What’s your preferred method of writing? Do you write in a notebook, on the computer, with music?

In the early stages I write everywhere, though usually in a sketchbook where I doodle and jot down ideas. My iPhone is also chock-full of notes that hit me when I am out and about. Eventually, this becomes a bulletin board full of index cards with plot points and characters, which I develop into an outline.

I listen to quite a bit of music while I work—though I cannot listen to anyone singing while I write. The lyrics distract me. Often, I create playlists of soundtracks and themes while I create.

For instance, while working on The Spiderwick Chronicles books my playlist consisted of soundtracks from The Black Cauldron, Braveheart, The Dark Crystal, The City of Lost Children and The Princess Bride. For the WondLa trilogy, it was spacey sci-fi soundtracks like Logan’s Run, Gattaca and The Black Hole.

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Never Abandon Imagination Tony DiTerlizzi: Never abandon imagination.

Imagination is a world of possibility that exists within each of us. It is what makes us uniquely human. It is our creative fingerprint that touches and influences the world around us. Imagination is essential to art and science; to innovation and prosperity. It gives us hope, calls us to action and leads to change.

Whether it’s fairies, dragons, robots or aliens, all of my children’s book characters are siblings born of my imagination – an imagination strengthened through years of encouragement from family, teachers and friends. While so many others abandoned it during their transition from childhood to adulthood, I fiercely held onto mine, hoping for a day when I could share it to inspire the next generation of dreamers. Innovators. World changers.

Imagination empowers us to envision and create a reality of what could be. We must hold it dear, foster it and never abandon it.