Meet Jenna Kernan

 

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jenna Kernan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jenna below.

Hi Jenna, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

Writing fiction carries a lot of risk to the ego. Works get rejected, books receive bad reviews, authors get dropped by their publishers. All these setbacks can be demoralizing and foster self-doubt. Another, less-mentioned, risk is success, a mixed blessing that carries perils all its own. Early on, when my first book was released, I got very stressed. And I was confused. Wasn’t this supposed to be a happy occasion? So why was I so anxious? That took me down a rabbit hole of reading about impostor syndrome, the lengths the ego will go to protect you and why I felt sick to my stomach when someone picked up my first novel. And I learned that fear can be managed.

Some of my tactics to foster resilience might sound familiar. I surround myself with supportive people who encourage and many of whom have experienced or are experiencing similar struggles. I distance myself from people who disrupt, distract, disparage, or have very dissimilar goals. I remember that failures often present us with opportunities to do better and learn important lessons. I remind myself that obstacles can be overcome if you can figure out a way under, over, or around. Persistence is key. Rejection has impeded my ability to get published. It has never impeded my ability to write stories. And the love of the creative process of writing keeps me working, because I can’t stand the idea of not writing.

When faced with setbacks, it’s time to evaluate, find support, get help, make a plan, learn something new and try again.

A less flattering weapon in my resilience toolkit is an “I’ll show you” attitude. Success is sweeter when you know your book will be a sliver in the side of the rejecting editor. Let a rejection light a fire in you to succeed. I have. In fact, I was using my three-ring binder with seventy-rejections as a footstool and writing a new story when my first acceptance finally landed. Making lemonade out of lemons. Or in this case, keeping my feet off the cold floor while I worked.

I also ask for help. Whether this means brainstorming or attending a writers’ conference, I seek out and connect with experts and mentors who have traveled this road before me. This includes reading books and a few I’ve really enjoyed that address resilience are:
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes
Writing Past Dark by Bonnie Friedman

Because delivering creative works to the world is a risky business for the ego, I often self-protect. For me, this means not reading my reviews. Most of them are great. But I don’t remember those. Instead, I remember the reviewer who long ago wrote that my heroine’s horse was smarter than she was and the contest judge who asked if English was my second language. Ouch!

There is much to learn from reviews, but I needed to avoid these triggers because I had such a hard time shaking them out of my head. So, I have an assistant read them. Then they can report if there is a common theme of something I need to work on and give me the beautiful, positive ones I can use in promotion.

Having a supportive group of people in your life, recognizing fear can be managed, developing attitude, seeking help and avoiding triggers all help me foster resiliency.

And when my ego gets bruised, I turn to humor. It’s important to take my work seriously but not to take myself seriously. And I remember what R.L. Stine said at a recent workshop. “Writing isn’t hard. There is no running, and you don’t need special shoes.”

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m a Publishers Weekly bestselling author of domestic suspense and fast-paced, twisty thrillers that readers describe as “jaw-dropping,” “riveting,” and “gritty.” I pride myself on whiplash-inducing twists that readers did not see coming but find inevitable. I’m the proud recipient of the gold medal for popular fiction from the Florida Book Awards for my novel, The Ex-wives, and I’m most excited about whatever story I am working on at the moment. I’m a genre-jumper with roots in romantic suspense and the creator of 40+ books. My current release is The Patient’s Daughter and my next release will arrive in the spring of 2025. I think readers should give new (to you) authors a try, so I offer a free thriller to anyone who joins my VIP reader group on my website: www.jennakernan.com.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I am a former athlete. Many of the lessons on persistence, hard work, incremental improvement, working past failures, and teamwork come from my experiences preparing to compete. You don’t succeed without hard work, much practice, great teammates and a supportive coach. This athlete’s mindset has served me well in many areas.
Quality: Athlete’s Mindset

I have a curious mind. Curiosity helps me learn as the industry pivots. Taking risks is part of that journey. My first manuscript was submitted “over the transom,” a term that is no longer used. It means I sent an entire unsolicited manuscript by mail to a publisher, which their cleaning crew threw out. But that is another story. The point is that a lot has changed, but curiosity has allowed me to pivot with the publishing world. I have learned to create eBooks using programs that did not exist when I began publishing, taught myself word processing, fostered a fanbase, advertise my independent stories. I enjoy exploring new things, whether that be a writing app or an electric scooter. Both are adventures and can be fun.
Quality: Curiosity

My imagination was always making up stories, unfortunately I was a less than competent wordsmith and learning the craft has been difficult. But my creativity has always been there.

Imagination helps me picture what could be and ask a lot of “what if…” questions.

Here are a few of my more recent “what if” questions that became books:

What if you could not avoid a serial killer because she was your mother? (A Killer’s Daughter)

What if a young mother learns her new husband was wanted by the FBI in connection with the disappearance of two of his former stepdaughters? (The Ex-wives)

What if a pregnant woman takes in three strangers as borders to keep from losing her home and discovers at least one means her harm? (The Patient’s Daughter)

Nothing is more helpful to a thriller writer than posing hypothetical questions and running with them down the mind’s dark alleys.
Quality: Imagination

My advice for novice fiction writers is to read widely, write daily and be committed to preserving the time needed to improve your craft. Once you’ve done that, begin learning all you can by joining writers’ groups, reading craft books, taking classes and practicing. Eventually, you need to sit down and write something. Then write something else. You must show your work to someone besides your family and friends. Be brave and put yourself out there.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?

I’m what is known as a hybrid author. This means I have both a publisher, and I publish independently. Being a small business means wearing a lot of hats. My publisher needs new proposals for stories, manuscripts delivered on time, revisions managed, drafts edited and some promotional engagements before and after publication.

My indie books need all this plus production of a clean manuscript, creation of cover art, advertising, and promotion for each title. I oversee the creation of eBooks, paperback, hardcover and audio production. Then I manage distribution, sales, marketing and finances.

You know that little copyright notice in a book? I have to write it, along with the dedication, forward and the book, of course. You remember seeing the excerpt for another book at the end of the story you just finished? I have to include that and the sales links for each marketplace. Ever notice the ISBN number? I buy those and assign them to each book, audiobook and eBook. And those new stories? They need a copyright which means an application with the US Copyright Office in DC.

In addition, I create stories for anthologies, maintain my website and newsletter list, speak at conferences, attend writers’ events, take classes to learn new technologies and skills, handle a mountain of email and social media posts.

The list of projects and the individual steps is very long. Since I work at home, there is no quitting time. I often work on weekends and spend a lot of time at my desk. It is rare that I vacation without my laptop.

Over the years, I have come to accept that I will never get it all done.

Do you know the 80-20 rule? It basically says that 20% of your work accounts for 80% of your return. The trick is to figure out which tasks push my goals furthest down the road and focus my energy on those.

I prioritize my writing time, always. Unless traveling or at a conference, I write every day. Often, I write in the morning, but I can write almost any time and any place.

My second priority is the business side of things. But I may not check my email until two in the afternoon and that new logo I doodled on a napkin might have to wait until after I get new bookmarks printed for the next conference.

As I get older, I believe that the next story is more important than how many people like my post on social media. And having a reader take the time to review my stories is more valuable than a Amazon ad.

My new 80-20 rule goes more like this. Do I want to? If yes, then do that first. Do I have to? If yes, then do that second. Do I hate doing this? If yes, then ignore it and see what happens. It’s like dessert. I prefer to eat that first.

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Image Credits

Photo of Jenna signing by Steve Chase, Chase Photography.
No other photos need photo credit.

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