There are an abundance of zany holidays in April. Whether you prefer to write mysteries or romance, thrillers or fantasies, science fiction or historical fiction, I'm sure you can find one of them that catches your eye and causes storylines to start running through your mind.

How many chances will you take on Take a Chance Day? Will you visit a mad scientist on World Laboratory Day? On Talk Like Shakespeare Day, will thou talkest like Shakespeare?

Take a Chance Day - This day is about taking chances. What chance will you take today? How important to you is it that you succeed at what you are trying to do? Will you take a chance at getting your story or book published? Will you take a chance by asking that certain someone that you have had a crush on for years out on a date? Will you take a chance by signing up for a class that you have always desired to take?

Create a character who decides to take the biggest chance ever. What is this chance? Does your character succeed?

World Laboratory Day - Great discoveries have been made in laboratories. Medical treatments and cures , after vast amounts of testing, have been found. Laboratories have also been used for more diabolical purposes. Remember Frankenstein? This creation of a mad scientist was brought to life in a laboratory.

Create a character who is a mad scientist. Frankenstein was fiction, but your character wants to create him for real, only he is working with animals, not with humans. What does he end up creating? And does he succeed in bringing it to life?

Talk Like Shakespeare Day - In celebration of this great writer, April 23 has been declared Talk Like Shakespeare Day. How does one do this?

1) Don't say you, instead say thee or thou
2) Don't say y'all, instead say ye
3) Address men as Sirrah, address ladies as Mistress, and address all your friends as Cousin.
4) Modern curse words aren't to be used. Instead you can call your tormentors jackanapes or arsehole.
5) Forget about using the word it. Instead just use the letter 't'. Say things like 'twas, 'twill, and 'twasn't.
6) Speak in verse, prose, or songs.
7) When you are in doubt, just add 'eth to the end of verbs – falleth, droppeth, jumpeth, runneth, etc.
8) When you really want to make your voice heard, begin your sentences with words such as methinks, mayhaps, in sooth, or wherefore.

On this day, I challenge thee to compose a story written entirely in verse, prose, or song. Today pretend that ye speak middle English. Who knows? Mayhaps thee will compose a tale that will last just as the tales of Shakespeare have.