Each time I start a new book I am a bit amazed that, a) I ever completed one in the first place  and b) that I will ever be able to do it again. Before I pick the next project I dance around my ideas for days, weeks (okay months) and I worry because a character isn’t talking to me or I don’t know what will happen next or I don’t even know how to start. That’s where I am now. I know the form is another middle grade verse novel. I have a character but he keeps things locked up inside of himself pretty well. I don’t blame him. He hasn’t had an easy time of it lately. I did some research about some of the things I think the book will deal with, waiting for ideas to surface but mostly what I know now is what not to use. So I am drifting in that in-between time being obsessed with the story and not-knowing what to write. And then I remembered that in the beginning I really AM in charge and I can give things to my characters, give things to the story. They might throw them out later but that’s okay. As the author it’s my duty to give the first gift. If the gift is rejected, the character will usually offer something to me in exchange. And so it begins.