Last fall, at the Vancouver International Writers Festival, I had the opportunity to hear John Irving talk about his writing process. He said he writes the last line of his book first, and then works his way backwards, chapter by chapter, until he gets the first line of the book, which he writes last. I listened to him and thought: 'Yikes! - John Irving holds the entire narrative in his head and writes to an outline. That is the antithesis of what I do.'
