Writers in the Storm

By Joseph Lallo

The process of writing fiction almost always requires the author to assemble a handful of the same key ingredients for each story. At the absolute, bare bones, stripped-to-the-studs level, the two things you need are characters and plot. We won’t be focusing on plot today, but as an overview, there are two broad ways to craft it: Plotting (that is to say, writing an outline) and Pantsing (which is just “writing by the seat of your pants”). 

Writing characters is much more difficult to distill into a methodological binary, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try. Different people will have different names for their tactics, but for our purposes the two broad methods will be dubbed “Character Sketching” and “Character Discovery.” We’ll go into them in more detail shortly. For now, just know that my personal method is a combo that we’ll be calling “Character Improv.”

 Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though.

Sketching is for Plotters

It really is as simple as that. If you are the kind of person who wants a flawless, reliable roadmap for the whole story, you’re going to want two things: a complete outline, and a stack of character sketches. Just as the outline is at least a summary and at best a beat for beat blueprint for the story’s structure and events, the character sketches are note for note biographies for the “actors” who will be performing your piece. Think of them as the character sheet for a game of D&D. They can be as loose or as detailed as you want, but at the end of the day they exist to make sure you know, before you set foot along the path of the tale, who will be traveling with you.

Character sketches often include, but aren’t limited to: physical descriptions, character histories, quirks and traits, principles and goals, and interpersonal relationships. Putting together a character sketch can be loads of fun for many authors, as you get to play both police sketch artist and psychological profiler for the star of your story. And more importantly, once you’ve laid out a good solid sketch, you’ve got reference material that will keep your character consistent as you write their story. 

This comes at the expense of flexibility. Stories don’t always go according to plan, and you can’t always predict who will serve the narrative best. If your sketch is too rigid, you may end up with a character incompatible with the changing circumstances. This isn’t a deal breaker, you can always iterate, but in the worst case this will lead to a great deal of redundant work.

This is why a lot of people opt for the opposite side of the spectrum.

Character Discovery

Having a map of the narrative isn’t necessary, or even desirable, for a certain type of writer. Those who like to sit down to a blank page and let the story unfold according to its own whims might decide the best course of action is to let the story craft the characters as well. This would be “Character Discovery,” and there’s really not much to it with regards to technique. Your cast of characters is as clean a slate as your plotline. As the needs of the story arise, the characters who can meet those challenges or who might have been shaped by that world step out of the fog, ready to have their fine details sculpted on the fly. 

This is certainly a more exciting way to tell a story (for the author). Not even you know who is lurking behind each twist and turn. This means of character writing provides you with a naturalistic development of personality that’s difficult to beat. It can also be very efficient, because anything that doesn’t impact the story is never established, so no wasted effort is put into building out a history that isn’t explored.

 But the method is hardly without its obstacles.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the consistency that is a strength of character sketching is a weakness of character discovery. You need to be diligent in keeping track of each new character and detail, or you’ll be at risk of contradicting yourself when the time comes to refer back to concrete details like hair color, number of siblings, or even name. (Let’s not talk about how, for several days, the published ebook for my first sci-fi story had the main character’s birth name change halfway through…). Essentially, unless you have a great memory, you’re going to want to end up with the character sketch that your Plotting counterpart started with. You also have to be disciplined with when and where you introduce new characters and assign new traits to them. It is oh-so-simple to end up with a conga-line of deus ex machinas, with just the right person showing up at just the right time, or our hero revealing a fluent knowledge of an ancient language that they just so happen to have needed right then and there. Revisions and retroactive foreshadowing are your friend here.

But maybe there’s a way to split the difference…

Character Improvisation

Like many authors, I didn’t start my writing journey with a full knowledge of the various methods used to craft narrative. (I guess you can say I “pantsed” my writing career.) Different books were written using different techniques. I’ve planned, I’ve shot from the hip, and I’ve started one way and ended another. These days I find myself pretty firmly in the plotter category for my longer fiction. Despite this, I try to allow for the maximum of flexibility, especially with regard to my characters.

When I’m plotting my scenes, I rarely prescribe exactly what a given set of characters will do in that scene, and almost never do I predetermine what they will say. Outside of the exceedingly rare instances of having a really good idea for a single line or a short exchange, the outline of a scene only tells me the direction the characters need to be heading as it ends. How the characters choose to get there is decided by the characters.

This is where you may note, “But Jo, you are deciding what the characters say. Isn’t that just you deciding how they’ll get there?” Yes and no. I like to write the dialogue line by line, each time asking myself “what would this character say in response to that?” These aren’t actors working from a script, these are performers improvising in the moment. (Hence “Character Improvisation.”) It’s not pure pantsing, because the framework of the scene and it’s place in the plot progression are established, but provides maximum flexibility on an intra-scene level. I find it gives me the fluid, natural conversation of a fully discovered character, while still starting from a place of structure and having a touch of guidance. And best of all, it allows chemistry to develop naturally.

Examples

Let’s look at some examples from my own writing.

When I was planning out Bypass Gemini (the aforementioned story where our main character switched from “Travis Alexander” to “Trevor Alexander” without me noticing.) I planned for there to be a snarky AI in a single scene. The gag was supposed to be that our hero thought it was a simple voice menu, but it was in fact a complete AI with human level intelligence. The outline for the scene called for “a few snarky comebacks due to the misunderstanding.” But as I wrote the scene, I found that the AI was really scoring some fun zingers. I was having loads of fun giving her better one-liners. Building out the main character by having him fairly quickly adjust and begin treating her like a person really gave him some depth as well. It made him feel like a better person, and gave her the opportunity to adjust her own opinion of him as well as her own expectations of how she ought to be treated.

The plot didn’t change much at all, but the AI became a much bigger part of it as I explored and experimented with her, letting her say what felt right at the time and having other characters act accordingly. By the end of the story I’d resolved to make her a staple character in the series from that point forward.

Similarly, when I was writing Free-Wrench (and more generally when I write any story), I didn’t plan romance from the start. This was an adventure story first and foremost, so it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that there would even be romance. Characters interacted, joked, argued, and generally bounced off each other as the scene dictated. And steadily, chemistry started to develop. Characters started flirting. It was never the plan, but these characters paired up nicely., those had too much friction. And entirely naturally, by the time I’d written two or three books, there was romance and drama simply because it was just how the characters had treated each other.

 My story was able to surprise me.

As with the other methods, you have to be mindful of certain pitfalls. This basically provides you with all of the pros and all of the cons of each of the other methods. Letting the characters have long conversations can be fun in the moment but lead to rambling scenes if you’re not gently nudging them toward a point. A willful character can also wrench your story off the tracks entirely, something you’ll need to assess on a case by case basis if their new way is best or if you need to massage them into a compromise. You can also have a sequence of events plotted out in advance that, as the characters develop, will simply feel inappropriate to who they’ve become, and unwinding that can be a bit of a challenge. But at its best this method provides your audience with strong, vibrant characters who have agency and personality that’s hard to plan for while keeping the story’s structure and pace on target.

Chatting with your imaginary friends

One of my favorite ways to describe being an author is “having long arguments with your imaginary friends and transcribing the results.” Regardless of whether I start with a map of the plot or if I hack my way through the literary jungle with nothing more than a machete and a compass, I find that letting the characters develop on their own has always given me and my readers the best experience. Has it meant my planned boy-meets-girl character arcs have ended up in bitter, unplanned breakups three books later? Yes. But it has also elevated characters from bit parts to main cast, and made the act of writing as much fun as the act of reading. You meet some of the most fascinating people when you let your characters pick their own lines. Give it a try and maybe you’ll find a new star!

About Joseph

Joseph R. Lallo hails from Bayonne, NJ--the fabled birthplace of George R. R. Martin. He has written dozens of novels and novellas, including the international bestseller The Book of Deacon and the critically acclaimed Free-Wrench series. In addition to writing, he has helped run run the Six Figure Authors podcast with Lindsay Buroker and Andrea Pearson.

Header Photo by Sujal Patel on Unsplash

by Dr. Alex Jemetta

Part 2: The Facts of a Fight

When facing the daunting task of writing a fight scene, I think that most writers get hung up on the technical details. Research is a common procrastination method for most of us, and having facts and information can help us feel more confident in writing a scene we don’t otherwise feel comfortable writing. It is important to have your facts straight.

However, the truth is that the number of readers who care (and have the technical knowledge to tell) whether your character has their left foot forward when they should have their right foot forward is vanishingly small. I polled my martial arts club to get their opinions on common mistakes in fight scenes and, to my genuine surprise, nearly every single one said that writers get hung up on technical details and forget the experience of a fight.

I can’t tell you exactly what details you specifically need for your fight scene, and if you are writing scene with laser guns (or any guns), I probably can’t help you with details at all. So, let’s talk about what type of details are useful and what aren’t.

Big picture details are the most important. The overarching feeling of a fight is something that is often lost even when the nitty gritty details are correct.

What is and is not physically possible given weapons, armor, etc.

Be careful here because there are a lot of myths floating around. I firmly believed what medieval content creators on youtube said about dual wielding swords being book nonsense (because how on earth can anyone have the dexterity to pull that off?) until I watched someone spar with two swords at once.

What is the rhythm of this type of fight?

A knife fight feels different from a gun slinger show down feels different from a sword fight. Even different swords (saber, rapier, longsword etc.) all operate differently. How long does the fight take to start? Does it start slowly, or does it start with a bang? Is it over in one exchange, or do the opponents retreat and approach multiple times? Does it end with one fatal blow or is it death by a thousand cuts? I strongly recommend watching videos of people sparring or competing with the weapon you want to write about if you can’t watch a competition or performance person. Hollywood does not count.

Be careful with nitty gritty details.

1. Using too many technical terms that your reader doesn’t know can take them out of the scene. This goes for names of techniques and attacks as well as for details of armor and weapons. They don’t want to google what an uberhau or unterhau are. They probably don’t want to google the difference between a long sword, a broad sword, and a side sword either. Most people aren’t up to snuff on the intricate differences between types of swords or guns or polearms; keep this in mind.
2. Describing every single action in detail is going to bog down the pacing and get repetitive. This is a bit like world building in that you, as the author, need to know a lot more than what needs to be on the page.
3. Generally, details like the metallurgical composition of the blade or whether the mail armor is rivetted or butted are wasting valuable space in the middle of a fight scene. Unless it’s directly causing a problem, like the blade bending because it’s iron and not steel, it doesn’t need to be in this scene.

Part 3: The Experience of a Fight

So, if writing a fight scene is less about choreography and more about experience, what is the experience like? How do you, as an author who has never swung a sword or punched someone in a bar, write about that experience? The answer, of course, is research. Read interviews, watch videos, etc. I’ll try to give you a quick start guide here by painting the experience of a fight in broad strokes.

First, the most obvious thing: adrenaline. One of the reasons combat sports are fun is that your body isn’t amazing at distinguishing the difference between sparring and fighting for your life. You get an adrenaline surge every time. This will decrease over time, but it’s always there. If your character’s life is in danger, even if it’s something that happens often, they’ll feel it. Your character’s heart will be racing, their hands may be shaking, etc. Even if they have mental clarity due to experience, they will still have an adrenaline surge.

The second thing to consider are the other bodily experiences. This is a good place to bring in the visceral details that make a good fight scene immersive.

Physical exertion

 In fights where guns (or gun equivalents) aren’t involved, there is going to be a level of physical exertion. Drawing a bow takes strength. Repeatedly swinging a sword takes endurance. Fighting is basically high intensity interval training. Your muscles will get tired, your breathing will get ragged, you will sweat.

Heat

If there is any sort of armor involved (and there probably should be), you are going to be WARM. Wearing gambeson is like exercising in your winter coat, and mail and plate are worse.

Pain

There is probably going to be pain. As my father told me, never draw a knife unless you are prepared to get cut. The likelihood of your hero getting exactly zero injuries in a close quarters fight is low. Injuries are a good way to add complications to your plot. Keep in mind that adrenaline effects how you feel pain; I once got a bronze medal in a long sword competition with a broken thumb, definitely in part due to adrenaline. But it still hurt.

Let’s think about our senses, what is a combatant perceiving?

Sight

It’s very common to hyperfocus on your opponent in a fight and not really see what else you is around, especially if you are not an experienced fighter. However, it will still matter how bright or dark it is. Metal objects (and a lot of weapons and armor are metal) also reflect light, which affects visibility.

Sound

This one is heavily dependent on the details. Battle fields are loud and chaotic. Swords clang when they interact, and the sound can be extremely loud in an enclosed space. I often wear ear plugs when practicing longsword in a small room. Gunshots are louder, loud enough to damage your hearing at close quarters. Helmets and fencing masks muffle sound. People make sounds when they fight: breathing, talking, laughing, and taunting. Bodies also make sounds when they are struck: bones crunching, fits thudding against skin, etc

Smell

People stink when they sweat, and battle fields stink worse. Armor smells, sometimes of sweat but also of oil or whatever else is used to maintain it. Metal on metal strikes of swords on armor have a distinct smell. Smell is one of the most evocative of our senses, don’t forget to use it.

Touch

In fencing, you learn to respond to the sensation of the opponent’s sword against yours. This is because the signal from your hand to your brain is faster than your eye to your brain. You fight by feeling. This sense is largely covered in the section above but also consider the following sensations: the weapon in your hand, armor on your body, sweat running down your skin, your hair in your face, and the heat of someone else’s body against yours.

Taste

This is often neglected and might not be the most relevant in this context, but never say never. The taste of blood due to injury to the mouth or the salt taste of sweat are both reasonable experiences in combat.

What on earth is your character thinking about? This is something that is both character specific and context specific. Here is a list of non-exhaustive suggestions:

The weapon or the opponent

Someone who is an inexperienced fighter or who is facing a new or particularly dangerous weapon is going to focus on the weapon. However, (at least in a sword fight) an experienced fighter is looking at the body of their opponent. Shifts in stance and core/shoulder muscles will give you more warning than the movement of the weapon itself. Whether you are throwing a punch or swinging a sword, the motion involves your whole body.

Distance

There are a lot of distance scales to keep track of in a sword fight (and other styles of combat as well). The most important, as the fight begins, are the distance between you and your opponent, the distance from which you can reach your opponent, and the distance from which your opponent can reach you. These are not, generally speaking, the same (especially if there is a difference in height). Playing with distance using footwork and subtle maneuvering can win a fight right off the bat. These distances depend on the weapons being used, the stance, the type of attack, the reach of the opponent, etc.

Tactics

Combat is rarely about brute force. Brute force and speed won’t get you as far as you might think, at least not against anyone who either knows what they are doing or who has a weapon. The mental/tactical component of fencing is so important that fencing is one of the Olympic sports with the oldest athletes. The average is around 28, but there have been Olympic fencers in their 40s. It’s also one of the few sports where you can start training at 12 or 13 and still make it to the Olympics. It’s like chess. It’s like a dance. For every action there’s a reaction. That being said, the individual exchanges generally move so fast that you don’t have time to explicitly think about these interactions; your body responds to what’s happening instinctively based on your training. Then you break and circle, and your active brain can process.

The terrain

 We usually practice sports in gyms on smooth floors but fights in books can happen anywhere. Foot work is important. If you have proper structure, someone twice your size can’t move you, but if you put your foot down wrong, you’ll twist your knee and end up on the ground and needing crutches.

The surroundings

Are there people nearby they are trying to protect? Do they need to avoid a priceless artifact? Is there another enemy approaching? The surroundings could be a dangerous distraction or a valuable asset.

Not getting hit

This sounds obvious, but it’s something that is very different between a real fight and a combat sport. In competition longsword, it can be a good strategy to go for a two-point target and give up a one-point target. In a real fight, with a real weapon, defense has to come first. It doesn’t matter if you take your opponent’s head off if they stab you through the heart.

Surrender

Is this fight really worth dying over? Historically, we know that knights were essentially always ransomed, which meant if they couldn’t fend off their kidnappers, it wasn’t worth their life to fight back and they’d surrender. Similarly, bandits would attack merchants on the road, but they’d break and run if the target fought back to hard.

Summary

Writing a good fight scene is about so much more than getting the details right. Immerse your readers in the experience. Crawl inside your characters head. You’ve got this.

Have a question for an experienced fighter, ask Alex in the comments.

About Alex

Dr. Alex Jemetta (she/they) is an astrophysicist and fantasy author. When she isn’t at her desk with her two cats, she is practicing historical longsword. Her love for research, the night sky, and historical weapons seeps into her world building. As a disabled, neurodivergent, queer author, she’s passionate about writing classic fantasy stories from a non-traditional perspective.

If you want more in depth ramblings about fight scenes and swords check out her website or subscribe to her newsletter.

You can also find her on Instagram, twitter, threads, blue sky, and TikTok at @astroalexwrites.

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Header phot credit - Ricardo Cruz - Unsplash

by Jenny Hansen

We've arrived at that late-January time when people start throwing in the towel on their New Year's goals. This third week of the year is when everyone starts to feel a bit crunchy about "that goals business." Why?

I wanted to know, so I looked up the reasons people fail New Year's resolutions, and here are the Top 3, according to Google.

• Setting unrealistic or vague goals
• Lacking a specific action plan (relying on motivation instead of structure)
• Having an all-or-nothing mindset that leads to quitting after one slip-up, often combined with a lack of accountability.

They further stated: "These factors prevent sustainable change, as people get discouraged by big goals, forget why they started, and don't plan for inevitable obstacles. "

Just reading all that superior-sounding stuff makes ME feel crunchy.

Gentle Goal Setting

Here at WITS, we limit ourselves to a single word of intention for the year. Last year, my word was "Implement," and this year, my word was "Receive." For some reason, this concept works extremely well for me and my ADHD brain. I only have to remember One Word.

Note: I'm one of those who also colors my word, to really cement the goal. If nothing else, it keeps me thinking about goals while I'm waiting on hold.

I've also started to do the One Word for each month. This month (January) is "Focus." I've been coloring it in throughout the month when my brain gets tired, or when I'm having trouble focusing. :-)

I'll be interested to see what the other eleven months inspire in terms of words.

My Favorite Goal-Setting Class

[Note: Yes, I've taken several. Don't judge.]

Many years ago, I took Margie Lawson's Defeating Self-Defeating Behaviors (DSDB) class. She used to teach it live, but now she just sells the lecture packet (for only $22, which is pretty amazing).

What I liked about the class:

• Margie focused on taking the shame out of the whole goal process.
• Plus, she slowed things down to just 2-3 goals per day max. Anything extra went on what Margie called the "Super Star" list, signaling to your brain that you were a Supreme Rockstar if you got one or more of those done.

It was a great class, but. . .

Sometimes goals are HARD.

Sometimes, for some brains, goals elicit a response more like "Aaagh!" And this is where I have a confession to make.

I struggle to meet my own goals.

Constantly.

Notice I said "my own goals." I am aces with outward-facing goals. Work projects, family projects, Volunteer projects. I nail those suckers. But my own goals sometimes fall far behind the rest of my life's commitments. Perhaps this happens to you too.

Then, a few years ago, I began the year with a workshop about goals that actually made a lasting difference. Something about the way they presented two particular topics gave me "a-ha moments" of epic proportions.

Let me explain...

Two Phrases That Sparked Change

The class began with the instructor saying: "Joy. Progress. Power. Fulfillment. Learning. Impact. These are the important qualities about goals."

(And then he got to the parts I really needed to hear. The magic is in easy-to-find blue font below.)

"Your brain is meant to solve problems, not just store a bunch of to-do's. You can’t get clarity while you’re mired in a to-do list."

If you’re inside the jar, you can’t read the label.

And that was my first "a-ha moment."

Before Margie, I used to make grand lists that I would misplace or get overwhelmed by. Those lists often felt like running through molasses.

No joy.
Slow progress.
No fulfillment.

I think this is the true reason so many writers (especially ADHD writers like me) get procrastination paralysis on their projects.

It's those huge to-do lists with no clear action plan.

There is an art to writing to-do's, especially big to-do's, that must be respected.

Organizing is its own project, and it takes time. For someone with ADHD, big problems are overwhelming. I've learned to talk over the organizing with better qualified people and then use their plan if I can.

Because sometimes it helps to decide in advance what "done" looks like, so you don't get lost inside that jar.

Perhaps we cannot really manage time. Perhaps we can only manage priorities.

Example #1:

[Jenny Note: I lifted this example from a more organized friend.]

She recommends you break every goal into the smallest possible pieces.

[Another Jenny Note: I've learned from experience that when *I* try to go after a goal that takes up more than a page, it doesn't go well. In fact, it usually equals frustration and the need for a project manager. They tell me what to do and everything gets done.]

But for the more organized types:

Think about a website.

Perhaps the name of the goal is "Finish Website." But breaking down the actual goal might look more like this:

1. Brainstorm a list of steps (this lets your brain solve problems):

• Make list of 6 Hex Colors
• Find complementary graphics - at least two, must be landscape, min size: 1200x800
• Build wireframe
• Research plugins
• Choose Wordpress theme
• Choose fonts

The list is much larger than this, but there's no need to bore you with it. Organize those steps into sequential tasks. Schedule some time on your calendar, because "what gets scheduled, gets done." Work on different areas of your goals several times a week.

2. Give the Goal a Realistic Deadline.

Then add at least another few weeks to it! Understanding that goals often take twice as long as we think they will takes some of the stress away.

Example #2:

Here's a goal we can ALL relate to: "Finish Book" (or even "Finish Chapter [fill in the blank]")

Y'all know that's a terrible goal as it's written, right?

Not only does it fail the SMART goal test, it's the kind of goal that's sure to send any insecure writer screaming from the page. At the very least, there will be questions like:

• Where do I start?
• How will I know when it is done?
• When will I ever finish Act II? (Maybe that's just me and Laura Drake.)

If you have any hope of finishing something as big as a book, your list of goals has to be broken down into much smaller steps that might look something more like this:

If you're a plotter...

Chapter 1 To-Do's

• List out chapter goals
• List out characters needed onscreen to accomplish these goals
• List the problems that must be solved in this chapter
• Divide all this into 3-4 scenes
• Write them one at a time
• Repeat over multiple chapters

If you're a pantser...

• Schedule writing time
• Set out kitchen timer
• List at least two chapter goals
• Start writing (Note: timed sprints often work best for pantsers)
• Repeat over multiple writing sessions

Our friend Laura Drake is a pantser of the highest order, but she has an Excel spreadsheet of what happens in every chapter. She updates it as she goes along. She might not know everything about where she's going when she sits down to write, but she knows where she's been and it helps her move forward until she can fully see the story.

Plus, she knows the big secret of goal achievement that I mentioned above:

What gets scheduled gets done.

If you set a habit of achievement in place, you will make progress on those goals. Remember, when it comes to goals, PROGRESS = HAPPINESS.

My second lightbulb (a-ha!) moment

Not breaking down my goals into manageable pieces hurts more than my work in progress. And here it is in a bright color for y'all:

When you don’t keep an agreement with yourself, it erodes your self-confidence and the ability to trust yourself and your own word.

In other words, it's highly expensive to your confidence (including your writing confidence) to break your word to yourself.

If you are scared or shamed about meeting your goals, you will get stuck.

If you're scared or shamed about your writing goals, your writing will stall.

It's human nature. Shame equals "I don't wanna" (aka "Aaagh!"). Plus, you don't get the lovely dopamine hit a finished goal provides.

That statement above gave me a visceral response.

I had a moment when the goals seminar instructor dropped that bomb about keeping agreements with yourself. Like, roaring in the ears, need-to-take-a-break, stare into space kind of moment.

Because often, I've done this, without realizing how expensive it is in the long run.

I'm so busy meeting the demands of others in my life that my dreams get shuffled to the back of the line. Instead of those dreams getting a luxury lakefront view, they're being relegated to the seat in the back next to the trash can for days or weeks at a time.

My dreams (and yours) deserve better treatment than that.

The Good News

If this breaking your word to yourself thing is a pattern, you can make the choice to put it behind you and move forward differently. The same as it does with our characters, a misbelief can create anxiety and procrastination. It can erode our confidence in ourselves.

When you keep your word to yourself, you are better able to keep it to others. In other words, prioritizing your goals helps the others in your life too.

Some great mantras for all you Goal Chasers:

• Where focus goes, energy flows.
• What gets scheduled gets done.
• FEAR = False evidence (that) appears real.
• COURAGE = action despite FEAR.

It is not the stars that create light but rather light that creates the stars.

don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Go forth and embrace your light, y'all. We have the power to illuminate the world through our writing.

What "a-ha moments" have boosted your goal-setting and/or writing confidence? Do you break your word to yourself or do you keep it no matter what? Please share your story with us down in the comments!

About Jenny

By day, Jenny Hansen provides brand storytelling, LinkedIn coaching, and copywriting for accountants and financial services firms. By night, she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction, and short stories. After 20+ years as a corporate trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

Find Jenny here at Writers In the Storm, or online on Facebook or Instagram.

Top photo purchased from Depositphotos.