Fun Celebration and Recognition Days

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Part of the setting for writing a novel is choosing a date or time period in which the story takes place. Sometimes it is a pivotal point for the story, where other times it is simply a way of letting your reader know there is a reason the main character is in a phone booth instead of talking on a cell phone.

In my writing, sometimes the climax of the story is a very particular date – the first Kentucky Derby in SPINNING THROUGH TIME; an Independence Day celebration (4^th of July) in PROSPECTING FOR LOVE, or the date a steamboat sank in HOLD ON TO THE PAST. There were very specific reasons for the dates I used.

Yet in other stories, I mentioned a particular event/date simply to enhance the setting. Referring to college basketball’s March Madness needs no explanation, but it was a way of introducing my readers to the time of year in a way other than simply saying “It was March.”

There have even been times when I made up a particular celebration day. After all, why shouldn’t there be a Mermaid Festival on the small island of Lockabee to celebrate the legend of mermaids saving a group of fishermen? (PRELUDE AND PROMISES)

If you want to add an interesting celebration or a fun recognition day, you don’t even have to make them up. Someone already did it for you. A complete list for every day of the year is located at https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/fun/. It is only one of several lists I found in an easy internet search. The first thing I looked for was my birthday, July 13^th.  “Embrace Your Geekness Day”? Why couldn’t it have been National Margarita Day? 

Yesterday was Lost Sock Recognition Day, which reminded me of a conversation with my eight year old grandson. While visiting, I was helping sort socks from the laundry and with three children, there was always a pile of socks with no matches. My grandson suggested writing a story about the lost socks. I looked on line to see if I could find such a book for him and that’s when I came across May 9 as Lost Socks  National recognition Day, but since I couldn’t find an already published book, I wrote a short story which of course, included my grandson and his siblings.

The fun thing about being a writer is that not everything has to be written for publication. This little story was something fun that I put together with Microsoft Publisher and generic clip art, but after reading it, my grandson wanted to write a sequel, which we are working on now.

 For those of you who like writing exercises, pick a day and write a story, a poem or an essay. Why do we recognize this day? How did it come to be? What can be done to celebrate this special day? And if you don’t like the “recognition day” for your birthday, check out these other sites, or make up one of your own!
https://nationaltoday.com/national-day-calendar/
https://nationaldaycalendar.com/calendar-at-a-glance/

By the way, today, May 10^th, is “National Clean Your Room Day”. I can say for certain it’s not going to happen here.