Writers in the Storm

March was a hard month with coronavirus, quarantines, self-isolation and school closures. A lot of people are understandably stressed out. But people are starting to rally. Home-baked goods, family time, long-delayed projects and a renewed interest in goals are creep up in all the feeds. That means it's time to celebrate Spring with a little "Pimp and Promote!"

Warning: This means the height of our "to be read piles" is going to climb because we have to go find those shiny new stories and wallow in them.

Jenny Note: Thank God for e-readers and the ability to check books out online. Overdrive is my friend. Plus many used book stores are doing free and cheap shipping. (Score!) I can't wait to see what y'all recommend down in the comments.

How does Pimp & Promote work?

To quote the genie in Aladdin, “There are a few provisos, a couple of quid-pro-quos…"

• Pimp out somebody else’s work – this can be a favorite author, blogger, post or book you’ve read, a wonderful teacher or just someone who had profound influence on you as a writer or a person. Please limit your comments to one work.
  AND
• Promote one of your projects that you’re excited about – a hobby, a blog, a book, or a new direction your writing is taking you. You decide. Just tell us about it in the comments! (Please restrain your enthusiasm to just one of your WIPs.) The rest of us will jump in and “ooooh and ahh” at you, and likely promote your project even further because we’re just so darn excited today.

We'll start things off by honoring (read "pimping") our pal, Julie Glover, who just stepped back from hosting this glorious blog. She'll be a contributor and a visitor, but will be focusing more on publishing her wonderful books.

If you loved Sharing Hunter as much as we did, her next YA novel is almost here! Daring Charlotte is available for pre-order and will be ready for you to read in June. WOO! Here's a quick description:

What dare would you take to fulfill a dream?

High school drama geek Charlotte Romero loves the stage, but not her stage fright. Instead, she works theater tech and dreams of one day seeing a show on Broadway.

When her teacher announces a drama class trip to New York, the price is way too high for her cash-poor family. But not for drama queen Deedra, a rich classmate offering $5,000 to the student who best completes her dozen dares.

Charlotte pushes past her performance anxiety and enters the contest. Soon, she’s got an unwanted spotlight, a crush on a competitor, and increasing panic that she can’t possibly win the prize.

From award-winning author, Julie Glover, another YA novel with a quirky premise, lighthearted humor, emotional depth, and memorable characters.

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From Jenny

For my promote, I choose WITS (aka Writers In the Storm). For ten years, WITS has been giving back to writers. We've only gone through a few changes in all that time, and it's time for another one.

I'm working on a new site design as we speak: new colors, new photos, new logo and a bit more sunshine to our look. Sometime in the next month, you'll open a post and things will look different. I hope you'll like it.

The content will still be thought-provoking, and all of us who love this place will still be around. We hope you keep visiting with us, and sharing us with your friends, for ten more years!

Stay healthy, y'all...
Jenny and the WITS Crew

Julie Glover

Today is the day I'm supposed to publish a "Farewell, y'all!" message, as I'm stepping away from the Writers in the Storm hosting team after March.

I started writing my So Long and Thanks for All the Fish post a while ago, and then COVID-19 swept across the planet. I kept working on the post, trying to revamp it to include some quarantine-worthy takeaways. But then, my grown son came down with a fever and a cough, and next thing I knew I was sitting here on tenterhooks waiting for his Coronavirus test results.

Spoiler alert: Test was negative.

While waiting, I had this low hum of anxiety (and ditched that draft post). Not that we were all that worried about a young, healthy twenty-something having this virus—statistics show he's not at high risk—but the idea that he could have passed it on to others was disconcerting.

Yep, it wasn't the idea of him having the virus as much as concern that it could spread.

Some things are contagious.

Many of us are stuck at home or working more hours to stop the spread of Coronavirus, a disease with a transmission rate of 2-3, meaning each carrier infects two to three persons. (For comparison, the flu's transmission rate is about 1.3.)

But when we look up the word contagious, disease is not its only meaning. Yes, that's the first one listed, but look at the second meaning.

And that's where I want to focus today. So many other things can be contagious: positive feelings, happiness, smiling, laughter, success.

What are you exposed to?

It matters what we expose ourselves to. Research has shown a number of problematic things are contagious: negative thinking, loneliness, itching, stress, and workplace rudeness, to name a few.

Among the positives are those named before—good feelings, happiness, smiling, laughter, and success—as well as weight loss, risk-taking, and a desire for new shoes. Yes, I'm counting that last one as a positive—do not challenge me!

Another contagious trait? Generosity.

Generosity spreads.

Research has established that generosity can spread from one to another.

In a 2010 study, participants were given the opportunity to contribute money to others. Those who'd received money were more likely to later give than others who had not received generosity from others, by a magnitude of three times. A 2016 study showed that even watching others make generous donations encourages participants to donate more.

Perhaps my favorite is a study from 2008 in which a "a single person acting as a 'consistent contributor'—someone who chooses to be generous all the time, regardless of other people’s choices— causes other people in a group to be more generous and cooperative."

I've seen this happen again and again in the writer community. Someone begins, and a contagion of generosity erupts!

Writers in the Storm is a generous place.

One of the reasons I agreed to help host Writers in the Storm was the generosity displayed here. Laura Drake, Jenny Hansen, and Fae Rowen have been professionally and personally some of the most generous writers I know, and working with them was a pleasure.

In addition, authors from various backgrounds guest blog and provide free writing advice. That's generosity right there.

Do they make some book sales? We certainly hope so! But most of our bloggers don't do it for that reason; they do it because generosity is contagious. They benefited from the kindness of others, and they pay it forward.

Let's be generous with each other.

In the midst of self-isolation, quarantine, global pandemic, apocalypse—whatever you want to call this—we can take advantage of the generosity of writers. Many already had resources available for free or have offered books or courses at discounted prices or for free.

For example, this past week I binged quite a few of Becca Syme's free Quitcast videos.

https://youtu.be/XWZPgFDF5NQ

This is a great time to back through Writers in the Storm posts, in which many, many writers have shared free writing advice.

And I noticed that Audible is offering over 200 stories for free, without a trial or subscription.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg! Writers are a generous bunch, cheering one another on and up in so many ways.

Today I invite you to share in the comments any free or discounted resources you know of that writers can take advantage of during this time. Let's spread our generosity far and wide!

Photo credit: Anemone123-2637160R

Sources: The Science of Generosity - John Templeton Foundation; Fowler, Paige. “8 Things You Didn't Know Were Contagious.” Shape.

About Julie

Julie Glover writes mysteries and young adult fiction. Her YA contemporary novel, SHARING HUNTER, finaled in the 2015 RWA® Golden Heart® and is now on sale! When not writing, she collects boots, practices rampant sarcasm, and advocates for good grammar and the addition of the interrobang as a much-needed punctuation mark.

Julie is represented by Louise Fury of The Bent Agency. You can visit her website here and also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Ellen Buikema

Do you remember a time when you suffered from sensory overload?

This happened to me at a SIGGRAPH Conference in Detroit, Michigan, my first and last computer graphics conference. I remember sitting in a large room in front of an enormous screen with no idea of what to expect.

What followed was a blur of fast-paced images that left me breathless and in need to flee for visual quiet which I was unable to do. Trapped in a room full of people, I wondered how many others felt as I did. I needed the world to stop. Many, many people are feeling that way right now, as they hunker down in their homes.

White space helps keep sensory overload at bay. Being bombarded with too much sound can cause some to become irritated, so can too many visuals.

I think about my days as a Resource Specialist Program teacher and how upset my students with learning disabilities became when there were too many words or math problems on a page. Sometimes they felt so overwhelmed that they panicked and froze, unable to complete more than a small percentage of their work. Adding white space changed everything. It gave breathing space. Calm.

Like a pause in a song, white space can help create drama, emotion, a bit of quiet before a storm of words.

White space is the canvas where we paint our words.

Writers can affect readers with the use of white space in several ways.

1. White space draws the reader’s attention to the words on the page, makes the print easier to read, and improves comprehension.

2. Space on the page makes finding where the reader left off reading quick and easy.

3. Kerning, the space between letters, can change the look of the print and add meaning. Just as using all capitals can be interpreted as yelling, extra space between letters may emphasize speaking words slowly. “You need to  s  l  o  w  down.”

4. The use of white space at the beginning and ending of chapters gives the reader a visual break. Some writers and formatters choose to begin a new chapter halfway down the page. Others like to start all chapters on the right hand side of the book for physical copies. A new chapter beginning on the same page as the previous chapter looks like a formatting error.

5. Line spacing may be adjusted to fit next to or around a photo or illustration, or from left to right margin across the page. Avoiding a line with the final word of a sentence dangling all by its lonesome self on the following page is a good thing and can be done using line spacing as well as kerning.

6. Blank pages are helpful in the case of an anthology of short stories, particularly if the spacing and word count send the ending of one story onto the right-hand page. A blank side gives the reader emotional space to regroup for the next tale.

Ways to create white space:

1. The use of images surrounded by a margin of space: illustrations, icons, graphs, photos, all give the reader a brief rest and let the mind focus on something different.

2. Bullet points and numbered lists make reading quicker, scannable.

3. Variable sentence lengths make for more pleasurable reading. Too many long sentences in a row create blocky text. If you pause and go back to a big block of text, it is really difficult to find one’s place.

4. Use shorter paragraphs. Big chunks of information are frustratingly hard to read.

White space doesn’t have to be the color white.

Anything not drawing one’s attention on the print on a physical book, eBook, or webpage is considered white space. A patterned or colored background is also considered white space.

Book covers:

The first thing your potential reader sees while perusing what to read next is the book cover. Whether shopping in a bookstore or online, your future customers will make a visual first-pass. If the cover is appealing, then they’ll read the back cover information and read some reviews prior to purchase.

Much of the time, we don’t pay too much attention to white space. It should go unnoticed. However, when there is too much information in too little space, we clearly miss it as we stumble into cluttered chaos.

Busy covers do not work. When pouring over the many thumbnail images of book covers online, too much informative print will be difficult to read. If there is a plethora of elements on your book’s cover, there’s a good chance the reader will avoid your book.

White space on the book’s cover allows the creation of a focal point to make that cover pop!

How do you use elements of white space in your work?

About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents and a series of chapter books for children with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Work In Progress, The Hobo Code, is YA historical fiction.

Find her at http://ellenbuikema.com or on Amazon.

Photo credits: ©Tirachard, ©Rosinka79