Birthdays: Niccolo Machiavelli (1469), Jacob Riis (1849), E.W. Howe (1853), Andy Adams (1859), Dodie Smith (1896), May Sarton (1912), Ben Elton (1959), Reza Aslan (1972)

Dodie Smith is known for the book “The Hundred and One Dalmatians”

Mavis Jukes won the 1985 Newbery Award for “Like Jake and Me”

Quote: “I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring – I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house.” – Dodie Smith

Tip: Don’t use song lyrics in a story unless you wrote the song. Getting permissions can be difficult and expensive. Not getting permission could end in a lawsuit. Even a few lines can be problematical.

Jumpstart: For just one hour, you have the power of a god. What would you do? Why?

Birthdays: Novalis (1772), Jerome K. Jerome (1859), E.E. Smith (1890), Benjamin Spock (1903), Martha Grimes (1931), Esther Freud (1963),

Dr. Benjamin Spock was best known for his “Baby and Child Care” book

Quote: “It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.” ― Jerome K. Jerome

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” ― Benjamin Spock

 “You can’t be blocked if you just keep on writing words. Any words. People who get ‘blocked’ make the mistake of thinking they have to write good words.” – Martha Grimes

Tip: Learn to use “track changes” in your processing program. It’s what most editors and publishers rely on when editing your work.

Jumpstart: Look at a scenic picture. What is happening just out of sight?

Birthdays: Joseph Addison (1672), James Ford Rhodes (1848), Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881), Elizabeth Marie Pope (1917), Joseph Heller (1923), Bobbie Ann Mason (1940), Karen Thompson Walker (1980)

James Ford Rhodes won the 1918 Pulitzer Prize for History for “History of the Civil War, 1861-1865”

Elizabeth Pope received a Newbery Honor for “The Perilous Guard”

Quote: “The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on. It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead.” – Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves.” – Joseph Addison

Tip: Don’t use fancy fonts, weird characters, or unusual symbols in your manuscript unless absolutely necessary.

Jumpstart: You’re at a conference and sit at a table with seven strangers whom you hit it off with, although the talk seems a bit odd to you at times. You shrug it off as you are having the best time you’ve had yet. Then you realize you’re at the wrong banquet. What do you do?

Birthdays: Alice B. Toklas (1877), John Crowe Ransom (1888), Larry Niven (1938), Annie Dillard (1945), P.C. Cast (1960), John Boyne (1971), Naomi Novik (1973).

John Ransom won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1964.

Annie Dillard won the 1975 Pulitzer for General Nonfiction for “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”

Quote: “If you have good friends, no matter how much life is sucking , they can make you laugh.” ― P.C. Cast Kristin Cast

“If what you have to say is important and/or difficult to follow, use the simplest language possible. If the reader doesn’t get it then, let it not be your fault.” – Larry Niven

Tip: Always back up your work. ALWAYS!!!

Jumpstart: Pick one day of the week and write a paragraph or a page about that day. What do you commonly do on that day? Describe the typical day in detail, being very specific. Now, put your current character in that day—how would he or she react differently than you?

Birthdays: Antonio Frasconi (1919), Harper Lee (1926), Lois Duncan (1934), Diane Johnson (1934), Alice Waters (1944), Kit Williams (1946), Christian Jacq (1947), Terry Pratchett (1948), Carolyn Forché (1950), Amy Hest (1950), Roberto Bolano (1953), Ian Rankin (1960)

Antonio Frasconi won Caldecott Honors for his artwork.

Harper Lee won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her book “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

Quote: “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” – Terry Pratchett

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Tip: If you’re writing a series, set up a consistency spreadsheet with character names, attributes, cars, house, etc., settings, anything that you might need to keep straight. Do this with your first book and all following ones so you know who’s who and what’s what.

Jumpstart: Today is your character’s birthday. What’s the best gift they’ve gotten? The worst? From whom? Why was it the best or worst?

Birthdays: Marcus Aurelius (121 AD), John James Audubon (1785), Anita Loos (1889), Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889), Vincent Alexandre (1898), A.E. van Vogt (1912), Bernard Malamud (1914), Patricia Reilly Giff (1935), Marilyn Nelson (1946), Natasha Trethewey (1966), Lisa Unger (1970)

Vincent Alexandre won the 1977 Nobel Prize for Literature

Patricia Giff is a two-time winner of a Newbery Honor

Natasha Trethewey won the 2007 Pulitzer for Poetry and was the US Poet Laureate in 2012

Quote: “A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.” ― John James Audubon

“First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about.” – Bernard Malamud

Tip: Similar to the previous day, when used as a name, Mom and Dad are capitalized (I love you, Mom). When used as a designation, they are not: (She’s my mom).

Jumpstart: You are a newly adopted puppy or kitten. What is your new home like? How do you feel? What is your new family like? Write this scene from the new pet’s point of view.

Birthdays: Walter De La Mare (1873), Maud Hart Lovelace (1892), Ross Lockridge Jr. (1914), Dorothy Salisbury Davis (1916), J. Anthony Lukas (1933), Ted Kooser (1939), Padgett Powell (1952), Melvin Burgess (1954), Dinesh D’Souza (1961)

Ted Kooser was the US Poet Laureate from 2004-2006.

Quote: The most important part of religion isn’t in any church. It’s down in your own heart. Religion is in your thoughts, and in the way you act from day to day, in the way you treat other people. It’s honesty, and unselfishness, and kindness. Especially kindness.

Maud Hart Lovelace

“Just keep writing, even if you’re writing rubbish. Once you have something down, you have some material to work with. It’s all in the edit, so don’t be fussy on the first, or even the second or third drafts. Or, get away, leave it alone for a while. Have a bath, don’t think about it, then try again. Sometimes you need to leave a problem in the back of your mind before it comes together.” – Melvin Burgess

Tip: Capitalization: when using terms like “the queen”, or “the president”, “the general”, etc., they don’t get capitalized. They do when used as a name: Queen Elizabeth, President Kennedy, General Grant.

Jumpstart: If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why? Be specific.

Birthdays: Anthony Trollope (1815), Carl Spitteler (1845), Elizabeth Goudge (1900), Robert Penn Warren (1905), George Oppen (1908), William Goyen (1915), Doris Burn (1923), Clement Freud (1924), Shirley MacLaine (1934), Brian Garfield (1929), Sue Grafton (1940), David Morrell (1943), Karan Mahajan (1984)

Carl Spitteler is a Swiss poet who won the 1919 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Robert Penn Warren won Pulitzers in both literature and poetry.

George Oppen won the 1969 Pulitzer for Poetry

Quote: “As much as I like it when a book I’m writing speeds along, the downside can be that an author becomes too eager to finish and rushes the end. The end is even more important than the first page, and rushing can damage it.” – David Morrell

Tip: Try not to use colons, semicolons, or parentheses in fiction writing. They clutter things up, especially in ebooks. Stick with the basics of periods, commas, question marks, etc.

Jumpstart: You are at a family reunion. Your great-aunt Bertie pulls you aside and whispers in your ear. What she says is so shocking, you can barely handle the news and you have to pretend like nothing happened so others don’t get curious. What did she say to you? Why did she tell you?

Birthdays: William Shakespeare (1564 est.), Edwin Markham (1852), Ngaio Marsh (1895),  Halldor Laxness (1902), Avram Davidson (1923), J.P. Donleavy (1926), Charles Johnson (1948), Pascal Quignard (1948), Michael Moore (1954), Carlos Maria Dominguez (1955), Arthur Phillips (1969)

Halldor Laxness is an Icelandic writer and the only one from there to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Quote: “It is often much harder to get rid of books than to acquire them. They stick to us in that pact of need and oblivion we make with them, witnesses to a moment in our lives we will never see again. While they are still there, it is part of us.” – Carlos Maria Dominguez

Tip: In dialogue, ellipses (…) are used to indicate a trailing off, hesitation, or that something is missing. An em dash (—) is used to indicate an abrupt interruption.

Jumpstart: If money was no object and you could go anywhere in the universe for a vacation, where would you go and why? What would you do? Who would you take with you? (Remember, I said “universe”. Don’t limit yourself to this world, or even this time!)