The Picture in My Head

I've found it interesting that throughout the past few years I've been seriously writing, I've heard many ways in which people get the words onto the page. I never gave this much thought until a few years ago.

Back around '06 I went with my wife to see Jodi Picoult speak about a new book that was coming out. After her reading she did a Q&A with us and someone asked about how she gets her ideas. Without hesitation she said that voices just come to her and she writes what they are saying. The characters are real people within her mind and tell her their story. She channels that and *boom* she has a novel.

Now in ANY other realm of work this would be chalked up to her being crazy or having a multiple personality disorder. Not in the writing world! In our sandbox, she's making bank.

I've heard many others since that day speak about how they write and here I am throwing my method out there too. For everything I've ever written, I literally have a movie playing in my head. I can see my characters moving along the streets of New York or fumbling in a lab. Of course some places are real locations I've been to but that just adds to the realism of the motion picture of my mind. It's a theatre of one.

Spirit Hackers was all visual and Loopback is following in the exact same way. I don't know if writers change methods depending on the book they're writing but for me, I like my cozy, private screening where the food is free and no cell phones are going off.

So what's your writing method? You hearing voices in your head or talking to invisible people? Perhaps your private theatre is across the street from mine. Let's hear it!