Jeannette de Beauvoir 5/14/19 Jeannette de Beauvoir 5/14/19

Pre-Thinking Your Short Story

At the end of the day, remember it’s always about the reader.

Jeannette de Beauvoir 5/12/19 Jeannette de Beauvoir 5/12/19

Travel Lightly

We know we’re lucky to be here … and you are, too. Let’s act as if we can share these fleeting months of sunshine and beauty.

Jeannette de Beauvoir 5/10/19 Jeannette de Beauvoir 5/10/19

Creating Believable Dialogue in Fiction

Just because in real life people must have a conversation with the grocery clerk about the price of melons doesn’t mean that particular interaction has to happen in the story.

Jeannette de Beauvoir 5/8/19 Jeannette de Beauvoir 5/8/19

The Nights Will Flame with Fire

Keeping going once the flames are out, whether with writing or with life: that’s the tricky part.

Jeannette de Beauvoir 5/2/19 Jeannette de Beauvoir 5/2/19

Talking about the Craft

Sometimes it’s good for a writer to hang out with other writers.

Jeannette de Beauvoir 4/16/19 Jeannette de Beauvoir 4/16/19

This Post Has Nothing to Do with Writing

Holy Week had only just begun when the palms of Sunday gave way to the flames of Notre-Dame de Paris on Monday. I was struck in particular by one of the images, which I’ve attached here, of the cathedral's gargoyles silhouetted against the fire. Gargoyles were meant to be protectors, but on this night they were helpless to protect.

Jeannette de Beauvoir 4/2/19 Jeannette de Beauvoir 4/2/19

Living with Empty Spaces

It’s okay. It’s okay to live with empty spaces, whether on walls or in books … or in life. It can be, in fact, the most freeing, exhilarating, and creative thing you can do.

Jeannette de Beauvoir 3/12/19 Jeannette de Beauvoir 3/12/19

Someone Has to Pay

I was in full work mode. I’d prepared all the relevant documents. I had the wording down. I’d pored over appropriate websites. It was time to speak with the director of the agency, and in preparation for the interview, I read everything that I could about their work. And that was when the words stopped me.

Jeannette de Beauvoir 2/28/19 Jeannette de Beauvoir 2/28/19

The Liminality of Writing

That’s perhaps the real issue with liminal spaces. They’re not safe. Anything can happen there. Demons and angels dance, memories surface, words flow together into a torrent of poetry that one has only to capture to… And there it is again. It can’t be captured. My waking self has nothing in common with my liminal falling-asleep self. One of them may well be a better writer, but the other is a writer who actually gets things written.

Jeannette de Beauvoir 2/20/19 Jeannette de Beauvoir 2/20/19

Trapped, Episode 11

“It’s not,” said the voice, “that I was having an affair. I’ve actually never cheated on my wife. That must make me reasonably unique, anyway.”

“Marcel,” I said.

“Of course, madame, who else?” He moved and the light moved with him.

I drew my knees up to my chest and encircled them with my arms. It didn’t make me feel any less vulnerable. “Why?” I asked flatly.

Jeannette de Beauvoir 2/16/19 Jeannette de Beauvoir 2/16/19

Take a Dog Moment or Two

What I’m suggesting, though, is that hope, the hope that gets us out of bed in the mornings and allows us to face another barrage of overwhelming pain and negativity, that hope has to lie elsewhere. And I think that where it lies is… well, here. Now.