows U-Turns for Teens, Chicken Soup for the Soul Healthy Living Series: Diabetes, and A Cup of Comfort for Expectant Moms.

Here are some places on the web where you can regularly find Amy:

• http://peek-a-booicu.blogspot.com
• www.defendersofhope.com
• www.amywallace.com
• http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/159052747X
• link to Ransomed Dreams chapter excerpt

Amy, welcome to Home-steeped Hope, and thank you for agreeing to do a special homeschooling interview for me. I loved Ransomed Dreams and have so enjoyed getting to know you, and discovering all we have in common.

Thanks for having me over, Mary, and for your very kind words! God is good to have brought us together and I’ve enjoyed our growing friendship as well. Friends to share the journey make it a thousand times sweeter. Online friends with their encouraging blogs and emails are some of my favorite people to hang out with. Especially since online friends can keep in touch after the homeschooling day is done or even in between grading tests, wiping noses, and reading one more book.

I know from our email exchanges that homeschooling is near and dear to your heart. Would you mind sharing a little about your homeschooling journey? What influenced you and your husband to home educate? How long have you been at it, what ages are your children, and what keeps you focused?

God put the desire to homeschool in my heart long before He blessed me with children. In college, I watched my younger brother graduate from the same high school as I had but with far less of an education. I remember talking over the idea of homeschooling with God even then. After my husband and I met and married and our first daughter joined us two years later, God had to do some work on my husband’s heart before he agreed to the homeschool path. His experiences with homeschoolers were far from what he wanted for his children. But as we watched our oldest grow and start reading by age 2, we both knew teaching her at home was the best academic option for her. Then we saw in action that it was the best option for all of our hearts too. I never realized what a sinner I was until I started homeschooling and saw daily my need for forgiveness and my total dependence on His grace to sustain us all. That’s part of why I say homeschooling is the best option for our family; it’s brought us closer to God. In addition, it’s knit our family tightly together. We laugh, read, explore, and dream together. Without homeschooling we simply wouldn’t have the time to do much of that at all.

We’ve “officially” (meaning used a curriculum) homeschooled since my oldest was two, so that puts us doing this for eight years now. In addition to my oldest, who’ll be ten in August, we have two more girls. My middle daughter, age seven, will be in second grade this coming year and we’re starting pre-school with our baby who will be four in October.

What keeps me focused is the conviction that God called our family to this educational and lifestyle choice. That’s what keeps me pulling out the books and praying when the days are tough. What keep me going on the good days are the smiles of my kiddos, the great discussions we enter into almost daily, and the joy they exude in reading and using their imaginations as we make all sorts of cool art, science and history projects.

I’m always looking for great recommendations on homeschooling resources and curriculums. Which ones have really blessed your family, and why?

We all love Veritas and Sonlight books. My girls read and re-read our “schoolbooks” for fun because they love the historical biographies and great children’s literature we use in our curriculum. We use Veritas history as our base curriculum because I love the intertwining of religious and secular history, especially when we started with Creation and ancient civilizations and saw what public school text books left out of the timeline of history. Learning about history from a Biblical worldview along with some interesting secular sources have really brought the past alive and helped us understand more of the world we live in today. We also use Veritas and Sonlight because they are so reader oriented. We’re a family of readers and have learned so much from the amazing books we’ve had the privilege to enjoy over the years. My girls have also really enjoyed Apologia science and Math-U-See. We’ve had a ball with Meet The Masters art programs and different History Pocket guides as well as various Lift the Lid products. For Language Arts I really like Shurley Grammar. My oldest loves the time we spend together going over the lessons and has become an excellent writer. I’ve learned a lot too. J

Being a homeschooling mom myself, and also a writer, I wonder how you manage your time. Homemaking is a full-time job, and so is homeschooling. My writing time often gets lost in the shuffle, so I’d love some practical tips as to how you balance all your priorities while maintaining your passion for them.

I couldn’t homeschool and write without my family’s support and sacrifice. What’s worked for us is my hubby and girls do the cleaning on Saturdays while mommy disappears in her office to write for 12-15 hours. The rest of the week is school and family time and then I do some office work at nap/ quiet times and at night.

We keep a pretty regular schedule as to what we do on which day too. For example, I get laundry tackled on Monday in between answering questions and guiding schoolwork. On Tuesdays I do ironing while my oldest and middle daughters take turns doing their reading assignments. On Wednesday we do the big history project for the week in addition to other everyday subjects, and on Thursdays we have tests and fun science experiments. On Fridays we do art and language~ this year we’re working on Latin~ and we have fun family night after Daddy gets home so we cap off our week with some laughter and relaxation. I schedule all my homeschool lessons for the year during one very packed month in the summer. I’ve found that a huge help in making the week to week activities run more smoothly. I build in some wiggle room too for unexpected things like illnesses, impromptu family events, and writing related responsibilities.

I’m afraid that all sounds so “easy” to do in print. It’s not. Planning the lessons for the year is a month long wrestling match and/ or prayer session with God. Handling the day to day stuff is also only done well when I’m depending on the Lord and doing that which He’s called and promised to equip me to do today. I’ve learned over the years that my priorities~ my family and obedience to God’s call to write~ require my saying no to a lot of good things. I’ve had to cut back on my teaching responsibilities at church. And there are many times I miss just hanging out with friends or going to the park or a fun Saturday event. I make time to do that some, but not near as much as I’d like to. But most days I go to bed satisfied (albeit tired), knowing I’ve done what God had for me to do today.

Tell us about your writing journey. What triggered those first days at the computer, spent spilling out Gracie and Steven’s story? What was your first confirmation that this book would one day be on Christian bookstore shelves?

What ushered Ransomed Dreams into existence was a combination of the amazing duo of God and my hubby nudging me in the direction of novel writing. It started with a series of novels I stumbled upon from a homeschool list of great books. I read the grown-up novels and then asked my husband to read them too. We’d talk them over and I’d tell him what I’d change. After about seven he said I should write my own.

Then came the dream about a mom in trouble and an FBI agent with a wounded heart. After that God and David got things rolling quickly with a “coincidental” meeting with a Secret Service agent, my joining ACFW (an AWESOME group for fiction writers), and an injury that sidelined me from active mom duty and gave me six weeks in a cast—plenty of time to hammer out the first draft of what became Ransomed Dreams. David had nothing to do with the injury, (I caught my toddler from the impending doom of landing face first on our concrete walkway. I took her place in the ER with torn tendons.) but he did work from home and do mom duty plus his workload. Right from the beginning, writing was a family project.

As far as confirmation, I really never thought about not pursuing publication. God had so clearly led me down this path, I simply followed out of obedience and many times pure awe that God pointed me in this direction. Outside confirmation came from my first ACFW conference and the interest in my writing from authors and editors. Those gift-from-God meetings, friendships, and critique partners fed the dream and gave me the courage to keep pursuing publication.

How long had you been writing before you got an agent? Was this a hard process?

I started writing in early 2002, and after my first ACFW conference in October of that year, I started putting out a select few proposals to editors and agents. One of the first agents I submitted to took about six months to get back to me, but when he did he offered a contract and was very excited about my first novel. The time period between when I started writing to when I signed with an agent was roughly about two years. I wouldn’t say it was a hard process, but the waiting was excruciating. What helped was the commitment to keep writing and not just sit around and wait to see what happened with my first book.

I would strongly advise writers to take this process slowly, prayerfully, and with good recommendations. A bad agent is far worse than no agent. That writer relationship is one of the most important ones you’ll make in the publishing business, so be sure it’s the very best one for you and your career.

Describe to this ‘wanna-be author’ what you were doing when you found out Multnomah wanted to publish Ransomed Dreams.

I was working on another series of novels in a totally different genre, one I’d had a ball writing. So when the email came that said Multnomah was interesting in talking about Ransomed Dreams, I seriously considered turning it down. But after much prayer and soul-searching, and with plenty of trepidation I continued to dialogue with the people at Multnomah and they offered me a contract about three months after we started discussing the possibilities with Ransomed Dreams.

When the contract offer came I literally got sick. Somehow I knew God had called me into a difficult thing and I had an inkling the path ahead wasn’t going to be a walk through the park. It has been anything but. And while there are plenty of days I wish for a path filled with roses and ease, God has shown up in big ways every step. I had a lot to learn about myself and God and I suppose the tough journey I’ve been on was the only way I was going to “get it.” I’m really praying the next leg of the trip is a little smoother.

How has being a published author with deadlines affected your other responsibilities? For instance, could you take us through a typical day in your life? I know it’s still summer, but humor me and let’s pretend its fall with the school year in full swing.

The biggest way a contract and deadlines have affected me is the increase temptation to worry and let guilt eat away at my insides. When I’m writing, I feel guilty that my kids aren’t getting to see enough of “fun mommy.” When I’m teaching, I sometimes struggle to keep focused there and not on my story or other work-related responsibilities. And when I’m just having fun with my kids, I wonder if that’s enough. But this is one area God keeps showing me over and over how faithful He is and how little my worry accomplishes. I can say I’m handling this year’s deadlines far better than I did last year’s. But I still have so much to learn and I see often how small my faith really is. I’m thankful every day how very big our heavenly Daddy is for every facet of my life.

A typical writing day is Saturday, where I get up with my kids and sometimes eat with them, sometimes not, depending on my goals for the day. I usually get started with work around 10 AM and do a little email, send prayer updates to my prayer team, and then jump in and immerse myself in the story. I jump out for a quick bite and walk with my family in the evening and then my day doesn’t end until 12 or 1 AM. During the week, we homeschool from breakfast till naptime, (quiet time and independent work time for the older two) and then I do some writing related business stuff, (emails, interviews, book research, marketing, writer’s group business, etc.) Sunday school lessons, and exercise. After bedtime it’s more of the same with some meetings and, as much as I can plan it, some time with friends or pleasure reading. My hubby and I plan a date night every Friday and then we hang out as a family on Sunday.

What can you tell us about future books in the Defenders of Hope series?

The second book in the series, Healing Promises, focuses on Clint and Sara’s story (but continues Gracie and Steven’s too) and is due out in April of 2008. This book explores how an FBI agent and his oncologist wife handle the diagnosis of cancer and a serial killer who eludes capture. Everything is reduced to one all-important question: Can God be trusted?

Book 3, set for an April 2009 release, is Michael and Hanna’s story and intertwines the issues of healing from sexual abuse with the FBI action plot centering on a racially motivated killer. The main question explored in this book is: What is justice?

Do you have any parting words of advice?

Dream big! God is not thwarted by our to-do lists and insecurities any more than He’s handicapped by our brokenness and fear. He’s amazing at taking our shattered and/ or super busy lives and working awesome redemption, healing, and hope. All He needs is our willingness to obey and for us to step off what seems like an impossibly high cliff of the unknown and trust He’s there to keep us safely in the palm of His hand.

He loves you and has a very good plan for each and every one of His children. We teach that to our kiddos. Sometimes I think we moms need that reminder too.

And finally, do you have a favorite scripture that’s been on your heart lately?

A scripture God keeps bringing me back to time and again is 2 Samuel 24:24: “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God that which costs me nothing.” True worship is costly and writing and mommying are acts of worship that will cost much. Motherhood, like the writing life, is a life of sacrifice and stretching, tears and tough choices. But our offering of obedience and praise as we walk with Him, is one in which the Lord delights and receives with Fatherly pride and smiles of love. It helps me to remember we go from strength to strength—God’s, not ours. He will provide everything we need every step of the way.

Thank you, Amy, for making my very first author interview such a treat. I know your heart-chocolate here will bless many hearts as it has blessed my own.