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“Miles stood next to me to make sense of his notes for me. He pointed to the board. “It is separated into chapters, as you can see. The first grid under each chapter states the object, conflict, and emotion. After that are the characters and their connections. Then there are plot points, locations, phrases and conversation prompts. Or at least there should be.” He sounded discouraged. Just seeing all the remnants of the words he had erased had me feelings sucker punched for him. “How long does it usually take you to outline?” “Normally a few weeks, but this took months, and it was all for naught,” he sighed. “What happened?” He longingly looked over the mostly empty board while he ran his hand over his head. “I’ve felt a bit paralyzed. The raging success of silent stones caught me off guard, as did Isabella. I think I’ve been so afraid to finish the next book for fear it won’t live up to the first one, or to Isabella’s expectations, that I’ve been playing it safe.” “Aren’t you in charge of Isabella?” “No, darling.” He let the darling stand instead of correcting himself and changing it to Aspen. “She is very much in charge of her story. I am only her medium. And she let me know that she wasn’t exactly happy with eh direction I was going.” — Jennifer Peel