Birthdays: Birthdays: M.B. Stendhal (1783), Louis Zukofsky (1904), Walter M. Miller Jr. (1923), Derek Walcott (1930), Tom Reamy (1935), Fred Wah (1939), Cathy Hopkins (1953)

Walter M. Miller, Jr. is best known for his book “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

Derek Walcott won the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Thought for the day: “Don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it.” – Cathy Hopkins

 “The truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element.” – Derek Walcott

Tip: Watch your pacing. For an intense scene, keep sentences shorter, stronger. For a relaxed scene, you can relax the sentences, making them longer and more flowing.

Jumpstart: Your character has $100.00 to live on for the month. What does s/he do? What time period is it and what country is s/he in? A hundred dollars goes much further in 1805 than today and means something different in the jungles of South America than New York City.