I have written over 13,000 words today.
13,000 words!
And, they are 13,000 words which I’m immensely proud of and hopefully won’t require much editing. One chapter is 7,900 words, but it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever wrote, and I really am rather proud of it. Of course, it can probably qualify as a short story in its own right, but oh well – it might mean that once I’ve written this series, there’ll be a companion short story/novelet that goes along with the series about this character.
It’s been quite interesting to delve into the past – characters whom I hadn’t even planned or thought about before have popped up, although none will appear again apart from the character narrating it, and in the end it really explains why the character is the way she is – it’s been a very good process for me as a writer to do it, because it’s definitely going to help me with writing her in the rest of the series, and her life took some pretty interesting turns that, until I found myself writing them, I wasn’t even aware they’d taken!
So, my writing tip for the day is, write your character’s backstory in short-story format. You never know – it could end up forming an important part of your novel, like mine did, or it could just turn out to be a helpful exercize in how to write your character in the future. Either way, I’m sure it’ll help you just as much as it’s helped me!
the life of a moomin 