car and school prep

Whew. Our car is finally fixed. They let us borrow one from their used lot while they continued to look at the instrument cluster because things got urgent today with school registration. The upshot of it was that we had a bad battery, that was supposedly still under warranty, only they couldn't find a replacement locally or even searching the internet. So we ended up yes, buying a new battery anyway--but at least they put in an inexpensive one (relatively) that does have easy warranty replacement, should that ever matter. That didn't completely solve the problem, though, as they couldn't get power to consistently flow through the instrument cluster. I guess there are a ton of wires, and it took a while to figure out which one was bad. It turned out that the bad one was frayed and power was only getting through intermittently. But luckily it is all fixed now. The car they lent us was a little bigger, true--but I was too short for it (even pulled way up too close to the dash, the gas pedal was too far for comfort), and it stunk of tobacco. And our engine drives better, anyway.

So if the car repairs weren't fun enough, I spent all morning registering kids for school and shelling out a TON of money. Yikes. I like those states that don't charge extra for free public schooling. Especially when I have four kids in school. Some of my kids are looking forward to starting school. My 11YO, though, walked out and said, "I wish I was registering for Hogwarts, instead." No kidding. He wistfully said he wished he was getting his letter (he turned 11 a couple weeks ago), so we did write one up for him and gave him a little stuffed owl the size of Pigwidgeon on his birthday. I pointed out that he might have to take Divination if he was going to Hogwarts, and he said that even Divination was better than Saxon Math. (Which he doesn't even have this year--he's in pre-algebra.)  Still. I can definitely sympathize.

So now all we have left is 11's last cub scout event, where he gets to give a talk on honesty (with one day's warning--eep), AND bring refreshments to, AND help clean up. So that will be busy. And then picking up some school supplies/clothes. One more week, and it all starts again.

writing stuff (Save the Cat)

Fall is way more the beginning of a new year to me than January 1 has ever been. So it's not surprising that I feel my brain sparking off in all directions. I woke up this morning thinking I should start studying for a class, like a Russian refresher or something. But I think I'm going to channel that into writing education. I really liked an interview I saw yesterday at the writeoncon.com conference, with Holly Root, Martha Mihalick, and MollyO'Neill. Just a lot of useful insights, like, a plot you can explain simply is what gets Holly Root's attention. And probably the editors, too. But what keeps the editors reading is 1) character, 2) surprises, and 3) good writing. I feel like I need to work especially on characters and pacing right now, so that was good to hear. Then pixiechick_sw  recommended Blake Snyder's book Save the Cat!, which came in for me at the library. I haven't gotten very far in it because of all the car and school stuff, but it's good so far. The bit about the pitch mirrors what Holly Root was saying about distilling the plot into a sentence or two. I also liked his chapter on different genres. They aren't the genres people usually talk about, like romantic comedy or whatever. They have more to do with what the kind of story it is at its heart. I think a lot of times, authors query someone based on an external genre, and then get annoyed when an agent doesn't go for it. "But she wants paranormals!" But maybe what actually draws that agent in is a story of being the outsider. The creatures are just incidental. So I thought that was useful.

I'm sure I'll have more insights, but so far, that's what stuck out to me.