Posts - Kerry Gans, Author

The Runaway Brain

July 4, 2013 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

I don’t know about most people, but my brain has a tendency to run away with me—and not in a good way. My anxiety disorder is fueled by my brain’s insistence on making mountains out of molehills and borrowing trouble. No matter what the circumstance, my brain screams past the most logical and likely outcomes and jumps up and down screaming, “This is gonna end in DISASTER.”

For example, say I send out some queries. I hope some agent will like my book. So far, so good. Then let’s pretend an agent asks for a partial or full (hey, it will happen someday!). I am overjoyed an agent liked the idea enough to want to read the manuscript. Happy dance!

But then my runaway brain lets loose. What if they actually want to rep me? What if another agent would be better? How will I know? Will I make the right choice? And if they rep me, they might actually SELL the book (hey, it will happen someday)! Then I’ll be in a whole new world, and new worlds are scary, and oh good grief it’s a huge CHANGE!!!

Change is hard for those of us with anxiety disorders. And since change is inevitable, life with an anxiety order can be pretty crappy sometimes.

So there I am with my runaway brain telling me that my entire life is crashing over a cliff—all because an agent requested a manuscript. So even good news can lead to a bad ending—in my misfiring brain, anyway. So what do I do about it?

Sometimes I can derail the runaway brain. If I can feel it happening, I can stop the downward spiral by literally talking myself out of it (sometimes out loud, if needed). I can divert it into a more positive outcome.

If I missed the warning signs and my brain has accelerated all the way to the Big Crunch that is OBVIOUSLY going to occur if I go down this path, I can contemplate the fears one by one and again talk myself down from the ledge.

But most times, I say to my brain, “Very nice. Save it for the next book. The reality of what happens will never be what you think.”

Because usually it isn’t. Life is unpredictable (much to my brain’s chagrin), but it is rarely as bad as I fear. And it rarely takes the path I envisioned in the first place.

The biggest weapon I wield against my anxiety, though, is experience. I know the worst I can imagine is unlikely to come true.

I also know that if the worst happens, I am strong enough to face it.

What about you? Do you get hijacked by fears you know are unrealistic but paralyzing just the same? How do you overcome your fears?

Newbery Picking

June 27, 2013 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I decided as part of my continuing education in YA & children’s literature to read all the Newbery Award winners. The award has been given since 1922, so you can image the breadth of genre and writing styles encompassed by this list.

I’m nowhere near done the list, but I have been enjoying the adventure. I’m reading books I might not otherwise have picked up, and I can say that I have not been disappointed in any of them so far.

While I am enjoying them as a reader, I am also noting craft as a writer. I am always trying to improve my writing, so looking at how the best of the best wrote is a good education.

So far, three things have jumped out at me:

1) In the Chronicle of Prydain series, Lloyd Alexander wowed me with his ability to have each character sound so unique that I didn’t need to read the dialogue tags to know who was speaking. This is something I struggle with—making them sound different and making the difference sound natural. I have not been captivated by a series so completely in a long time, and Alexander’s characterizations were a large part of my enthrallment.

2) In Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse’s description of Dust Bowl Oklahoma blew me away. I could feel the dust smothering me, gritty in my eyes, mixed in my food. When I looked up from the book and out the window, the green grass and trees shocked me—I had almost expected dunes of dust. She wrote the novel in verse, so it is hardly surprising her descriptions are poetic, but I don’t think I have ever felt a novel so physically as this one. I have improved a lot in my description, but Hesse has set the new goalposts very high.

3) Finally, all of the books could tell a story well. Obviously. But to read book after book where the structure is so solid and complete is a great way to “feel” structure. Some books had many action scenes and a breath-taking pace. Others not much “happened,” and the pace was leisurely (but never plodding). But with every book I feel confident and sure as a reader, safe in a skilled author’s hands, trusting them to lead me to a satisfying ending. And they all have. I believe my story-telling ability is strong, and although in my early drafts the beginning and end don’t always connect cleanly in the middle, I get there by the time I’m through.

This is homework I enjoy doing, and I look forward to learning much more from the remainder of the list.

What books have you read that stand out for you as stellar examples of some part of our craft? (I’ll add them to my reading list!)

The First Step in My Writing Career: My “Ah-Ha!” Moment

June 20, 2013 By Kerry Gans 1 Comment

Like most writers, I never needed any encouragement to write. As long as I can remember, I wrote—from elementary school on up. But, also like most writers, there came a moment when I started to believe that I could write well. That maybe writing was a talent I had. Something special.

I think for many of us, this moment arrived when someone outside of our family told us we could write well. As important as familial validation is for a writer, they’re your family and therefore biased in your favor (hopefully). Even as a child I recognized this.

My “ah-ha!” moment came in eighth grade. I went to the local Catholic grade school, and one of my teachers was a nun, Sister Christopher. She herself was a creative and innovative teacher, skilled at bringing out the best in everyone in our class (a tall order, believe me!). So I suppose it was not unusual for her to recognize creativity in others.

We had to write a short story for class. Mine had the obnoxious title of “Drums Rolling In Triumph.” The story was about, of all things, a young woman who wanted to be a session drummer in the music industry—and succeeded. Why I wanted to write about this, I have no clue. But I did. And Sister Christopher told me it was very good and that I should continue writing.

I am sure that if I could re-read that work, I would find that it was pretty bad. Poorly written—enough to make me cringe. I know I did not wow her with my flawless prose or my poetic description. So what made her tell me to keep going?

My guess is passion. As badly written as I’m sure that story was, Sister Christopher sensed the passion I had for the craft. She may have also seen a natural storytelling ability—I’m sure the story arc was complete and solid, even if the writing was not.

I’m certain Sister Christopher would be surprised to hear that her simple words of encouragement meant so much to me. They gave me confidence in my writing, a sense that here was something I could do well. I think everyone needs something to call their own, something they feel they can do well. Something that they can make uniquely theirs, and that no one can take from them.

I have never forgotten how words so simple had such a profound impact on my life. Those words helped set me on the path that has led here. When speaking to a child (or even an adult), I try to remember that anything I say may change the way they see themselves or the world. That words, even casual words, have power.

Respect the power of your words. You may be changing the world without even knowing it.

How about you? Have you had a “moment” that set you on your career path? Or a seemingly trivial moment that changed your life?

My Biggest Takeaway: 2013 Philadelphia Writers’ Conference

June 13, 2013 By Kerry Gans 8 Comments

This year was my third year going to the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference. I have always enjoyed it, and always been psyched up by the energy of the writing community there. This year, though, there was a vibrancy above the energy levels of the past years.

Perhaps this reflects a change in me, but I don’t think so—others noticed it, too. I can’t say why it felt different—perhaps it was the near-capacity crowd, perhaps the mix of teachers. All I know is that I was even more jazzed than usual.

A common theme seemed to emerge in the workshops I took this year: the theme of how to present yourself to the world as an author. Cecily Kellogg talked about bloggers and their voices. Suzanne Kuhn spoke about presenting yourself professionally and consistently online. Jonathan Maberry and Keith Strunk’s Act Like A Writer was all about the “writer-persona” you need to build to present to the world. Even in Solomon Jones’ Novel: Character workshop, we worked on our writer bio. Why? Because that bio is the first character we create as writers.

How to be a professional writer. How to be engaging online without giving too much information. How to be accessible without becoming vulnerable. How to be a public figure without losing our most private selves.

A common theme—but not my biggest takeaway.

My biggest takeaway goes back to the vibrant energy of this conference. Ever since my daughter was born, I have been in something of a creative funk. I have been writing consistently, blogging, have turned out a handful of short stories, but all my novel-length work has been on projects begun and first-drafted prior to my daughter’s birth. That never-ending rush of ideas that most writers have dried up after she was born, and I have been feeling totally uncreative for more than three years now.

But at the conference something stirred. Something sparked. A fleeting glimpse into a new character, a new plot. A siren song—still far off, but audible. My creativity raised its head and blinked sleepy eyes at the world.

I am by no means back to where I was creatively. But my creativity is not dead, as I had feared. It’s still there.

And it’s waking up.

What was your biggest takeaway from the conference?

Mommy Self vs. Me Self: The War Within

June 6, 2013 By Kerry Gans 5 Comments

I became a mom at age 38—just about 6 weeks before turning 39. Most of the time, I think that having my child later in life has been a blessing. I have had time to travel, to try out different careers, have some fun, and find out who I am as a person.

I have always felt that being secure in who I am and content with what I do has made me a better mom. Since I feel fulfilled as a person, I am happier; therefore I can be a better mom to my child. I think it worked out best for me.

I find my individual identity under siege from the Mommy identity. Sometimes I feel like I am clinging to an unraveling rope to prevent myself from being submerged completely. I strive desperately to carve out time in the day to pursue things important to me, career goals I have for myself, and get my head above the surging Mommy waters rising around me.

I have thought lately that this striving to keep my own identity apart from Mommy might be a large part of the stress and friction I am currently experiencing in motherhood.

Would it have been easier if I had become a Mommy earlier in life, when I was still forming my identity? Would I have been able to intertwine the two parts of myself so they grew simultaneously? Would the two parts of me have grown together to form a more integrated whole, without the struggle to maintain myself I face today?

My husband pointed out that I work from home, while our daughter is home. That is undoubtedly part of the friction issue. As he said, if I went to an office each day and she went to daycare, there wouldn’t be the constant bumping heads of her needs and mine—at work I would be able to just…work (although I know there’s a whole different kind of stress in being a mother who works away from home).

Another factor is undoubtedly my age. If I were in my 20s or early 30s, I would not feel so much pressure from myself to pursue my writing career with the vigor I am today. I would not mind the idea of taking a few years off until my daughter is in school full time, because I would have felt like I had time to catch up, as it were. While 40-something is certainly not old, there is a ticking-clock pressure from within me because I know I do not have “all the time in the world.” So I feel an urgency connected to keeping my career moving forward that I might not have felt if I were 10 years younger.

How about you, other parents out there—do you have a constant battle within to define yourself apart from your offspring?

Am I An Author Now?

May 30, 2013 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

So the big news this week is that my first short story, TO LIGHT AND GUARD, was published in the on-line magazine Bewildering Stories. I am very excited to have made my first official step into publishing!

We writers often quibble about words, and one of the ones we dither about the most is the word “author.” Writers define it in different ways. There is one camp that says you are an author as soon as you start to write. There is another that thinks you are a writer until you are published, then you can call yourself an author. Then there’s still another camp that says you aren’t a real author until you’ve been paid for what you got published.

I don’t think any of those definitions are inherently right or wrong—like most things on the writing journey, this is a highly personal feeling. When do you “feel” like an author? Sort of like every writer has a different definition of what it means to be a “successful” writer. Success and authorship are subjective.

My personal definition of author has always been upon publication. And by publication I mean a magazine or other outlet where you have to pass an editorial review. If there’s no chance of rejection, then it’s not the same thing, in my mind. So by that definition, I can now call myself an author without feeling weird about it—I have had a piece published in an editorially-reviewed magazine, thereby proving that I have reached a certain level of sophistication in my craft.

But. (There’s always a “but,” isn’t there?)

While I am comfortable with the author label now, I do not yet consider myself a professional author, since Bewildering Stories is not a paying market. I have not yet been paid for my work, which in my mind is the definition of being a professional in any field—when people will pay you for your goods or services. So that’s my next hurdle—but one I am eager to tackle. I have a couple of short stories that need a final polish before I send them out. Hopefully one of them will be the key to the next level.

I am very happy to have joined the ranks of published authors, and hope this is the first step of a long career!

How about you? Where do you stand on the “writer vs. author” continuum? And where are you in your personal journey?

What Message Are You Sending in Your Writing?

May 23, 2013 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I have a three-year-old daughter, and that has made me very aware of the messages we send our girls in literature, movies, magazines, etc. Our culture sends messages that are at best annoying and at worst destructive, not just to girls but to boys as well.

So I read Karen Jensen’s blog post about messages we are sending our kids in YA with great interest. She noticed a trend in YA where 2 things happen: 1) a girl tells a boy firmly and repeatedly that she does NOT want a relationship (not sex, just a relationship) yet he does not take no for an answer and she ends up capitulating, and 2) in the final climax, it is the boy that saves the girl—the girl does not save herself.

I decided to look at my own YA work-in-progress (WIP) to see if I fell into those traps.

First, did any of my male protagonists ignore my female heroine’s “No” to a relationship (thus reinforcing the “no doesn’t mean no” culture)? To my relief, this was not the case. There is a boy who pursues a friendship with my heroine, even though Polly is hard to get to know, but she clearly WANTS to be friends with him and she communicates that.

Whew. One down.

Second, does my male companion end up saving the female heroine? That one’s a little harder. In the end, Polly does end up physically saving HIM, so at first it seems like another win for me, but… There is a moment, a key moment, in the climax where Polly needs to have an insight in order to save the situation. And the key insight is made by…the male companion. But is this a problem?

Every heroine has their sidekicks. Buffy had her Scooby Gang, and Harry had Hermione and Ron. All the sidekicks chimed in with important information—often key information—at times. In the end, though, in that climactic moment, it was always Buffy or Harry who stepped up and put it all together to save the day.

So is mine a case of a sidekick bringing valuable info that the heroine then acts on? It could be interpreted that way. And none of my beta readers have flagged that moment as not working.

But.

I am going to change it anyway.

Why? Because I think it is important to Polly’s character that SHE be the one to have the insight. She needs to have the moment of understanding and then wrestle with the new knowledge herself. This revelation she has fundamentally changes her perception of herself and her relationship with the world. It will be much more powerful for HER to realize this than to have someone else tell her.

So I thank Karen for her article, because even though I got it about ¾ right in my WIP, this will enable me to get it right all the way. I try very hard to think outside the cultural messages we’re all immersed in all day, every day, but it seems even I fall back onto those messages unconsciously. That is why it is so important that as a writer of YA and middle grade I take a step back and objectively look at the subconscious messages my books are sending. Not that I want to moralize or lecture—far from it. I just want to show my readers what kids can be.

I want to show them that their greatest strength lies in being true to who they are.

What about you? Do you ever think consciously about what messages your writing sends? At what stage in the process do you think about it?

Gavin’s Trust Project: Building hope out of tragedy

May 16, 2013 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

Followers of my blog will no doubt remember last month’s sudden death of my friend’s 5-year-old son. Young Gavin had touched many people very deeply. He died on his mother’s birthday, and she asked that we do an act of kindness in his name—to which the Internet responded in breathtaking fashion. My friend Kate and her family also chose three charities to donate to in lieu of flowers, and again the response was enormous.

But the generosity of Kate Leong and her family did not end there.

You see, because Gavin was a special needs child, Kate learned a lot about advocacy. She saw the struggle to get things covered by medical insurance. She saw how much is NOT covered by medical insurance. She saw therapists who had to share equipment, which meant not every kid got the therapy equipment they needed every time. She saw schools making due with duct-taped communication devices because of underfunding for their programs. She saw so many people whose children did not have the advantages Gavin had simply because special needs ran head-on into financial need.

Once she saw, Kate could not unsee.

So this week, Kate unveiled Gavin’s Trust Project. She is raising money to donate to the Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) for their Pre-School Multiple Disabilities programs—a group that did so much to help her son thrive and blossom, and yet are sorely underfunded. Kate knows that many families go without much-needed equipment at home because finances simply don’t allow it. CCIU can help with that—if they have the funds. Kate wants to help these other families and these wonderful therapists so that all the children they serve have the chance to reach their full potential.

Gavin’s Trust Project has already made its first tangible difference. With the astonishing amount of money left over from donations made to print Gavin’s memorial service programs, Gavin’s Trust Project has bought Gavin’s school classroom and school several pieces of equipment long on their wish list. More details of the project can be found here.

While Gavin may be gone, Gavin’s Trust Project builds a legacy in his name that will affect hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of children over time.

Please spread the word about this amazing project. That Gavin’s life was cut short is a tragedy; that his legacy will bring hope to so many is a miracle.

Why I do things the “right” way

May 9, 2013 By Kerry Gans 1 Comment

When I first started doing genealogy, I had no idea how to properly cite my sources. So I did it any old way. Now, I do know how to do it right, and I am engaged in a time-consuming process of going back over my source citations and correcting them. Since I’ve been doing genealogy for about 20 years, that’s a lot of source citations!

So why am I bothering? What I have is adequate, in that a person looking at it will know where my information came from. For example, I had a lot of entries from the Philadelphia City Directories. I noted the year of each directory, but not the page number. Good enough, right? I mean, someone else could easily look up the page number if they wanted to. Yes, they could. But it’s not the proper way to cite something. So I spent several hours re-finding the pages and entering them into the database.

Why, when what I had was good enough? In this case, it is because I want people who find my tree online or who read my book to take my work seriously. I want them to have the confidence that my sources are correct, that I am not guessing or engaging in wishful thinking (often an issue with amateur genealogists).

The same goes for my fiction writing (and everything I do, really). I can get to “good enough” in most aspects of the craft very easily. But “good enough” is not good enough for me. This is different from perfectionism, which is never satisfied and will never let go of a project that isn’t “perfect.” I know perfection is impossible, but I want to give my best effort on all levels at all times. I want to put everything I have into a project—cross all my t’s, dot all my i’s. Even when I don’t HAVE to.

Why? Because I am serious about my craft, and I want it to show. So I take the time to do the extra round of editing, to do the search and find on the “to be” verbs and “ly” words. I take the time to storyboard the book several times during the process, to make sure it all fits together and that I am not forgetting something. I take the time (and money) to have a professional editor give me feedback to make it stronger.

We all have experienced times in our lives when other people gave half-hearted effort and yet still got ahead—they got a better grade than you, they got a promotion, etc. We all know that doing things “right” is not a guarantee of success, or even a guarantee of acknowledgement. Sometimes I think my life would be much easier if I could be the type of person who settles for “good enough.”

So why do I bother trying to do things “right”?

Because at the end of the day, the product I put out reflects on me. Whether it be a book, a short story, a batch of cookies, a video, it is a product I created. I want to be able to take pride in the work, no matter if it gets me accolades or book deals. I want to know in my heart that this particular piece of work was done as well as I could do it at that time. That it reflects the best of me at that moment.

I suppose this strong work ethic was instilled in me by my parents (for which I thank them). But I have internalized it because of the satisfaction it brings me. Knowing that what I put out there is the best I can do is a rewarding experience for me. Another way to think about it: Most of us don’t leave much behind when we leave this earth—I want whatever I leave behind to be the best of me.

What drives you to put so much effort into your work?

A Mile in My Daughter’s Ears

May 2, 2013 By Kerry Gans 4 Comments

Some of you are aware that my preschool daughter wears a hearing aid in one ear. We are lucky that she has one good ear, so she did not have trouble with speech acquisition and the like. In fact, she often seems to be able to hear me very well even without the hearing aid, so I have sometimes wondered just how much she really needs it.

I got a taste of her life this week.

On Saturday night I took myself to the emergency room. My ear and the area around my ear were in so much pain I was shaking. I couldn’t rest my head on anything. I just wanted the pain to stop. I could think of nothing else.

And then my eardrum burst.

Sitting in the ER waiting room, I heard a “shhooom” noise in my ear and then clear fluid started trickling out. The pain trickled out with it, and slowly it dropped to a manageable level. They gave me antibiotics for the infection and sent me home.

I am now deaf in that ear.

Hopefully, it will only be for a few weeks as the perforated drum heals, but it has given me an unexpected insight into my daughter’s world. Granted, she can hear something in her bad ear, but it’s still a pretty good approximation. I’ve learned a lot.

If I lay on the side of my good ear in bed, I cannot hear anything. This is not good, because I need to hear the baby monitor (my husband cannot hear it). So I am sleeping on the side I don’t usually sleep on, so I can keep my good ear up.

If I am on the phone, I cannot hear anything in the house. This can be a good thing, because I do not get distracted by my daughter’s constant chatter, but it usually results in her trying to climb up my leg to get my attention, so on the whole it’s a wash.

If the sound I want to focus on is on my bad side, and there is any noise at all on my good side, forget it. All I can hear is the sound on the good side. This is why positioning my daughter in school so her good ear is always toward the teacher is so important.

Localization is an issue. I know this from my daughter—she never knows where a sound is coming from. Losing your other ear is akin to losing one eye. If you cover one eye for long enough, you will lose your depth perception and have trouble judging distance. The same with losing one ear—you can’t judge accurately the distance and position of the sound. Because I am older and have more experience hearing normally, I can usually tell where the noise is coming from, but not because I can hear it—just because I know.

The weirdest phenomenon for me has been the phantom music. My bad ear can hear nothing. If you’ve ever been in a completely silent room and you just hear that low hum of nothing, that is what I hear. But the ear must also be picking up other sounds I am not consciously hearing, because I hear strange noises—a voice that isn’t there, music that isn’t playing. Last night I could have sworn I heard circus music in my house. My brain is obviously trying to make sense of random auditory input it’s getting from that bad ear. Does my daughter hear things that aren’t there? She’s too young to tell me.

Lastly, I was not aware of how much energy it takes to simply pay attention when you can’t hear well. People with 2 good ears learn so much information from passive listening—from the information overheard rather than sought out. When you can’t hear well, you need to always be seeking so you don’t get left behind. It can be exhausting.

I don’t advise puncturing an eardrum to experience what deafness is like, but having it thrust upon me has given me a new appreciation for my hearing, and a new understanding of what my daughter deals with every day. Hopefully, it will help me make the right choices to help her achieve her full potential.

How about you? Have you ever had an unexpected insight into another person’s struggle with a mental or physical challenge?

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