Character Development

My wife remarked yesterday that the characters in my book, Speedster, are so real to her that it seems like I haven't done any work in creating them; I'm just reporting what they said, the way they said it. She's almost right. They are real enough to me. It's just that, instead of occupying space, they only run around in my head. They seem happy to do and say things on their own, without any input or direction from me. The writing part is easy. The hard part is living with these bastards in my head.