Birthdays: Martin Handford (1956), Bernard Waber (1924), Grazia Deledda (1871), Nicholas Mordvinoff (1911), Louis Auchincloss (1917), Ernest Becker (1924), Paul Goble (1933), Irvine Welsh (1958), Jim Thompson (1906), Jonathan Evison (1968), Katie Fforde (1952)

Tip: Different types of editing include: Developmental (checks for weak scenes, boring parts, plot inconsistencies, structure—the big picture); line editing (word choice, sentence construction, tags, etc.); copyedit (nitty gritty of grammar, punctuation, spelling, trademarks, etc.), and proofread (final overall look). If you hire an editor to go over your work, be sure you know what you’re getting.

Thought for the day: “If you are prepared to persevere, listen to good advice, recognise bad advice, read a lot and accept it may take many years, you probably will get published, eventually.” – Katie Fforde

Jumpstart: You wake up one morning, ready to start the day, but when you go into the bathroom, there’s a message on the mirror in your handwriting. It tells you not to go out. There are more notes over the house warning you not to go out. But it’s a beautiful day and you’ve been cooped up for days. What do you do? When did you write the notes and why?