Birthdays: Susan Bogert Warner (1819), E.B. White (1899), Harold Bloom (1930), Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (1938), Patricia Polacco (1944)

Tip: Everybody has little quirks. What kind of quirks can you give your characters? Does he carry a good luck charm? Does she wear a purple silk teddy under her prim and proper business suit? Does he?

Thought for the day: “Writers write about what obsesses them…the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is.” – Anne Rice

Jumpstart: Go through your high school yearbook and pick out two or three people and write about them now. What is the “class clown” doing? The “most likely to succeed”?