Birthdays: HA Rey, Julia Donaldson

Tip: Write to your own strengths. You may love comedy or funny cozy mysteries, but not everyone can write funny. Or horror. Or romance. Figure out what you’re good at and go from there.

Thought for the day: “When you write a novel, there’s really only one way to decide which of the thousands of novels you might write that you are going to write at this time. What you do is that you write the kind of novel that you yourself would want to read at that particular time.” – Vance Bourjaily

Jumpstart: As I got closer to the ramshackle house at the end of the road, I noticed…