✿ Jean gave life to a fictional story in the form of an outline for a novel with a diverse panel of characters that already has me imagining them and the twists and turns to come. For years, I was sort of spinning ideas in my head while out hiking the woods. After a few seasons of that, the mere thought of attempting even a novel outline exhausted me; then I explored ghostwriting services (and I wasn’t even certain “ghostwriting” was real at this point or if it was just a vague memory from the 90s PBS fantasy show, Ghostwriter).  To have someone take my ideas and craft them into an outline that would give me the confidence and optimism to journey forward with this idea was exactly what my heart needed. This is where Jean entered. Jean took my ideas and added creative perspective and energy that I desperately needed. The result was a concise outline with all the necessary components replete with a cast of characters, settings, and vignettes. Jean has startled my own creative, but very glacial, cogs into motion with the unexpected alternative perspective which has challenged me to think about how I would develop certain elements of this story, and most importantly, consider how a person very different than me might experience a scenario. What would someone not like me see? These challenges, I find, force my own creative hand.  

—(original review date: July 2022)