Birthdays: Robert Burns (1759), W. Somerset Maugham (1874), Virginia Woolf (1882), Margery Sharp (1905), JG Farrell (1935), Gloria Naylor (1950), Stephen Chbosky (1970)

Robert Burns is known as the National Poet of Scotland.

Margery Sharp is best known for her children’s book “The Rescuers” that was made into a Disney movie.

Thought for the day: “Observe strangers. Let your own version of their life story shoot through your head — how they got where they are now, where they might be going — and fill in the blanks for yourself.” – Virginia Woolf

Tip: Start a list of words and phrases you tend to overuse. For me, this is “a bit” (among a lot of others – I have an entire sheet). When you edit your first draft, be sure to look for these phrases and see if you can rewrite them.

Jumpstart: Use the following: shotgun, pub, four-leaf-clover, knight – and finish this: There was no moon out that night…

Under Nonfiction:

TINY BUDDHA’S INNER STRENGTH JOURNAL by Lori Deschene – 5 Sparklers for this book of tips and coloring pages that help you find inner strength and self-esteem.

COOKING A LA HEART by Linda Hatchfield and Am Myrdal Miller – 4 Sparklers for this big book with 500 recipes based on the DASH diet.

And my favorite:

DREAMSNAKE by Vonda N. McIntyer

5+ sparklers for this old favorite.

I first read this book back in the 70s when it initially came out and loved it then, but my copy was lost over the years. It is recently back in print and reading it now, it is still as fascinating as it was then with great characters and amazing world building. Snake is a great lead character. As a healer in a dystopian society, she travels around with her snakes in what passes for doctors in the distant future. The different people she runs into run the gamut of desert nomad bands to snobbish mountain dwellers to paranoid city dwellers, and even an alien landscape and strange man who attempts to kill her. Definitely recommended for those who like science fiction.

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.

Birthdays: Francis Bacon (1561), John Donne (1572), Lord Byron (1788), August Strindberg (1849), Robert E. Howard (1906), Howard Moss (1922), Joseph Wambaugh (1937), James Carroll (1943)

Robert E. Howard was well-known for his character Conan the Barbarian. He is regarded as the father of the sword-and-sorcery subgenre of fantasy fiction.

Quote: “Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” – Francis Bacon

Tip: Watch out for the word “it” – often “it” can be changed to something stronger. The same with “thing”. Do a search on these words and see if you can rewrite into a stronger passage.

Jumpstart: Have you ever written poetry like John Donne or Lord Byron? Try writing some about what you see outside your window.

Birthdays: Richard Blackmur (1904), Judith Merril (1923), Eva Ibbotson (1925), Robert Neil Butler (1927), Gretel Ehrlich (1946), Louis Menand (1952), M.K. Hobson (1969)

Robert Neil Butler won the 1976 Pulitzer for Nonfiction for “Why Survive? Being Old in America”.

Thought for the day: “When I get stuck in a book now, I usually try putting an aunt in. I find it difficult to write a book without aunts.” – Eva Ibbotson

Tip: Keep your tenses in line. If you start out writing in present tense (I walk into the house and see his coat on the chair), stay with the present. If you use past (I walked into the house and saw his coat on the chair), stay with the past. Do not mix them (I walked into the house and see his coat on the chair).

Jumpstart: Use the following in a scene: taxi, spaceship, blizzard, New Year’s Eve.

Birthdays: Eugene Sue (1804), Nathaniel Willis (1806), Richard Le Gallienne (1866), Johannes Jensen (1873), Forrest Wilson (1883), Jean S. Macleid (1908), Abram Hill (1910), Joy Adamson (1910), Blair Lent (1930), Robert Olen Butler (1945), Nancy Kress (1948), R.A. Salvatore (1959), Tami Hoag (1959), Fareed Zakaria (1964), Vanessa Diffenbaugh (1978)

Johannes V. Jensen was a Danish author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1944.

Nancy Kress is an American science fiction writer (winner of both Hugo and Nebula awards) and also writes nonfiction books on writing.

Nathaniel Parker Willis was a poet and editor who worked with writers like E.A. Poe and Longfellow. He was the highest-paid magazine writer of his day.

R.A. Salvatore is best known for his Demon Wars Saga. Twenty-two of his titles have made the NYTimes bestseller list.

Robert Olen Butler won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993 for “A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain”.

Vanessa Diffenbaugh is the co-founder of the Camelia Network – an organization that helps children aging out of foster care.

Eugene Sue – French novelist whose work “Mathilde” contains the first use of the phrase “revenge is a dish best served cold”.

Forrest Wilson won the 1942 Pulitzer Prize for Biography for “Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe”.

Blair Lent won the 1973 Caldecott Medal for Tikki Tikki Tembo.

Quote: ““You must learn to be three people at once: writer, character, and reader.” ― Nancy Kress, Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints

Tip: You can split wood, but please don’t split infinitives. An infinitive consists of “to” along with a verb: to run, to jump, to breathe, to play, etc. When you stick a modifier in between them—to quickly run, to suddenly jump, to deeply breathe, etc.—you’re splitting them. Move the modifier elsewhere: to run quickly, to jump suddenly, to breathe deeply. Sometimes moving the modifier creates an awkward phrase. In this case, try rewriting the sentence for better flow.

Jumpstart: Pick a room in your house – preferably one that you are not in – and describe it in detail – colors, furniture, knick-knacks, dust bunnies, everything. Use this description as a setting for a scene.

Birthdays: Edgar Allan Poe (1809), Alexander Woollcott (1887), Patricia Highsmith (1921),  Jean-Francois Revel (1924), Nina Bawden (1925), Margaret George (1943), Julian Barnes (1946), Paula Deen (1947), Eden Robinson (1968), Casey Sherman (1969), Edwidge Danticat (1969)

Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian-American author whose books have been nominated for multiple awards and “The Farming of Bones” won the American Book Award.

Patricia Highsmith was an American author (d.1995) whose psychological thrillers were adapted into more than twenty films, including “The Talented Mr. Ripley”.

Quote: “When you read a great book, you don’t escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.” – Julian Barnes

Tip: Look out for dangling modifiers. This happens when a modifier has nothing to modify. For instance: “Having run through the mud, new shoes were needed.”  In this sentence, there’s an action (having run) but no subject. A better way of writing this would be: Having run through the mud, Joan needed new shoes. Even better: Joan ran through the mud and now needed new shoes.

Jumpstart: In addition to being National Hot Tea Month, January is also National Oatmeal and National Soup month. Create a menu for your character using these three basics. Would s/he go for elegant or simple? Would s/he eat in a restaurant, diner, or at home? Alone or with someone? Write the scene.

Who hasn’t read Poe? I loved his books as a teen, and still do. They get into your head. From “The Telltale Heart” to “A Cask of Amontillado” to his poems like “The Raven” or “The Bells”, they are works that will live forever.

Birthdays: Peter Roget (1779), Austin Dobson (1840), A.A. Milne (1882), William Sansom (1912), Robert Anton Wilson (1932), Raymond Briggs (1934), Binyavanga Wainaina (1971)

Where would we be (exist, live, stay, etc.) without Peter Roget and his thesaurus?

Robert Anton Wilson was a novelist, philosopher, psychologist, and more. He wrote 35 books, including “Cosmic Tiger”, “Schrodinger’s Cat Trilogy”.

Quote: “Is ‘The Wind in the Willows’ a children’s book? Is ‘Alice in Wonderland? Is ‘Treasure Island’? These are masterpieces which we read with pleasure as children, but with how much more pleasure when we are grown-up.” – A.A. Milne

Who doesn’t know about Winnie the Pooh and all his friends? But Milne is right. When we read these stories as adults, we understand more and get more from them than when we read them as children. But the enjoyment is there for everyone.

Tip: Read your story out loud. Are there areas you tend to skip over? So will your reader.

Jumpstart: This is “Winnie the Pooh Day.” If you could be a character in a Winnie the Pooh story, who would you be and why?

The reviews can be found on their genre pages as well as Goodreads and some other sites.

Under LGBTQ for adults:

“Resident’s Dilemma” by Andrew Grey – a 5**** read for this 105 page contemporary romance

“Rescue Us” by Andrew Grey – 4**** for this short contemporary romance.

Under Holidays

“Crinkles All the Way” by Ann Trader – 4**** for this 69-page contemporary holiday romance.

Under Romance

“Reluctant Hearts” by Linda Griffin – 4**** for this collection of four stories

Under Nonfiction

The Everything DASH Diet Meal Prep Cookbook by Karman Meyer – 4*** for this healthy eating cookbook