How I started to feel like a fictional PI

I have people living in my head.

If you didn't know any better you'd think I was certifiable.  Well, maybe I am, but not for hearing voices.

No, in my head I have people, living and talking to me.  All kinds of people.  Some of them are shy and I have to coax them out of hiding, others are very, very pushy and want to be heard whether I am ready to receive them or not.  These people are most annoying when I'm trying to work...

I have no idea where they came from, or how long they plan to stay with me.  Most of the time they just pop in like they got off a bus and they were looking specifically for me.  Once they have found me most of them want to give me as much information as they can in very short bursts.  Its like they have this story they need to tell and they need to do it RIGHT NOW!

This has happened to me so many times now I have taken to carrying a small notepad and pen in my purse.  I would whip it out anytime I would start getting frantic messages from any of my new (or sometimes older) friends.  Information is coming at me so fast I start to feel like a police officer trying to calm down a hysterical witness to a crime.

"Calm down, calm down, please.  Take a deep breath.  Now, tell me what happened."

It's at this point that I start to feel like a private investigator.  I've been hired by my clients to figure out all the people involved, gather all the facts, and tell the story.

I would always start with the very people who would come looking for my help.

I had to know everything about them.  What motivated them to come to me in the first place?  Why is this story so important to tell?  Is this person very forthcoming with the information I am looking for or do I have to interrogate them to get what I need?  After they would finish with their compulsive verbal diarrhea, I got to ask questions, lots of fun questions.

For me, at the beginning its a lot like having a phone conversation with someone.  I can hear their voice but I have no face to put with the sounds.  They usually give me a quick description of themselves but as is the case with most people, the best descriptions I get for these people come from the other people involved.  As time goes on, I start to get some pictures of the places in the story, the landscape, their homes, and finally the people.  Sometimes I'm quite surprised by how they turn out.  I had one picture in my head but when I finally see them, really get to see them, they may look completely different from what I envisioned.

Some of the people who come looking for me step right off the bus, push their way to the front of the line and demand to be heard.  These are usually the people with the most and best information.  Others will get off the bus and be content with hanging around the station until I get to them.  When this happens I usually have to pull information out of them like they were teeth.  Most often, I just explain to them that I understand that they are not ready to tell their story and I can wait for a little while but there is a statute of limitations and I will not wait forever.

I even had one case where a woman stepped off the bus dragging her brother and sister in tow.  She was very interested in telling her story, which then leads to the story of her brother and then sister.  I have heard their parts in her story, but they are as yet unwilling to share too much info about their own stories.  Fear not, I have ways of making them talk and they will come around.

So far, no one has left, they are all still with me.

To date, all of the very pushy people in my head have been women.  I don't know if that says something about them, or me...  Who knows, maybe both.

To keep track of the people living in my head I had to start keeping records.  I have a write ups on a handful of them.  Others have nothing more than a quick description.  Some go so far as to document what their favorite subject in school is and do they keep their house neat or are they messy.  Each of the questions in my file tells me a little bit about the people involved in my investigation.

You may be reading this and think it rather odd.  In fact, I felt very self-conscious about it at first.  Then I started reading interviews and blogs from published authors and realized that a lot of them admitted to something very similar, if not exactly, what I was seeing.  Some did indeed have the same experience I did.

One of my favorite authors got the idea for her wildly popular book series because she had a dream of two people fighting.  She started to do her own investigation and things just started to fall into place.  So much so, that the fight she dreamed didn't even show up until book two!

These people may be fictional characters, but to me, in my head, they are very real.  I laugh and cry with them, I share their joy and their pain.  I feel their hurt, get frustrated over their choices and feel their regrets.  I cheer over their triumphs and feel pride in their accomplishments.  These characters are almost like children to me.  Though they feel to me like they are coming from somewhere out of the blue I know they came from me.  Every last one of them.

I only hope I am worthy of their choice and that I am capable of doing their stories justice.