Kerry Gans, Author at Kerry Gans, Author

When A Lose Is A Win

November 21, 2013 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

I am a Michael Nesmith fan, both of his Monkees work and his copious solo career after the Monkees. In one of his solo songs, Tomorrow & Me, he has a line “I feel the time has come to accept apparent loss as a battle won.” Now, when I was in high school and first heard that line, I will admit my first thought was:

What sort of hippie claptrap is that?

I mean, if you lose, you obviously haven’t won, have you? Pretty black and white. A lot was black and white when I was 15. 🙂

But as I’ve aged, I see what Mike means. You can fail to achieve your goal, yet still walk away with information or connections or meaning that make it an overall win for you. Many scientists and technology people will tell you that they learn more from failures than experiments that go smoothly. And sometimes the very thing that keeps you from finding the specific success you wanted turns out to be a happy accident that will serve you better than what you thought you wanted in the first place.

For example, penicillin was one of those “failures.” The experiment went wrong, if you view it from the standpoint of what Alexander Fleming was trying to achieve, but instead they came up with a drug that has saved millions of lives.

The same holds true in writing craft and business. I am currently struggling with character. Every time I fail, I throw a quiet temper tantrum when no one is looking, but then I look at what went wrong. And then I walk away with more information on what doesn’t work, and am therefore one step closer to figuring out what does.

In business, you may make it all the way to the stage with an agent where they read your full…and then they don’t want to rep it. That’s disappointing, of course, because you’ve gotten excited to get so far, but it’s not really a “lose.” Most of the times when you get that far, an agent will give some indication of where the manuscript failed for him or her, and that feedback is valuable. Also, sometimes even if you don’t end up working together, you had a rapport and may have found a new friend or at least networking contact. And that can’t ever be a bad thing.

So I find that “losing” is often more a state of mind than a quantifiable measure. What you take away from the “battle” is what makes it a win or loss. Often, just the striving for the goal makes it a win, even if you fall short—because if you pay attention you always learn something that will make your next try better and stronger.

And sometimes, it’s like The Rolling Stones say: “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try, sometimes you just might find you get what you need.”

What about you? Have you ever “lost”—only to find that you actually “won”?

Thankful for Friendship

November 14, 2013 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

In freshman year of high school, a new friend of mine invited me to sit with her friends during lunch. At the table was a tall girl, who had dumped her little box of raisins onto the table, and was taking each raisin one by one, pretended they were running across the table, then dropping them off the edge saying “AHHHH!” until they hit the floor.

This was how I met Donna Longcoy.

For almost 30 years, we have been friends. We made it through high school together, and college. We went on vacations together that featured pushing an antique car up a hill and knocking on random doors in a strange town in search of a funnel to siphon gas from said car to the out-of-gas truck towing it. We’ve been friends through fun times, hard times, guy trouble, job difficulties (we worked together for a while), weddings and funerals. Even though Donna and her husband live most of the way across the country, I am the official godmother to their 3 greyhounds, should anything happen to them.

Through most of this long journey, Donna and I shared the Monkees. With our other friend Donna Hanson, we followed “the guys” anywhere they appeared from New York to Virginia. Every tour brought new adventures, new memories, and new friends. The Monkees have been in our lives since 1986.

I dabble with drawing, and I had drawn a picture of the 4 Monkees. Over the years, one by one, I gathered the signatures of Davy Jones, Peter Tork, and Micky Dolenz on that picture. At last, the only signature I needed was Mike Nesmith.

This was a problem.

Michael Nesmith never toured with the Monkees after the group broke up in the late 1960s. He did a few select dates, but was for the most part missing. And he didn’t care much for solo tours, either, so he was hard to find. Until the past 2 years, Mike hadn’t toured since 1992. And even on these solo tours this year and last, he would not sign autographs for waiting fans—only to those lucky enough to get backstage passes.

Last year, neither Donna nor I got a pass. This year, a miracle occurred, and Donna, in the 11th hour, scored a backstage pass to Mike’s solo show in Arizona! Now, Mike had very strict rules about what he would sign. He’d sign almost unlimited items from his solo career, but only ONE Monkees item. ONE.

And Donna called me and said, “Send me your picture. I’ll get him to sign it.”

How incredible is that? She gave up her one Monkees item for me. She didn’t have to. I wouldn’t have asked her to. But she knew how long I had been trying for this, and she offered.

That is one great friend. But then, I don’t need proof of how awesome a friend Donna is—there’s a reason we’ve been friends for 29 years, after all!

So in this season of Thanksgiving, I am more thankful for my friend Donna than I can say. It is my fervent hope that our friendship will continue until our deaths—and on into Heaven, where we can rock out to the Monkees with our other friends whenever we want.

How about you? Any special friends you are thankful for and want to give a shout out to?

Genealogy Book Update

November 7, 2013 By Kerry Gans 3 Comments

Some of you will remember that I have been chipping away at a genealogy book for my dad’s side of the family. I hope to have it finished and ready for my family around Christmas, but it may slide a little if other things that are in the works happen—you know, life getting in the way of your plans!

I did reach a milestone today, though. I finished going through all the endnotes and putting them in proper format. I had been cutting and pasting the source material from my genealogy program (Legacy), but it doesn’t put it in proper endnote format. What was there might have been all right, except that when I do something, I want to do it right. If I want this book to be taken seriously by other genealogists, I need to have the sourcing done properly.

So I laboriously went through every endnote (some chapters have 80-90!) and put them in the right format. And that helped me, too, because I found some source material that needed to be more clearly marked—or that I couldn’t remember where I got it. And I added to each endnote where the original material is housed: in my possession, in other archives, in church or cemetery offices, etc. That way people can duplicate my research easily if they want to find the primary documentation.

How close am I to finishing? I need to tweak the illustrations—some are facing the wrong way. I have to put final touches on the chapter title pages. I have to line edit the entire thing, including picture captions and family trees. I have to fix weird glitches in the Index where things are italicized or bolded for no apparent reason. I am hoping to get a few more photos from people before I “go to press.” Oh, and I have to design the cover. So, not too far—but not too close, either. If I have a few concentrated weeks, I should have it done by early December.

Then comes the fun part—figuring out how to properly format it for Print On Demand (POD). I will likely use CreateSpace. It should be an interesting challenge to get everything formatted the way I want! But I geek out over that sort of stuff, so I’m sure I will enjoy it, even with its inevitable frustrations.

So that’s where I am with my genealogy book—hit a milestone, but still a ways to go. And when I finish this one, I have my mom’s side of the family to do. I learned a great deal from this book, so hopefully the other one will go faster as I will do things correctly the first time. So maybe by next Christmas!

How about you? Any pet projects you are working on?

Lessons from Motherhood: Writing While Sick

October 31, 2013 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

Lesson from Motherhood #1: You get no days off.

Yes, you get the occasional night out, or even a childless vacation. But in those cases you are away, not off. Even when on vacation there’s the daily check-in, perhaps a phone call to say good night before bed, and the inevitable question or two that the babysitter has about what the child is allowed to do or not do, etc. And, of course, if there is an emergency, anything you had planned goes out the window and you race home. So, a parent is never off duty.

Which brings us to Lesson from Motherhood #1A: You don’t get sick days.

Now, this is a little more flexible than Lesson #1. When I had surgery that kept me off my feet for several days, my wonderful mother-in-law came and stayed with us so someone could look after Preschooler while Hubby was at work. And I remember one day a couple of years ago, I had a stomach bug with fever and was facing a full day home alone with a rambunctious 2-year-old. As I watched my husband get ready for work, I burst into tears because I didn’t know how I was going to cope. Hubby was a trooper and stayed home.

But except in extreme cases like that, if you’re sick, you still have to show up. Your child still needs to be fed and clothed and entertained. When they are babies it is both better and worse—better because they are not mobile and they sleep a lot, worse because they need you to do EVERYTHING for them. Now I have a Preschooler, and I often say the only thing worse than her being sick while I am well is me being sick when she is well. So much energy! So many questions! So few naps! Still, she is old enough now to understand that I am sick and be helpful in some ways—and not need me to do so much for her. But I still need to take her to and from school and feed her, at the very least.

So you learn to soldier on. To just get up and power through even if you feel crappy. Illnesses where, pre-child, I would have simply curled up in bed for a day or two and pampered myself, now I’m up and about and getting things done.

Which brings me to writing (you were wondering when I’d get here, weren’t you?). Sometimes you get sick, and you have deadlines. You have to power through. You have to get the words out. You have to make the deadlines. There are extreme cases, of course, but most of the time, you need to carry on. And being a mommy has shown me that I really can push through all but the worst illnesses and still get done what needs doing.

Of course, even as you are pushing through, it is good to marshal your reserves as much as you can. So yesterday, even though I had so much to do, when my daughter took a rare nap, so did I. We both slept for a much-needed two hours.

And I still hit all three of my deadlines.

What do you do when you’re ill and need to write? Any tricks for relief to share?

Editing: We’re Never Finished; We’re Just Done

October 24, 2013 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

I once had a non-writer friend of mine ask, “Aren’t you EVER done editing?”

The answer, as every writer knows, is: “No.” Every published author I’ve spoken to has told me that even when they pick up their published books, they see things they want to change. One said when he does readings, he’ll change the words to what he wished he wrote instead.

We’re never finished—but sometimes we just have to be done.

When you’re on deadline to deliver a finished product, there comes a time when you have to be done, whether you like it or not. But what about before you’ve got that book deal? You could theoretically edit forever.

But you don’t want to edit forever. Eventually, you have to get your work out there—self-published or sent to agents or publishers. If you don’t ever send it out, you’ll never reach an audience. If you don’t stop fiddling with book #1, you will never write a book #2. So at some point you need to declare your book “done.”

For me, that’s usually the 7th or 8th version of the manuscript. There are many more revisions than that, but I usually do “small” revisions with a version, and only change the version number when I’m doing “large” revisions. My revision schedule goes something like this:

Version 1: First draft

Version 2: Clean-up of first draft to make it readable

Then I often do a storyboard to see what scenes I need to add, delete, move around.

Version 3: Draft with all of the above incorporated

Version 4: Do a clean-up, tighten, find typos, etc.

Run it through my critique partners and beta readers

Version 5: Make changes per their suggestions

Version 6: Another clean-up edit, try to make sure hit word count, read aloud

Send to professional developmental editor

Version 7: Make developmental edits. (Often includes banging head against wall and/or crying, “I can’t do this!”)

Version 8: Read through version 7 silently for continuity. Do clean-up edit. Then read aloud for final polish.

So that’s roughly my process. By the time I hit version 8, I am emotionally and mentally done with the book. I know I have done all I can do without further professional input. So I send it out into the world, to agents and publishers, and hope I’ve done my job well enough to attract their attention.

So, no, my non-writing friend, I am never finished editing. I am just done.

How do you know when you’re done editing?

Common Themes in My Writing

October 17, 2013 By Kerry Gans 1 Comment

I read a blog article this week about how finding the common themes in your writing can be a good place to find blog topics that will resonate with your readers. Which got me looking at my writing to find common themes (I’m suggestible like that).

I write middle grade and YA. The age range makes topics aimed specifically for an age group tricky, because things appropriate for one are not for the other, and things interesting to one may not be for the other. But in looking at all my works-in-progress, I have found common themes that will relate to all my readers.

The main theme is that we all have power within us. I’m not talking magic powers (although I wish!), but we all are strong. The trick is finding our strength. In my books, all my protagonists eventually learn that they are strongest when they are true to who they really are and stop trying to be something they are not.

The older I have gotten in my life, the truer I have found this wisdom. It is a waste of time trying to “fit in” by pretending to be what I am not. It is living a lie, which makes life uncomfortable and stressful. Being who I am, while respecting other people’s right to be who they are, has made my life a lot happier. So I will be seeking stories of real-life kids who are doing good, making a difference, or just have some kind of special talent. I will also be looking at topics related to self-esteem, diversity, and bullying.

Another source of topic ideas is in the research. Most of my books have a taste of mythology or paranormal or are outright science fiction or fantasy. One has Egyptian mythology; another has Greek mythology. One has the power of physics, another the power of technology. All of these research avenues open topic possibilities as well.

I have some more thinking to do, and more topics to brainstorm. But I have been wondering what sort of things I can write about to attract my audience as well as my writing friends, so this article really gave me something to think about. Once I have this more firmly in my head, I can incorporate it into a real social media plan, and actively seek out content for my readers.

How do you decide what will appeal to your readers? Or do you not think about it at all?

Slogging Through

October 10, 2013 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

Last week I discussed the “black moment” of writing, and Greg Frost commented that author Maureen F. McHugh said that the dark moment was followed by “slogging.” Well, my black moment has passed, and I am thoroughly in the midst of the slog.

My first 7 chapters needed the most revision. Luckily, my husband and preschooler went away for the weekend, so I was forced to move past my dark moment and jump into editing with both feet. No time to wallow in self-pity when you have childless writing time available!

Thus the slog began.

I have been slogging ever since, plowing though a chapter at a time, making sure everything fits with the revised first 7 chapters, as well as deleting repetition (a big one for me) and unneeded inner monologue (another biggie for me). I also need to deepen some setting and make my protagonist’s reactions a little more relateable in spots. So, a long way to go (238 pages as of this writing).

The good news is, having taken the plunge with those first chapters and wrestling them into shape in a 10-hour writing marathon, the slog is getting easier. It’s less like plodding through waist-deep mud and more like wading along the edge of the ocean. My feet are getting wet, sometimes up to my knees, and the water pushes and pulls at me, but it’s more pleasant than torturous. Finishing those first 7 chapters has made the revision of the rest of the book much clearer. I can see the focus of each scene better now, see why it works or doesn’t, and how to make it forward the plot strongly.

So I made it through the black moment and am making progress on the slog. And at the end of it all, I will have a stronger, more marketable product. But most of all, I will have completed the work to the best of my ability–and that is a victory in itself.

Where are you in your project? Slogging or soaring?

The “Black Moment” of the Writing Process

October 3, 2013 By Kerry Gans 7 Comments

My friend Jerry Waxler likened the writing of a book to the Hero’s Journey. As most of you know, one of the stages of the Hero’s Journey is the black moment or dark moment–that moment in the story where all seems lost and hope is gone. I think Jerry is on to something with his analogy, because I have experienced a black moment in the writing process just recently.

Over the weekend, I got my YA novel back from my developmental editor, the wonderful Kathryn Craft. I knew I was in for a lot of work, but I didn’t mind because I am one of those writers who actually enjoys revision. I did not have a chance to look at Kathryn’s report over the weekend, so I waited until Monday.

Monday was a bad day to look at the report. My daughter had gotten me up before 6 AM, meaning I was running on about 4.5 hours sleep. That’s never good for morale. And I was in a bad mood for other reasons that had nothing to do with writing. So when I read Kathryn’s report, my eyes filled with tears and I said, “This rewrite is never going to happen. I can’t do this.”

The whole rest of the day I struggled with defeat. Why was I even trying? Why bother? No one really cares if I ever write another word or not. I’m not writing anything deep and meaningful. I’m not going to change anyone’s world.

I have been here before, crushed by the knowledge that my very best effort still is not anywhere near as good as it needs to be–anywhere near where I want it to be. On good days, this is what I love about writing–the knowledge that there is always more to learn, the excitement of scaling the next mountain, reaching the next plateau. On bad days, all I see is a debris pile that used to be my manuscript, and the toil involved in clearing the rubble seems beyond my strength.

I am slowly coming out of the overwhelmed funk. Time helps. Being stubborn (ahem, persistent) helps. Chocolate helps. Being addicted to writing helps. But what really helps is that Kathryn is not only a fabulous editor but an enthusiastic cheerleader, who when I emailed her in a panic told me that I could do it and it would all come clear.

Writing can be lonely, and facing a huge rewrite can be demoralizing. Like our protagonists in their blackest moment, it is our friends who help us find the strength to push through the darkness and continue the journey.

It’s not Thanksgiving yet, but I am thankful for my fellow writers-in-arms. Without them, I would not be where I am, and I certainly would not still be moving forward.

How about you? Do you hit “black moments” in your process? How do you work through them?

Writing Process Relativity

September 26, 2013 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

Last week I wrote about how time is relative. Specifically, I noted that I can accomplish about 4 times as much work in a child-free hour as a child-full hour. I’ve since noticed that the writing process itself is subject to the time-warping effects of relativity. Some parts fly past, some drag–even if they take exactly the same amount of real time.

I don’t do much in the way of outlining and prewriting (although I am trying to do a little more with my latest WIP), so that doesn’t take me too long. I think if I tried detailed outlining I would find the process tedious and draining, which I why I steer clear. While I admire the authors who can write a scene-by-scene outline, I just cannot get the passion for basically writing the book before I write the book. If I tried, that would be a part of the process that would seem to move at a snail’s pace for me.

Some writers say the first draft drags for them. For me, the first draft is fits and starts. Some days the words flow so fast I lose track of time, I am so immersed in the story. Other days the words don’t come and every time I look at the clock it seems the hands haven’t moved. But even though this is one of the physically longer time frames in the process, it does not move slowly for me. I tend to make steady progress, so I feel good about it.

The revision is where time relativity really can come into play. I find large-scale revisions such as moving scenes, deleting scenes, writing new scenes or new parts of scenes to move quickly. I have more of a big-picture brain, so I enjoy this part of the process a great deal. Probably why it seems to go quickly for me.

It’s the small-scale edits that drag for me. The typos and the grammar and the punctuation and the sentence-level structure. Grammar-type issues such as punctuation have never been my strong suit, and, although I am learning, it is still a struggle. The reading the book out loud edit always takes a long time, but it is completely necessary for me. One time I found that my global search-and-replace had failed to change my protagonist’s name in 4 different places. I never would have caught that without reading out loud. My mind, when reading silently, had inserted the correct name all the previous times I had read it–and I was on the 7th major revision at that point!

I don’t know about you, but when I get to the revision stage, I make a list of all the things I need to do. For a while, this list grows instead of shrinks, since often changing one thing will lead to more changes further downstream. Then the list seems to stall, as if I cannot check off anything no matter how hard I work. But then a miracle of relativity happens, and one day I look at my list and there’s only one or two things on it! I experienced that with the non-fiction genealogy project I am working on for my family. Just this weekend I looked at what had been a very long list, and realized I was on the second-to-last thing! What a thrilling moment to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

How about you? Which parts of the writing process fly for you, and which are like pulling teeth?

Time is Relative

September 19, 2013 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

Don’t panic! I’m not going to attempt to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity and how it applies to time. But I think we all know that time, or at least our perception of time, can vary a great deal. To a child, a week seems like a year, while to an adult a year passes in the blink of an eye. An hour at work can feel like a day, while an hour spent doing something you love seems like a minute. So we all understand intuitively what we mean when we say that time is relative, even if we can’t explain the physics of time.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I now have about 10 hours a week child-free. The first week I sort of loafed through those 10 hours, enjoying them and doing what I wanted. But even by the end of the first week, a pattern had started to form.

I write in the library when my daughter is at school. The problem is that the library doesn’t open until about an hour after I drop her off most days (Monday is the exception–they open early that day). So I’ve gotten into the habit, now that it’s cooler and I won’t sweat or stink, of walking several thousand steps around the grounds while waiting for them to open. I use this time to think about the things I am going to do once I sit down to work. For instance, much of this blog post was written in my head as I walked.

Then I sit in my car or at the tables in front of the library (depending on weather) and fire up my laptop. My laptop battery won’t last the full hour, so it’s just as well I walk for some of the time. Exercise is important, too! Then I work on whatever I need to until the library opens, when I move the writing party inside and can plug in.

My problem has been in planning what to do each day. I always do have a plan of action, but it always turns out to be woefully inadequate to the amount of time available–I often run out of planned things to do long before the two hours is up. Because, see, time is relative–a child-free hour is massively more productive than a child-full hour. But after a summer of writing catch-as-catch-can, it is hard to remember just how much work can be done when you’re not constantly being interrupted!

Almost 4 times as much work.

That’s a lot.

I need to get better at planning what I’m going to work on, because there is no doubt that when I have a focus or a path firmly in mind when I sit down, I write faster and better and more than if I sit and stare and wonder what to do next. This goes for fiction as well as non-fiction. If I know what chapters I plan to work on, I can really think them through the night before, the morning of, and while I’m walking, so I can sit down and really write, instead of thinking. Thus getting the most out of my concentrated writing time.

So, to be at my most productive, I have to realign my brain to Non-Parental Standard Time when I plan my child-free writing hours. And then switch back to Parental Sanity Savings Time once I pick up Preschooler.

I sure hope I can avoid the jet lag.

What makes time fly (or drag) for you?

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