Conferences Archives - Page 2 of 3

Adventures in the Land of Zal

October 22, 2015 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

This week’s post is going to be short and sweet, because I am neck-deep in reviewing the galleys of my book THE WITCH OF ZAL.

What’s a galley, you ask?

Before a book goes to print but after it has been formatted, they create a galley of it—an uncorrected proof of the text. The author then goes over the galley to catch any last-minute typos or issues that might have been missed earlier. Since there is a substantial lag time between turning in the final edits and reading the galley, the author can see it with fresh eyes.

I found that the galley, which uses a different font and formatting than my final submitted manuscript did, makes mistakes easier to find. Thankfully, I am not finding many! I have to read both the print galley and the ebook galley. I’ve read the print, and hope to finish the ebook today.

The other exciting news is that the cover is finally finished! I saw a sneak peek earlier this week, and am eager to share it with the world. Having a cover makes the book very real.

And I’m glad it is real, because I have booked my first conference, at the New Jersey Association of School Librarians (NJASL) conference November 15th. Discussing books with hundreds of librarians is going to be a thrill, and I can’t wait to meet them. After all, I’ve known since I was young that libraries are magic and librarians are magicians.

THE WITCH OF ZAL is almost at the finish line, and the next phase of my writing life will begin!

My Biggest Takeaway: 2015 Philadelphia Writers’ Conference

June 18, 2015 By Kerry Gans 5 Comments

Every year, after the dust of the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference has settled, I look back and see what my biggest takeaway is. After all, it’s good to see what you’re getting out of any experience so you can judge your return on investment. In past years, my takeaways have included a lessening of my pitching panic and a creative awakening.

This year, I met a lot of people, including some I only knew from social media. That’s always fun, to finally meet someone in real life! I didn’t get to spend as much time chatting with them as I would have liked, but it was nice to put a voice with the face. Now I can read their posts and hear their voices.

Even on my limited budget, I managed to buy a few books which now reside in my To-Be-Read pile—in line right after the library books. I bought one craft book and one fiction book, and I’m still deciding which to read first.

And of course I learned a lot. All those workshops…my head was spinning by the end of each day! I really enjoy learning how different authors approach the various stages of writing, from brainstorming to editing. Sometimes I pick up a tip that resonates with me, and other times I know immediately that their process would never work for me. But I still like learning about it so I can refine my process.

This year, the one idea that my brain keeps circling back to is from Fran Wilde’s Short Story class. She spoke about raising the stakes and said that your character should be in more danger BECAUSE they fulfill their need. In other words, fulfilling Need A allows them to go after Need B, which is harder and more dangerous than Need A. Getting Need B kicks them up to the even more difficult Need C, and so on.

I had never thought of it like that before.

I knew, of course, that your stakes have to consistently raise throughout a story. But I always thought of it as somehow a random thing. For instance, “Okay, my hero achieved something, but now I need something harder than that. All right, send in zombie unicorns.” I think I thought of the new threats, the higher stakes, as coming from external forces not necessarily tied to the inner stakes, although I knew they had to raise as well.

This idea of stepping-stone stakes tied intimately to fulfillment of the hero’s needs intrigues me. Fran was talking about short stories, but I can see how this would work as well for novels. By arranging the hero’s needs in a hierarchy and then starting with his most basic need and working his way up, there is a natural build to the stakes. And the tight cause-and-effect structure makes for a more solid story overall.

I’m in the middle of a massive revision right now, and once I’m done this phase I will go back and look at my stakes in light of this new understanding.

So my biggest takeaway this year was a structural revelation. What was your biggest takeaway?

Philadelphia Writers’ Conference: My Annual Oil Change

June 11, 2015 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

I’m sitting in the waiting room of my mechanic’s today while waiting for my oil change, and it occurs to me that the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference (PWC) is my annual oil change (and yes, I change my car oil more than once a year).

The PWC experience, for me, is like a whirlwind, fast and furious. During this whirlwind, all the stuff gunking up my creative system gets shaken up and flushed out. New advice helps me see past old assumptions. New craft lessons steer me farther up the artistic mountain. A casual conversation sparks an idea that carries me past someplace where I am stuck, either in business or craft—or sometimes even in a personal revelation about myself.

I eagerly look forward to the PWC every year. This will be my 5th year at this conference and it feels like home. I have a history of good things happening to me here, and always leave with some big takeaway.

As much as I love the PWC, I always get wound up in the days leading up to it. Objectively, I have no reason for anxiety, but we all know objectivity is overrated. My anxiety disorder always rears its ugly head and stress is the name of the game for days before the conference. (Apparently, I need to take my own advice—see tip #3.)

This year I tried to figure out why I get so triggered by the conference. I’m not staying in the hotel, so it’s not an away-from-home thing. I’m not planning on pitching (although I probably will because if I do it at the last minute I won’t get wound up about it—ahh, the lies we tell ourselves). I’m eager to take the courses. So what is it?

It’s just me. All my weaknesses hit at the same time. Being essentially away from home for 3 days makes me feel like I’m losing work time. I usually do a lot of work on the weekends, and the conference means I will start Monday behind the 8 ball. Being in the city freaks me out because I am totally not meant for urban dwelling—too loud, too many people. The conference itself is exhausting, with all the mixing and mingling. I get exhilarated from the people and the creativity at the conference, but as a classic introvert the effort drains me. And it’s just being out of my routine. A person with anxiety likes control—or the illusion of control. So I tend to be highly routinized. The conference is anything but routine. New place, new people, new ideas. So much of it out of my control.

ANYTHING can happen.

That’s the scary part.

That’s the wonderful part.

And that’s why I keep going back.

***See you at the PWC! I’ll be blogging nightly recaps over on The Author Chronicles.

My Biggest Takeaway: Philadelphia Writers’ Conference 2014

June 12, 2014 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

This year’s Philadelphia Writers’ Conference suited my introverted, straight-A, personality perfectly—quiet, intimate, and studious. The newly remodeled hotel exuded a sense of freshness and beginnings and possibilities. People spoke of courage and dreams and magic.

Last year, that magic worked on me to spark my creativity—a creativity that had gone dormant since my daughter’s birth 4 years prior. I took that spark home with me, and slowly it grew into a full-blown creative fire.

This year, my biggest takeaway was not of the creative variety, although I learned a whole lot about craft that I can’t wait to start applying. This year, my biggest takeaway was an appreciation of the opportunities that can arise out of simply going to the conference.

I’m an introvert, as stated up top, and I have anxiety disorder, so social situations are pretty much a circle of Dante’s Inferno for me. Yet after going to the conference for 4 years in a row, I have met and gotten to know many people who come each year. While I do not do much formal networking, it is nice to have people to say hello to and have people greet me in the halls.

But two events made me appreciate the opportunities we have to connect at the PWC. One began last year, and one happened this year.

Last year at the conference, I pitched to an agent. We hit it off, and he asked for my manuscript. Just as I was preparing to send that manuscript to him, I got an offer from a small press for a different manuscript. Although thrilled with the offer, I was totally unprepared to negotiate a contract without an agent. I asked this agent if he would represent me, and although he declined, he did agree to take a quick look at the contract. To my everlasting-gratitude, he helped guide me to a contract that was satisfactory for both the publisher and me.

This year, I pitched another publisher another book. She was interested. In a serendipitous connection, one of the workshop leaders was her husband. I had sent in a piece for critique to him, and he liked it so much that he showed it to her. She tracked me down the next day and demanded to know why I hadn’t pitched THAT story to her. I told her I only had three chapters done! She urged me to finish it soon and send it to her.

Will anything ultimately come of this? Who knows? But the fact that she was so excited about my project made my weekend. That story is the first book I have started from scratch since my daughter’s birth, and her interest reassured me that I really had found the creativity I had once been afraid I’d lost forever.

Going to the PWC, and taking advantage of the opportunities presented to me, has already helped forward my career. It has saved me from contractual missteps, and given me renewed confidence in my writing ability. These unexpected events and the appreciation of them are my biggest takeaway this year.

Writing is powerful. Often, though, we weave our spells in solitude. We forget—or we never knew—that the writing community has a potent magic all its own. A magic that seeds, revives, and nurtures dreams. Come add your magic to the collective cauldron.

Because we are the stuff that dreams are made of.

Philadelphia Writers’ Conference 2014 Precap

June 5, 2014 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I suppose, being a writer, I should call this post a prologue, rather than a precap, but my many years in the video business have conditioned me to say precap and recap! And really, this is more of a precap than a prologue, so it’s all good.

I will be attending the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference (PWC) this year, as I have since 2011. It’s my hometown conference, so I can commute daily instead of paying for a room, and I can secure babysitting for my child. I cannot stress enough how much I enjoy this conference. I always leave with tons of information, a handful of new friends, and a boatload of inspiration!

It is odd to think how different my position this year is compared to last year. I have 4 publishing credentials to my name. My first short story, To Light and Guard, was published just days before the 2013 PWC. Since then, I have added a poem, The Towers Stood, in the World Healing, World Peace 2014 anthology and the short story Dying Breath published just a few weeks ago in Youth Imagination magazine. I have also self-published a genealogy book on my father’s side of the family, The Warren Family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Their Ancestors.

Added to that, my middle grade novel Ozcillation has been picked up by the independent publisher Evil Jester Press, and will be released in 2015.

So my experience of this year’s PWC will be from a very different perspective than last year.

I do have a book deal, but I still do not have an agent. Since you don’t have to have the book finished when pitching to agents at a conference, I may pitch a second middle grade book I’m working on, since I have the other middle grade coming out next year. I do have a YA novel making the rounds in the agent query world, but I keep hearing that the genre is not selling well, so maybe it’s time to put that one on the back burner for a few months (genres always cycle back around).

I’m excited for this year’s conference, because I am looking forward to seeing old friends and friends I have only ever “met” online. And this conference really does feel like home to me. As a person with anxiety disorder, feeling comfortable at a conference is a big deal. I know I will still be totally exhausted by the end of the three days, but it will be a “good” exhausted.

As I have done for the past 3 years, I will be doing a nightly report on the PWC each day of the conference over on The Author Chronicles. Come over each day and see what’s going on at the oldest writers’ conference with open registration in America! We’ll also have a recap on Tuesday, and I usually do a personal “biggest takeaway” post back here on Thursday.

If you’re going to the PWC, I hope to see you there!

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?

My Biggest Takeaway: 2012 Philadelphia Writers’ Conference

June 14, 2012 By Kerry Gans 1 Comment

Every year I talk about my biggest takeaway from the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference. (I say “every year” as if I have been there more than twice.)

Last year I experienced an epiphany in pitching. This year the pitching had the desired outcome, but was not my biggest takeaway.

Instead, I learned that what I’d thought was my greatest strength as a writer may in fact be my greatest weakness.

A strange confluence occurred at the PWC. I took three 3-day courses: Novel—Character with Jonathan Maberry; Middle Grade/YA with Marie Lamba; and Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasty and Paranormal with Caridad Pineiro. The topics seemed disparate: Character, genre-specific tips, and world-building.

Instead, they ended up talking about the same issue: character.

Obviously, Novel—Character was about character. But Marie Lamba taught us that voice and strong character are the hallmarks of successful MG/YA books. And Caridad Pineiro told us that she figures out her character arcs first, and then builds the world around them, to test the characters to their utmost.

Character is something I always felt confident in writing. I knew my characters. I could write a believable character. A three dimensional character. I prefer character-driven books to plot-driven books, I’ve devoured scores of them—how could I not be a natural at writing character?

Very easily, apparently.

Now, my problems with character did not strike me like lightning at the conference. For months, if not longer, I have felt that somehow, my characters were not what they should be. They were not as alive as they could be. That while they were real for me, they were not for my readers.

I had critiques from different people all saying the same basic thing: “The story is great, but I just didn’t connect to the characters as much as I’d like.”

The conference simply cemented these niggling doubts for me. The character strength I thought I had is actually the weakest part of my writing. I need to figure out why, and how to fix it, because that is what is holding me back from having that story that is truly ready to go out to the public. This lack of connection is the hazy “something” I have sensed lacking in my stories for a long time.

Why hadn’t I noticed this before? Probably because there were so many other areas of writing that I needed to improve. There was a time when my instinctual characters WERE the strongest part of my writing. But that’s not the case anymore. The rest of my writing craft has risen, and the character development has not kept pace—likely because I hadn’t thought it needed work.

Now I know better. I’m not quite sure what the problem is, so I’m not quite sure how to fix it, but I know where to look to get started.

Vibrant, believable, complex characters—that’s what I’m looking to gain from this year’s takeaway.

Reading Your Work Cold

April 26, 2012 By Kerry Gans 3 Comments

The Philadelphia Writer’s Conference is coming up in June. I’ve already registered to go, and am in the process of gathering the submissions for the critiques and contests. What’s been interesting is my reaction to reading the excerpts I am preparing to send.

Before I get to that, let me dump a little backstory in here.

I have a toddler. She takes up most of my time. For a while I tried to cycle my writing projects, trying to work on all of them at once. But that just made me feel like I wasn’t accomplishing anything, because I never got to the end of anything. So I decided for the sake of my sanity to focus on one project at a time.

The project I have been working on is a middle grade dystopian steampunk mashup. It will come as no surprise that this is one of the works I am sending in to the conference. I have gathered notes from beta readers and crit partners, and reworked the first 2500 words thoroughly. Then I got more feedback from my crit partners and reworked it again. The opening is significantly better than it was, and I can’t wait to get to work on the rest of the book to bring it up to the same level.

The second excerpt I am sending in is a YA novel—I’m not sure if it would be called a fantasy or a paranormal for genre purposes. The girl’s got supernatural abilities (paranormal) but they come via her father, who is a Greek god (fantasy). So take your pick.

I haven’t worked on this story for many months, so I came to it with very fresh eyes. And I was pleasantly surprised—mostly because I had made changes to the story that I had forgotten I had made. The edits I had made definitely improved the story, and I found myself excited by it in a way I hadn’t been last time I worked on it.

We always hear the advice to put a work aside for a time and come back to it fresh. Usually, this advice is intended to allow you to see the errors and mistakes you’ve made. We rarely hear about the flip side of that coin: Coming to it fresh also allows you to see the strengths of what you have written.

My YA wasn’t perfect, by any means—my crit partners still had some suggestions. But it was so much stronger than what I had remembered having, that I found myself thinking, “This is good—almost like a professional wrote it.”

When I find myself thinking that, I know I’m on the right track.

So if you have the luxury of time, put your work aside before doing a final edit. And when you do come back to it fresh, don’t just focus on what’s wrong. Allow yourself to see and revel in what you’ve done well.

Enjoying those gems in your writing will energize you to bring your A-game to the final edit, and that passion will make your words shine.

My Biggest Takeaway: 2011 Philadelphia Writers’ Conference

June 9, 2011 By Kerry Gans 11 Comments

“Takeaway” is a word often used in the business world, meaning the lesson, advice, or information you got from a seminar, meeting, or conference. “What’s the takeaway?” is a common question. Oddly, I could not find that definition online on any of the big dictionary sites. They all told me it meant the same as “takeout” – as in, “Do you want fries with that?”

You have probably seen the posts I did on the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference, both here and on The Author Chronicles blog. So you know there was a TON of awesome information in those workshops.

But none of that was my biggest takeaway.

My biggest takeaway came from my pitch with Sarah Yake of Frances Collin Agency.

You may know, from previous posts, that I struggle with anxiety. That I would have rather suffered another C-section than pitch face-to-face. You may also know that the Act Like A Writer Workshop in March 2011 caused an epiphany which let me approach my nemesis with an entirely different mindset.

That didn’t stop the terror when faced with a real agent, however.

I sat at Sarah Yake’s table and waited. She wasn’t there. In fact, none of the agents were in place yet. Every one of the agent tables held only a nervous writer staring into empty air, a rather bizarre tableaux repeated five times.

I wondered if I would remember to breathe while speaking. If I would remember to make eye contact. If I would remember my pitch. If I would remember my name. After a few minutes which felt like an epoch, all the agents hurried toward their tables.

Sarah was personable, enthusiastic, and interested. She was also slightly flustered because a faulty clock had made all the agents a touch late, and this show of humanity went a long way to calming my nerves. Sarah also appeared to be younger than I am, which I think kicked in some of my mommy instincts – I wanted to make her feel at ease, since she was obviously embarrassed about being a little late!

Once we began talking, the most unbelievable thing happened. All my anxiety drained away. My hands stopped shaking. My stomach stopped twitching. Not only did I remember to breathe, but I breathed easily. I sailed through my pitch confidently. Even when I missed some information, I deftly inserted it later in our conversation.

If I had not had such a nice person as the first agent I ever pitched to, I suppose my experience might have become a nightmare. As it was, it became the most profound takeaway I could have imagined.

I can pitch.

I can pitch well.

The confidence I draw from this lesson will carry far beyond my writing career.

Thanks Jonathan Maberry & Keith Strunk (Act Like A Writer teachers), Don Lafferty (I didn’t forget your pep talk just before Sarah came down), PWC, and Sarah Yake (such a sweet person!) for giving me a takeaway that will change my life in ways I can’t even imagine yet.

Confessions of a Conference Virgin: Day 3 of the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference

June 5, 2011 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

Today was the final day of the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference. I started it off by getting lost on the way in, but I still made it on time.

I also found that a friend and colleague of mine, James S. Kempner, had taken 3 different prizes in the PWC contests—one a first prize! Congrats to Jim!

This morning kicked off with a 1-day workshop by author and editor Kathryn Craft, who enlightened us with 13 Tips and Tricks for better writing. I wanted to whip out my manuscript right there and start applying them—they are a sure way to improve your writing.

Then on to the final day of author Kelly Simmon’s Novel: Plot workshop. Her 7 Cs checklist gives a comprehensive yet manageable way to approach plot, particularly if you are not a natural outliner. I’m a partial outliner myself, and can easily see that incorporating her ideas will help me improve my novel before I ever write a word of it.

After lunch, author Gregory Frost wrapped up his advice on Novel: Character. After a review of simplex, complex, and multiplex characters, we created a character from scratch. While we rendered a rather hilarious persona and the ghost that haunts him, the exercise showed us the basic steps to creating a multi-dimensional character with enough room to grow throughout your novel.

In the YA workshop with author Catherine Stine, she spoke about how to find agents and editors, and shared some of her experiences with agents. We also practiced our 3-sentence elevator pitches and discussed the competing yet very similar merits of writing programs Scrivener (about $50) versus yWriter (free).

My mind was far too fried to stay for the closing panel, but I’m certain it will be as informative as the rest of the conference. I’m thinking I should book my reservations for next year!

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