Birthdays: Alice Provensen (1918), John Galsworthy (1867), Russell Baker (1925), Alice Adams (1926), William Kittredge (1932), Bryce Courtenay (1933), Danielle Steel (1947), 

John Galsworthy won the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature

Russell Baker won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize in Autobiography for “Growing Up”

Quote: “I have a good vocabulary, certainly better than most writers I would say, and I will be writing away and I will type, ‘She made a very perspicacious remark.’ (Which, for those of us not au fait with every entry in the…dictionary, means clear and lucid.) I will go back th next day and cut out the word perspicacious because three are five English words that are close enough that readers will understand. I am not trying to impress you or the reader. Keep it simple.” – John Galsworthy 

Tip: Read your dialogue out loud. Does it sound like real people are talking? Or is it stilted and long winded? You should strive to keep dialogue real, but don’t copy real speech. If you listen to real people talking, you’ll find that most conversations are full of inanities.

Jumpstart: You’re on your way to a job interview. You stop at a convenience store for some coffee and a rude person cuts in front of you. Then turns and spills his drink on your new suit. And blames you. You tell him off….and get to the interview a few minutes late only to see him on the other side of the desk. What do you do?