[whpalmer4]

Yes, you use a start date to hide actions from consideration until a future date. How would the program know that your repeated action isn't relevant until next year, unless you told it so?

If you want your daily writing tasks to not show up before the day they are due, put a start date of that same day (but an earlier hour) on them. When they repeat, the start date will be reset for next year as well as the due date.