Writing Archives - Page 17 of 36

Abington Library Local Author Expo: There’s No Place Like Home

April 21, 2016 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I lived in Abington Township for 32 years, so the Abington Township Free Public Library is my “home” library. I spent a great deal of time there in the pre-computer age, doing research for papers and reading for pleasure.

So attending Abington Library’s Local Author Expo on April 16th was like coming home. If felt so comfortable, even though the library has been renovated since my youth. The staff was welcoming, and made sure to come around to all the author tables to see what we had on offer. Librarians and authors are natural partners, after all!

The morning was busy, with customers wandering in from the outdoor vendors of the plant and book sales. I spoke for half an hour with one pre-published writer who had come to the library to buy debris bags for his garden! Everything went smoothly, except…

Technology is wonderful—except when it’s not. Last week my GPS sent me in a literal circle. This week, my credit card reader failed me for the first (and only) credit card sale of the day. Thankfully, the lady also had checks with her. Just to tease me, the credit card reader worked perfectly when I tested it after she had departed.

The morning session was packed with authors of all genres. Chrissy Fanslau, Captain Morey, Ted Taylor, Charlene Crawford, Judith Rubenstein, Carol B. Polis, Tom Sims, Robert Walton, Jose Russo, Kevin J. McNamara, Wendy Tyson, Cheryl Rice, Chad M. Weiss, L. Ann Price, Peter W. Dawes, Javad Mohsenian, N.M. Lombardi, Toni McCloe, Leah Devlin, and Susan J. Reinhardt attended.

I arrived very close to opening time, so I ended up in the far back corner of the setup. That spot turned out to be a good one, as I got a table all to myself and it allowed space for customers to move easily around the table. It also allowed me to see out the wall of windows into the beautiful day.

The authors did half-day sessions, but I had managed to get slots for both morning and afternoon. When the morning crew went home, I moved my table to a strategic one in the front, directly at the top of the stairs leading to the children’s section. I remember those stairs well from my childhood—clattering down them was like going through the wardrobe to Narnia. A place of magic, mystery—and home of the three-legged turtle. The turtle is long gone, but the magic remains.

The afternoon saw visits from my parents (and daughter), brother, and Writers’ Coffeehouse friends Ann Stolinsky, Tony Athmejvar, and Beverly Black. The afternoon session authors included fellow Coffeehousers Carol Kasser and Chuck Regan, as well as other authors C.L. Lowry, Allan M. Heller, Verileah Teets, Fran Pelham & Bernadette Balcer, Debora Gossett Rivers, Madeline Wilson, Reginald Murray, Jack DeWitt, James M. Paradis, and my tablemate Clayvon C. Harris.

I had a successful and stimulating day at my home library. I sold some books, chatted with a bunch of great authors and readers, and got to breathe library air for the day. To top it off, my book, The Witch of Zal, is now available in the Abington Library, which makes me giddy.

I enjoyed this event, and I hope to do it again next year. As my protagonist Dorveday would agree, there’s no place like home!

A Multi-Author Book Event Sandwich

April 14, 2016 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

This week I am sandwiched between two multi-author book events. Last Saturday I was at the Author’s Buffet at the Trenton Farmer’s Market, and this Saturday I will be at the Abington Library Local Author Expo.

The Trenton Farmer’s Market was a fun event, even though my GPS seemed determined to keep me away. Twice it drove me in a circle–although the second time I was smart enough not to follow the directions! Luckily, I reached the Market in time to unload before the rain came.

The cold, wet day kept the foot traffic low at the Market, but I had some sales and chatted with people about books and storytelling. My fellow authors at the event–J.R. Bale, Laura Kaighn, Kimberly Sentek, and Michele Lynn Seigfried–and a had some lively conversations about the state of the publishing business, our personal publishing journeys, and what events we were planning to attend this year.

This coming Saturday, April 16th, I will be at the Abington Library Local Author Expo from 1:30-4:30 pm. This event features 40+ authors, half in the morning and half in the afternoon. A portion of the proceeds goes to the library, so any purchases simultaneously supports the author and the library.

The Abington event excites me because Abington was my home library for 32 years. That library filled my voracious appetite for reading from a young age, and I still remember the magic of browsing the stacks and finding wonderful worlds to lose myself in.

I’m finding that I like these multi-author events, even when sales are slow. As an introvert author, I appreciate not being the center if attention all the time, and I enjoy the camaraderie of the other authors. I always learn new things from them, and listening to their war stories passes the time pleasantly.

If you are in the Abington, PA, area on Saturday, stop by and support your local authors–and if you’re there in the afternoon, be sure to stop by and say hello!

Do you prefer multi-author events, or solo events? Does your opinion change based on if you are attending as an author or a fan?

Exploring My Author Theme: Connection to the Past

April 7, 2016 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

A long time back in a post on The Author Chronicles blog, I talked about author theme—a theme that seems to recur in every book by that author. In that post, I realized that all of my current WIPs deal with individuality, with the struggle to be yourself and still be accepted and find a place to belong. So that seems to be my primary author theme.

Recently, I have found another author theme that seems to pervade my work—that of connection to the past, of problems set in motion well before the protagonist came into the picture. Perhaps this is an outgrowth of my fascination with genealogy, or perhaps it’s because I have a soft spot for Chosen One narratives. After all, Chosen Ones are, by definition, chosen by someone or something else outside themselves—usually because of events that happened before they were born or able to influence their own lives.

In one WIP, the protagonist’s problems start with something that happened when his uncle was a young archaeologist. In another, the secrets parents kept threaten to tear apart sisters. In a third, a battle 300 years in the past is influencing the present. In a fourth, a conflict of beliefs between her grandparents and her mother force hard decisions on the protagonist. So in many different ways, decisions made by people in the past propel the protagonist into the adventure of the present.

This is not the same as predestination. My protagonists are free to reject or pick up the task handed to them. They are free to handle the situation as they see fit—not as others deem proper. And even though the decisions of the past are driving the present, those decisions were not predestined, either—those people could have chosen differently.

So this is not predestination—it is reality. In the reality of our world, we are often impacted by decisions made in the past. Had my parents not moved to Pennsylvania, I would not have made the friends I’ve made or met the man I married. Would I have made other friends and met someone else? Probably. But that would have been a different life, a different narrative. And my daughter would not exist. A daughter might exist, but not the one who exists now. And that would change the future. Every decision our ancestors made led to our existence. Every decision we make, even as a child, changes the trajectory of the future.

As Jane Goodall said: “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

Who or what made a difference in your protagonist’s past? What difference is your protagonist making today?

How to Cope with Book Launch Anxiety

March 17, 2016 By Kerry Gans 8 Comments

As an extreme introvert with an anxiety disorder, I can simultaneously be looking forward to something and wanting to crawl in a hole and hide until it’s over. Such is my state of mind over my upcoming book launch event on Saturday. I am so excited to celebrate with everyone, but terrified of being the center of attention.

My anxiety level has already swung upward, with several almost-panic attacks barely avoided this week. My protective avoidance behaviors have been strong as well, with fatigue wanting me to sleep all day to still the anxious thoughts swirling in my brain. After 2 hours of errands (many related to the launch) today, I gave in and slept for an hour and a half. Not the most productive use of my time, perhaps, but sometimes it is necessary to indulge the anxiety in order to knock it back down to a manageable level.

And what of the big day? How am I going to handle Saturday? There are two approaches I could take: keeping busy or keeping quiet. Both options work, but there are tradeoffs with each.

If I keep busy, I have less time to think myself into an anxiety attack. I have less time to dwell on the anxiety, and so it tends not to grow as large. The tradeoff is that by keeping busy I use up a great deal of my social energy, leaving very little by the time I actually get to the book launch event, and that might make the launch less enjoyable as fatigue catches up with me.

If I keep quiet, I use little of my social energy, but I have a much greater chance of curling up into a sobbing ball before launch time and being a wreck the entire time I am there. Too much time to think, to feel, can be very dangerous for me. What if I get sick? What if my car breaks down? What if no one comes? What if I have a heart attack in front of everyone? What if the store catches fire? (You see what I have to deal with in my head?)

So which have I chosen for Saturday? As it turns out, I am busy by default. My daughter has to be at my parents’ house by 9:15, so I’ll be up and out early. I have scheduled a tax accountant meeting for 11 am (my accountant lives near my folks), and at 1 pm I need to head up to Doylestown for a Craftwriting workshop with Kathryn Craft. Then I will buzz out of there at 4 and hop over to the Doylestown Bookshop for the launch event at 5.

Busy it is, then. I think that’s the better option for me, because when my anxiety level is very high, busy is more effective than quiet. Quiet will be reserved for Sunday, when I will get to sleep late and relax—and enjoy remembering what I know will be a fun and successful book launch the night before.

I hope to see many of you at the launch on Saturday. And if you see my face turn bright red, that’s just my anxiety trying to crash the party. Ignore it—I plan to!

How do you cope with out-sized anxiety?

Break It Down to Avoid a Breakdown

March 10, 2016 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

If you read my post about all the hats we writers wear, you can see how overwhelming our tasks can be, and also see why so many authors get burnt out. With so many tasks to accomplish, how can we do it without having a mental breakdown? Simple: break it down.

Marketing is a huge task, and ideally all the many moving parts should combine into an overarching whole. But if I look at the marketing plan as a whole it seems un-doable. Mind-shattering—especially for a deep introvert like me. So I break it down.

Breaking down is not a new concept to any writer. We do this all the time when we write, particularly when we revise. Trying to fix everything in every chapter on one pass is impossible—we would inevitably miss something. So we break down the editing into multiple passes. We do one for structure, one for chronology, one for character arc, one for dialogue, one for grammar, etc. We take a huge, overwhelming task and break it down into smaller, more manageable tasks.

Marketing is another mammoth task that can paralyze me with its sheer magnitude. So I have to break it down. I choose one or two tasks a day to accomplish. One day I might contact possible reviewers. The next I might work on my email list. The following day I might update my website. And every day I carve out a little bit of time for the big social media platforms—Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. (although I admit Facebook is where I spend most of my time).

When I break it down that way, it doesn’t seem as overwhelming. Also, since the marketing is the hardest (emotionally) task for me, knowing I have only one or two tasks to complete in a day makes it easier. Otherwise my well-honed procrastination skills would kick in and I’d push it off forever.

Breaking down large tasks creates a longer To-Do list, but it also gives me a sense of accomplishment because I can check tasks off the list quickly. That sense of immediate gratification is nice—especially with the marketing, where sometimes you don’t see the impact of your efforts for weeks. Plus, since I often have to grab small amounts of time to work, having smaller tasks allows me to get more done in the scattered work environment I have at the moment.

So that’s how I avoid having a mental breakdown over the huge tasks—I break them down and tackle the pieces one at a time.

Do you break down larger tasks into smaller ones?

The Witch of Zal Book Trailer!

March 3, 2016 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

Some of you have already seen the amazing book trailer Keith Strunk put together for my book, The Witch of Zal! I love it, and I hope you do, too.

Without further ado, I present: The Witch of Zal book trailer!

Learning to Excel: Spreadsheets and Writing

February 25, 2016 By Kerry Gans 6 Comments

Sometimes it’s nice to be married to an engineer. My guy knows his way around Excel, which is a good thing for me, because I come up with the strangest ideas on what I want to track.

Now, I know many creatives aren’t data-driven. Numbers are not always our friends. But I am a strange mixture of left and right brain, and I like to see things in charts, color-coded and neat. I also like to have the computer do the math for me, so that’s where Excel (and my husband) is handy.

Since publishing is a business, I think many writers use Excel (or something similar) to track things such as inventory or where we have submitted our work. Some may also use it to track income and expenses, although accounting programs will do this for you.

However, I also use Excel for other, more writerly tracking. My To-Do list is an Excel spreadsheet, broken into columns for different tasks (Writing, Editing, Marketing, etc.). I then list the tasks in the columns and color code them—red, yellow, and green. When they are complete, I gleefully delete them. This way I can see at a glance what my priority should be on any given day.

I also use Excel in the writing process. In my current WIP, I have 3 POV characters, so I charted the entire story to ensure I didn’t “lose” someone’s thread for a long period of time. Again, I color –coded each individual so I could quickly see large gaps.

After I write my first draft, I will sometimes list each scene in Excel in the first column, then use further columns to track characters, arcs, and tension (although I think I will try this method from Roz Morris in my next WIP). This helps me see what scenes may not be needed, are not working, or need to be in a different place in the manuscript. It also allows me to see when scenes are missing because one scene does not lead logically to the next.

Lately, I have been using Excel as a motivational tool. I am motivated by specific, numerical goals. I like to be in competition with myself to reach those goals. I also like to track my work to see where I fall off in productivity and why. Since one of my goals for 2016 is to get back to focusing on writing, I decided to track my Word Count.

Now, I break Word Count into 3 phases: Drafting, Rewrite/Revise, and Copyedit/Proofread. The Drafting count is usually the lowest, since it takes the most time for me to think about and get words down. The Revise/Rewrite I can do more words in less time because I’m working with words already there (and probably adding to them—I tend to write first drafts short). Copyedit/Proofread I can burn up the computer because I can get through that process fast—even though I read it out loud at that stage.

So when I tell you what my Word Counts are, the totals combine all those and can therefore seem very high. For instance, my total Word Count for January was 96,333. Wow, that’s a whole book! No, not really. My Drafting count was 5,772, my Revise/Rewrite was 27,642, and my Copyedit/Proofread was 62,919.

By comparison, my February Word Count to date is only 25, 259. I figure I will end somewhere around 35,000, because most of my work this month is the Rewrite/Revise and Drafting categories.

In the same sheet where I’m keeping this running word count, I have my projects broken out—separate columns for my 2 novel-length WIPs, my blog, and Other (one-offs such as short stories, interviews, etc.). I want to try to get a handle on how long it takes me to get through each section of a novel-length WIP so I can be more realistic about how fast I can push the work out. That’s why tracking by project as well as for the whole year is important—because I have a feeling that the summer months, when my child is home all day, will see a drastic plunge in my productivity.

Having these numbers in color-coded detail (I coded each phase) helps urge me on. Watching the numbers pile up motivates me. I have some zero-word days (mostly weekends), but being able to see how much I accomplished during the week allows me to take those days in stride. Less stress is a beautiful thing.

For me, spreadsheets help motivate me and keep me focused. What tools do you use to track your productivity?

Critique Groups: A resource worth having

February 18, 2016 By Kerry Gans 4 Comments

I know not every writer is a critique group fan. I fully understand why—there are critique groups that become useless echo chambers, ones that don’t actually lift the craft of their members, or that contain a toxic mix of people. But while there are bad groups, having a good one is invaluable.

I am in a small critique group. We’ve purposely kept it small because we all write novels. With too many people, it takes far too long to put a whole novel through a group. We also kept it small because that way we have flexibility in meeting times—we can find a date that works for everyone.

We are diverse in age range and in what we write. Our backgrounds, both in writing and in life, are also a mixed bag, which brings a variety of expertise into our knowledgebase. Our craft strengths also vary, which allows for a well-rounded critique when you take all of the feedback as a whole.

Personality is a big part of how the group meshes, and we have been lucky to gather a group that leaves their ego at the door. Every one of us is grateful for the feedback (even if we don’t agree with it), and we are also grateful for the kind manner in which the feedback is given. After all, you don’t need to tear someone apart to critique them. We have quite a bit of laughter in our meetings, because while we take our writing seriously, we can laugh at ourselves and our mistakes.

My assessment is that a good critique group is an invaluable resource. My novel THE WITCH OF ZAL went through the group and it would not have made it out of the slush pile without their input. Every month I learn something new about my craft and begin to see and understand ways to improve.

What has your experience with critique groups been?

Book Launch! But what to read?

February 11, 2016 By Kerry Gans 1 Comment

Exciting news, everyone! My official book launch will be March 19th, 5pm-7pm at the amazing Doylestown Bookshop in Doylestown, PA. Although The Witch of Zal has been available for a few months, March 19th will be the celebration of my debut novel.

I’m starting to make the plans. I’ve ordered a cool floral arrangement from Vintage Oceans Wedding and Event Flowers (a book launch is an event!), and am searching for some fun takeaways to go along with my bookmarks. I need to figure out the technology to run my trailer at the event, and the food to snack upon. And what to wear. And how not to embarrass myself in front of what I hope will be a large number of people.

One of the hardest things to decide, though, is what excerpt of my book to read. I suppose that not reading one is an option, but at an event celebrating the book that feels rather like sending the birthday girl to her room while we all sing “Happy Birthday to You” in the dining room. So I got to thinking what I could choose.

This excerpt would not be the same one I would read to a group of kids. Kids would want more funny or more action. So do I simply start at the beginning of the book, or find some other place?

Choosing an excerpt from farther into the book can be dicey. I don’t want to have to explain too much in the way of setup, or the listeners will get bored (or confused). And choosing an emotionally charged scene can backfire, too, since the listeners are not yet emotionally invested in the characters and may not react as hoped.

So I rummaged around and finally hit upon a good excerpt—one that I think will speak to my audience of writers and booklovers yet pull them in to want to read more. What is it? You’ll have to come and listen! If you’ve read the book and want to take a guess in the comments, feel free.

Now that the decision is made, I will have to practice reading the excerpt aloud. I need to handle the words, the rhythm, the pacing. I want to be able to do this with confidence and give my audience good entertainment value.

Anything else I need to do for the launch event? Of course, I need a thank-you speech. I have so many people to thank, it might take up the entire 2 hours!

If you can, even if you’ve already bought the book, come celebrate with me—I’d love to see you there.

Marketing Flurry

February 4, 2016 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

After digging out of 20” of snow a week ago, this week found me hit with a marketing flurry. I have felt out of my depth since I hit the marketing side of publishing. Even though I’ve read a ton about it, when it came to actually making a plan the details overwhelmed and paralyzed me. So I’ve waded into the fray, rather than jumped.

This week started off with receiving my book trailer from Keith Strunk, who put it together for me. I had an unplanned public unveiling of the trailer at the Willow Grove Writers Coffeehouse, and people seemed to like it. I know I sure did!

So one thing I did this week was start a YouTube channel for myself. At the moment, however, the channel has no content, as I am having the dreaded “technical difficulties” loading the trailer to the channel.

Coming Soon to a Viewscreen Near You!

The next marketing task that surfaced was an interview I did with Linda C. Wisniewski for the Bucks County Women’s Journal. My first interview as a professional author!

The interview of course kicked off a round of social media posts announcing it—Facebook, Twitter, Google+. I also hopped onto my website and added the link to my News & Events page—which I managed to do without breaking the Internet!

Finally, because I felt the need to have some focused marketing help, I joined BadRedHead Media’s 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge. The amazing Rachel Thompson sends us one tip and how-to every day for 30 days, and we then implement them. We are 3 days in, and so far I have spruced up my Twitter bio and header, pinned a tweet to my feed, and begun Following people with a more targeted focus.

So my week has been filled with flurries—marketing flurries. It’s good, though, because I feel a little more settled in my marketing mindset. I may never be a marketing powerhouse, but I am moving forward—and that’s what counts.

How about you? Did you dive in the deep end with marketing, or wade in hesitantly?

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