Writing Archives - Page 15 of 36

Collingswood Book Festival 2016

October 6, 2016 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

The Collingswood Book Festival is a massive annual outdoor book fair held in Collingswood, NJ. Music, food, author panels, and a children’s area round out a street full of book sellers and authors. If you love books, it’s the place to be the first Saturday in October!

Weather is always a concern when you hold an outdoor event, but never fear! In case of rain, the Festival management has a plan—they move everyone inside the nearby high school/middle school. This year, a full week of rain showed no signs of letting up, so the managers moved us indoors.

This was my first year as a vendor. I’d been to the Festival a couple of times as a browser, and it was dizzying to see the vast array of books laid out across several blocks. As a vendor, the sight of tables packed into the gym—all with books piled high—created excitement.

The weather didn’t dampen the energy at the Festival. Maybe being indoors magnified it as it ricocheted around the gym, but the buzz began long before the first customer walked through the door. The camaraderie of fellow authors made the long day go by quickly, and the streams of book lovers that braved the weather to visit us brought smiles.

All in all, my first Collingswood Book Festival was a great experience. I met some other authors, networked with a few people holding other book festivals in the spring, sold some books, and chatted with people who get as enthused about books as I do. I’ll be back next year—but hopefully outdoors!

This Saturday, October 8th, I’ll be at the Vineland Library for their Indie Author Day celebration from 12-3 pm. If you’re in the area, stop by!

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Marketing Madness

September 29, 2016 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

This past Saturday kicked off my busy marketing season. My event schedule starts with three book events in a row.

First was Eastampton Day, the yearly celebration of Eastampton Township. In spite of a cloudy start to the day, it didn’t rain, and the sun broke through the clouds around 1 pm. The pleasant day brought plenty of people to enjoy the bounce houses, carnival games, and dunk tank.

I had a good time chatting with my table neighbors and the people browsing the tables. I met one woman who runs a book club, who invited me to speak there, and several other customers excited about the book. All in all, a successful day!

My next two events are a little farther afield. Saturday is the Collingswood Book Festival in Collingswood, NJ. I have been there as a browser several times, but this is my first as a vendor. It’s usually a wonderful day if you’re a book lover. I’m hoping it doesn’t rain!

October 8th will see me in Vineland, NJ, at the library’s Indie Author Day showcase. I have never been there before, but it promises to be a day of local authors showing their wares and talking books.

Although authors are often nervous about marketing events, I’m looking forward to both events and chatting with book lovers of all ages. If you’re in the area, stop by and say hello!

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Courage In Patience Giveaway

September 19, 2016 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

The most powerful fiction speaks truth.

Courage in Patience is the fictional story of a teen girl’s recovery from childhood sexual abuse. Beth Fehlbaum wrote it as after her therapist suggested that she try writing a novel. It was only when Beth pulled herself out of her own head and tried to imagine the process of recovery through someone else’s eyes that she came “unstuck.”

Gritty, heart-pounding, and hopeful: Courage in Patience, Book 1 in The Patience Trilogy, is FREE THIS WEEK on Amazon!

Courage in Patience:

Courage to endure.

Courage to survive.

Courage to overcome.

Tenacious 14-year-old Ashley Asher claws her way back to normalcy after enduring six years of an unimaginable Hell. Uprooted from her negligent and selfish mother, Ashley finds solace in the safety of her father’s home. Building a relationship with her stepmother, she’s finally able to open up and confront the past that haunts her.

With the help of her stepmom, therapist, and a group of troubled adolescents, Ashley battles her demons, struggling to find the normal teenage life she’s always wanted. Can Ashley find the strength and courage to overcome the horrors of her past while fighting for the future she so deserves?

Beth discusses the creation of COURAGE IN PATIENCE and the process of recovery from Childhood Sexual Abuse:

Question: You went through six years of intensive therapy to help you recover from being abused as a child. A lot of people, young adults and adults alike, find starting therapy a very frightening and uncomfortable experience. What advice would you give someone who is thinking about starting therapy for the first time?

Answer: The six years of therapy I went through were with a clinical psychologist whom I clicked with at the same time that circumstances in my life came together in a way that I had a strong support system in my husband and then-teenage daughters.

I had been in and out of therapy many times since my early twenties, but I never had the support system in place to withstand what I had to do in order to get well: face the truth about my stepfather sexually abusing me and my mother not protecting me. This involved breaking with my family of origin completely—basically, when I insisted on no more playing “Let’s Pretend,” it was made clear to me in a variety of ways that I had done something so wrong (in their eyes) that they wanted nothing to do with me anymore. It was very, very difficult because my mother was an amazing grandmother to my kids, and they lost her in the process.

Recovery from childhood sexual abuse is very, very difficult. My therapist compared it to a barefoot walk from Texas to Alaska and back, with all the weather along the way. I would agree with that assessment; in fact, I used that comparison in my Patience books, Courage in Patience and Hope in Patience. I strongly believe that people who have been sexually abused and are seeking to heal from it and reclaim their lives need the guidance of an experienced mental health professional. If the first therapist (or second, or third) does not seem to be helping, keep going until you find one you click with. Don’t give up, because you are worth the fight to reclaim your life.

Outside of the therapist’s office, you need a strong support system of people who are aware of what you are going through, who will be safe for you to be vulnerable, and will give you emotional shelter when you need it.

And—be prepared to be completely honest with yourself and others in your life. It’s the only way to heal and find out how strong you are.

Click here to get your free ebook of COURAGE IN PATIENCE from Amazon.

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Authors Showcase, Ocean City, NJ

September 1, 2016 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

This past Sunday, I participated in the inaugural Ocean City Free Public Library Authors Showcase. It was a beautiful day, perfect beach weather. I dropped my husband and daughter at the 17th Street beach and headed over to the Library to set up.

The Library is housed in the Ocean City Community Center. The Showcase set up in the Atrium, a sunny, open area right in the middle of everything.

We had good foot traffic coming from the library’s book sale. The library itself is beautiful, with amazing murals in the kids’ section. If I was a kid, I would never leave.

The showcase had a festive atmosphere. Hey, it’s a day down the shore, what’s not to like? The other authors all seemed to enjoy getting to know each other. I sat next to Kimball Baker, author of For Those In Peril: A History of the Ocean City Life-Saving Station and we discovered a mutual love of genealogy. We passed the time chatting about family lines and brick walls, and the joy of finally finding a piece of information that confirms a new generation.

The other authors at the showcase were: Carol Brill, Tim Kelly, Jane Mayer Lueder, Laura J. Kaighn, Jennifer Shirk, Dave Rhodes, the Fabulous Gabriel, David Webb, Victoria Devine, Mary Ann Bolen, Catherine E. DePino, John Sweeden, Jonathon King, Kimball Baker, and Kiernan Shea.

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at the Authors Showcase. I thank Julie Brown for setting it all up, and the Ocean City Free Public Library for hosting us. I hope they do it again next year. If so, I will be there!

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A Powerful Message to Our Children

August 25, 2016 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

When you are a parent of a young child, you often have the pleasure of watching the same movie over and over and over. The one good thing about this is that you get the chance to dissect the movie into itty-bitty parts in a way that you never thought possible. (I could write a doctoral thesis on some of the movies my daughter has binge watched.) Sometimes, even if it’s a movie you’ve seen before, you suddenly see a message or theme you never did before.

That’s what happened lately with me and Disney’s The Rescuers. That movie was one of my favorites as a child, so I thought I knew it pretty well. But after seeing it for the 100 billionth time, I suddenly realized it had a theme I had never noticed before. (SPOILERS BELOW)

Small people can make a big difference.

Now, perhaps that should have been obvious—I mean, it does star mice who rescue people. I just never saw it before. In the beginning, Rufus the cat asks, “Two little mice? What can you do?” And when the mice first talk to Penny, she asks, “Didn’t you bring somebody big with you? Like the police?” And the mice themselves, in their darkest moment, wonder if they are capable of helping at all.

But, of course, they are perfectly able to save the day—with a little help from other small animal friends.

This theme of being small but capable may be why I loved the movie so much as a child. My author theme is that every child has the potential to change the world—an extension of this very theme. It seems this theme has been in my heart for a lot longer than I realized.

I’ve talked before about another good message kids can take from The Rescuers, but I think this one is something all kids need to hear:

You are small, but not helpless.

In a nutshell, giving kids the idea that they can change the world for the better sends them perhaps the strongest message of all:

You matter.

And isn’t that a message we all need to hear from time to time?

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Children: Not Just a Mini-Me

August 18, 2016 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I know many parents joke about their child being a “mini-me”—so much like them that it’s scary. And sometimes it’s actually true. But just this week I was struck with the opposite realization: my daughter is very much NOT a mini-me.

We were playing with my Breyer horse collection when it occurred to me (not for the first time), that this child of mine is almost nothing like me. She plays with my horses in a way I never did. I played that they were horses—they lived in a corral when not running in their pasture (my carpet was green), I had a doll who could ride them, and saddles and bridles for them. My daughter puts them into family groups and has them getting married and having children.

In fact, she has everything she owns get married. Horses, stuffed animals, dolls… She re-enacts marriage scenes from Disney movies. I can’t remember ever playing getting married when young.

I only ever had 2 dolls that I can remember, while Kinder-girl loves her dolls. They are often her babies (making me a young grandma!), until she gets tired of that, then they become her sisters and I suddenly have many more births to my name than I remember.

She is in love with all things pink—a color I have spent a lifetime rebelling against.

Playing dress-up and changing her outfit multiple times in a day is the norm. I couldn’t be bothered with tiaras and necklaces and rings, and if I had my choice I’d be in jeans and T-shirt all the time—both then and now.

Our most obvious difference (aside from our polar opposite physical appearance) is that she is an extrovert, and I am an introvert. She loves going out, and everyone she meets is her friend. If I never had to leave the house, I would be happy.

I do see some glimpses of me in her. She is artistic—although I lean toward realism and she likes her art colorful and full of fluid shapes. She’s a creative, and enjoys writing—something she gets from me, and not from my husband, who is a great reader but dislikes writing. She has a tendency to over-think, to be a disorganized mess, and to get lost in a book she’s reading or a project she’s doing. She can be stubborn, argumentative, fiercely loyal, and scary smart. She is a complex mix of fear and courage, confidence and timidity, and joy and sorrow.

In other words, she is fully human, and fully herself.

She is not just a mini-me.

While this makes parenting her a challenge—I am not sure if it is harder to parent the parts of her most like me or most unlike me—as a writer I can take a lesson from this. When I create children, I mustn’t make them carbon copies of their parents (unless the story demands it). Certainly, some of the child’s characteristics will reflect their parents, but those characteristics will refract through the lens of that child’s uniqueness.

So I go back to writing while raising not a “mini-me”, but a fully-realized “her”.

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BOOK TRAILER REVEAL + GIVEAWAY FOR JOSHUA AND THE ARROW REALM!

August 15, 2016 By Kerry Gans 3 Comments

Donna Galanti is a good friend and a fantastic author. I am beyond thrilled to unveil the trailer for book two in Donna’s fantasy adventure Lightning Road series, JOSHUA AND THE ARROW REALM, arriving August 30th. The Midwest Book Review calls book one, JOSHUA AND THE LIGHTNING ROAD, “a heart-pounding thrill ride full of unexpected twists and turns from start to finish.” Grab book one for just $.99cents now through September 20th.

Be sure to enter the fun giveaway package at the bottom of this post that includes a paperback of book one, poster of the Lost Realm, bookmarks, and a $25 B&N gift card (U.S. only). Sign up for Donna’s Thunderclap book release campaign and help her zap the world through social media with her lightning message!

ABOUT JOSHUA AND THE ARROW REALM:

On August 30th take the lightning road back to a world of beasts, bandits, and heroes in book two of the Lightning Road series. Join Joshua in a new fight for power in the Arrow Realm. Can Joshua and his friends conquer an unstoppable evil?

Joshua never thought he’d return to the world of Nostos but is soon called to the Arrow Realm to free his imprisoned friend, King Apollo, kidnapped as a power pawn in Queen Artemis’s quest to conquer every realm. With his loyalties divided between our world and theirs, Joshua wonders whether he alone can restore magic to the twelve powerless Olympian heirs and save all those enslaved. But when he finds himself abandoned in his quest, he fears he cannot only save those imprisoned—but himself as well.

“Fast-paced and endlessly inventive, Joshua and the Arrow Realm is a high-stakes romp through a wild world where descendants of the Greek gods walk beside you, beasts abound, and not everything—or everyone—is as it seems.” ~ Michael Northrop, New York Times bestselling author of the TombQuest series

JOSHUA AND THE ARROW REALM BOOK TRAILER:

EXCERPT:

A faint rumble groaned through the whistling wind.

Boom!

Thunder ripped the sky overhead.

Charlie reached the frozen pond, spinning across it. “Woohoo! I win! You Americans can’t beat us at speed!”

Lightning flashed. It zinged across the pine trees like brilliant sunlight. A seed of terror flickered inside me.

Boom! Boom!

Another flash scorched the sky.

Charlie’s smile fell to a frown as he raced across the ice, peering up into the swirling clouds.

We both knew what lightning could do.

Suddenly, sneaking outside for a moonlit sled ride before Bo Chez got home from his monthly poker game didn’t seem so smart.

The sleet turned to snow. Icicles flew off trees like glass splinters, shattering on the hard snow. As I shot toward the pond, a tree on the edge moved. Its branches swayed in the swirling snow.

It wasn’t a tree, but a girl! She stumbled through the mad flurry, arms outstretched.

“Charlie, look!”

Gusts snatched the words away as my sled hit the ice and careened out of control on the bumpy surface. The girl staggered and fell onto the pond. I twisted my sled away to avoid hitting her and smashed right into Charlie. With a yelp, he pulled me up, and we clumped toward the girl. We lifted her up, half dragging her back up the hill to the house in the pelting snow and sleet.

“Who is she?” Charlie yelled.

“No idea,” I yelled back.

He said more, but his words were lost in the wind.

My lungs burned with the cold and effort. There was only one reason someone would appear with lightning—to steal us. This girl might appear like a waif unprepared for a storm but I couldn’t trust that’s all she was.

PRE-ORDER JOSHUA AND THE ARROW REALM:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Joshua-Arrow-Realm-Lightning-Road/dp/0996890491?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/joshua-and-the-arrow-realm-donna-galanti/1123486660?ean=9780996890496

MEET DONNA GALANTI:

Donna Galanti is the author of The Element Trilogy (Imajin Books) and The Lightning Road series (Month9Books). She attended an English school housed in a magical castle, where her wild imagination was held back only by her itchy uniform (bowler hat and tie included!). There she fell in love with the worlds of C.S. Lewis and Roald Dahl, and wrote her first fantasy about Dodo birds, wizards, and a flying ship. She’s lived in other exotic locations, including Hawaii where she served as a U.S. Navy photographer. She lives with her family and two crazy cats in an old farmhouse, and dreams of returning one day to a castle. Donna is a contributing editor for International Thriller Writers the Big Thrill magazine and blogs with other middle grade authors at Project Middle Grade Mayhem. You can find her at www.donnagalanti.com.

BOOK REVIEWERS:

E-book ARCs are available for this next thrilling book in The Lightning Road series! Email donna(at)donnagalanti.com for copies and specify the format you’d like.

GIVEAWAY:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Beta Readers: A Vital Part of the Process

August 11, 2016 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

I met with most of my beta readers this week for my middle grade manuscript The Curse of the Pharaoh’s Stone. My daughter’s wonderful school librarian put together an amazing local team of readers—4 kids, 2 teachers, a librarian, and a mom of middle grade kids. I also have 2 other incredible teachers and authors reading it. I am so excited to get their feedback!

Yes, I said excited. I know many writers get butterflies when they send their manuscript babies out to beta readers. Some writers are downright terrified. And I agree, when you let your work out into the world, even in beta, it can be scary. You’re opening yourself up to criticism, to the possibility that people won’t love your story as much as you do. Sometimes writers even see criticism at this stage as a failure on their part.

But I am strange—I love honest feedback. I think it comes from how my writing process evolved in a collaborative model with my best friend Donna Hanson Woolman. Then when I got my Master of Arts in English, my advisor was a blunt yet positive critiquer. Of course, if the criticism is personal or nasty in nature, I don’t like that any more than the next writer, but in this post I am talking about thoughtful and honest feedback.

I enjoy the red pen on my manuscript because of my mindset. I am confident that Pharaoh’s Stone is a good book. Its plot is solid, its characters rounded, and the prose is clean. I have read enough middle grade—both published and from an agent’s slush pile—to know my book is good. I am excited to get my beta readers’ feedback because I know that their feedback will get the book from good to great.

That’s how we writers have to approach any constructive feedback—as a way to make our manuscripts better. A challenge to dig deeper and raise our craft higher. After working so long and hard on our stories (I’ve been with Pharaoh’s Stone for 11 years), we can lose the objectivity we need to make the final adjustments that will make our work shine.

That’s why beta readers are such an important part of our writing process. They bring fresh eyes, fresh brains, and a fresh perspective. I am so lucky to have an enthusiastic team reading my book, and I am so grateful to all of them for making the time and effort to help me.

Do you use beta readers? Where does their feedback fit into your process?

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Productivity and Expectations

August 4, 2016 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

Worst. Month. Ever. July’s word count scraped the bottom of the barrel. My productivity hit the lowest monthly number since I started tracking in January. So, naturally, I have beaten myself up over this failure for many a day.

I managed 11,700 words in July. Which is not nothing, by the way. 11,700 words either drafted, revised, or copyedited. Not a terribly small number. Many writers would be proud of that number.

But.

Among all my data, for the month of July sits a big goose egg next to Veritas, my current work in progress. Zero. Nada. Nothing. Not a single word on my WIP. For an entire month.

It’s killing me.

I went to the Writer’s Coffeehouse in Willow Grove over the weekend, and afterwards got to talking with Marie Lamba. I lamented to her about my lack of productivity, that I had not worked on my WIP all month, and how upset that made me. She said:

“Your problem is that you expected to work on it.”

That stopped me. Because she was right. I knew my writing time would be almost nil. I knew I had other obligations that would take up what writing time I had. I knew I’d have a small shadow pretty much 24/7 for July. And yet I had somehow expected to work on my WIP in some significant manner.

Because I always expect too much from myself.

I always think I can do more in a given time frame than I can. I always think I will have more time than I do. I always think I will have more energy than I have. I always think life will not throw me obstacles the way it does. Always.

In other words, I have unrealistic expectations.

And that will always lead to disappointment.

Now, I don’t mean not to push myself to the fullest or to use this as an excuse to get lazy. Because, yes, I need to up my productivity where I can. But I need to get better at understanding when I actually CAN increase productivity and when I merely BELIEVE I can. Successfully parsing those two will result in a much healthier attitude.

By adjusting my expectations, I hope to gain more contentment in spending time with my daughter, lose the guilt of work left undone, and stop beating myself up so much.

So what about you? Do you lay unrealistic expectations on yourself?

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Summer Slump: Is It September Yet?

July 21, 2016 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I got the call yesterday. The Theater Camp my daughter was supposed to attend next week was cancelled because they didn’t have enough kids. My gal was disappointed–but I was the one near tears. Why? Because I just saw 10 hours of precious writing time vanish into thin air.

I’m in the summer slump.

I haven’t worked on my WIP since June 27th. Not a word. Chapter 50 is waiting for me. And waiting. And waiting.

Between running my gal to swim lessons, teaching at her summer camp, shopping for a new car, and entertaining my daughter, I have had no time for anything other than the necessities.

Mostly I’ve been doing marketing. Blogging, sending requests to reviewers, setting up appearances, and lining up beta readers for another WIP. Yes, I realize that if I stopped blogging I would have more time to write, but a) I like blogging and b) right now I get more name recognition for that than my books.

So, I am wrestling with the guilt I always deal with. When I’m chilling with my gal, all I can think about is the work I’m not doing, and when I’m working I think I’m neglecting my daughter. This is probably typical for working moms, but I think it’s magnified during the summer slump when my daughter is home more frequently.

Once you move into the published side of writing, there is an incredible amount of pressure to churn out material. Everything you read implies that the most successful authors are the ones with many books. Having my writing come to a complete halt (when I am already slow) adds to the pressure. On the other side, being a mom is always a pressure-intensive job. I feel like I’m being squeezed in a vise between the two. It’s not pleasant.

I think I need to just accept that I’m going to write almost nothing for the next six weeks. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but if I keep striving for the impossible I will grow resentful. Not the way I want to spend the summer with my daughter. I want to enjoy our time together, as I know soon enough she will be making summer plans of her own and I will never see her.

In future years, I will try to structure my writing year with this “summer slump” in mind. I will try to schedule as much marketing and other tasks I can do in snatches of time for this time of summer.

So I’m going to take a few deep breaths and see what happens.

How do other parent-writers survive the summer months?

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Follow Me

Collingswood Book Festival 2016

Marketing Madness

Courage In Patience Giveaway

Authors Showcase, Ocean City, NJ

A Powerful Message to Our Children

Children: Not Just a Mini-Me

BOOK TRAILER REVEAL + GIVEAWAY FOR JOSHUA AND THE ARROW REALM!

Beta Readers: A Vital Part of the Process

Productivity and Expectations

Summer Slump: Is It September Yet?

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