Birthdays: Guy de Maupassant (1850), Ruth Sawyer (1880), Conrad Aiken (1889), Peter Viereck (1916), Wendell Berry (1934), David Baldaci

Ruth Sawyer won the 1937 Newbery Medal for “Roller Skates”

Conrad Aiken won the 1930 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Peter Viereck won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Quote: “It is precisely the sort of thing I am always trying to do in my writing – to present my unhappy reader with a wide-ranged chaos – of actions and reactions, thoughts, memories and feelings – in the vain hope that at the end he will see that the whole thing represents only one moment, one feeling, one person. A raging, trumpeting jungle of associations, and then I announce at the end of it, with a gesture of despair, ‘This is I!” ― Conrad Aiken, Blue Voyage

Tip: Never be so hard on yourself that you give up. Keep at it. It’s not easy, but it can be done.

Jumpstart: Write about your first day of something: school, college, work, etc. Be specific about your feelings, experience, setting, etc.