When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people, not characters – Ernest Hemingway

First: I’m going to limit Writing Wednesday to every other week, mainly because I don’t always have something to say. I like to think I’m a “quality over quantity” type of person, but if you read the first draft of any of my stories, you’d see that the opposite is just as true.

Moving on:

One of my favourite parts of writing is making up characters (I’m sure I’ve said this before). I like forming a picture of them in my mind and describing the heck out of them so that others can see what I’m seeing. I give them names and personalities, families and friends. By a certain point, I start to think of them as being real. As being actual people with actual lives instead of playthings for my imagination.

After finishing Fireworks, I decided that I would start celebrating my characters’ birthdays. I don’t actually leave the house to celebrate, but I acknowledge their birthdays with a tweet.

If it’s wrong to use a screen cap of my past tweets in my own blog, then I don’t wanna be right.

Last week, I was shocked when I forgot Pippa’s birthday.

Which is ironic, really, because of all my characters, she’s the one most often left feeling lonely and/or unloved. I personally find her fascinating (I’m 20+ pages into the sequel told from her point of view and I’m still learning more about her with every word). So I actually felt kinda bad that I forget.

I realize that she’s not real. I realize that no one else cares if I acknowledge a character’s birthday or not. But she’s been living in my head for over a year and I feel as bad as I would if I forgot a friend’s birthday.

Side note: I’m pretty sure I treat my characters better than I treat some of my acquaintances (sorry, guys. If you lived in my head too, we’d have a similar relationship).

At first I thought it would be a little odd to celebrate characters’ birthdays and achievements (I plan on sobbing on May 1 because it will be the anniversary of someone’s death), but since there are millions of fans who acknowledge July 31st as being the birth date of one Harry James Potter, perhaps it’s not that weird.

So even though I’m over a week late (her birthday is February 11th, according to a note I forgot I made), here’s to you, Pippa – the misunderstood “witch” whose heart is in the right place but who just has really bad luck (don’t worry, Pip, you’ll redeem yourself eventually).