Late Summer, Odds and Ends and Non Hurricanes

I haven't been on the computer in so long that I had to use a DustBuster and damp rags to get BabyCat's hair off the keyboard. She is so weird; she loves nothing more than a nap on a nearby keyboard. There's a bed and a comfy chair not far from this keyboard, so that kind of doesn't add up. But that's the nature of cats: they resent assumptions.

This is such a strange time here, calendar wise. I'm not wild about the ten days or so before school starts. Being a teacher and having three kids as students means a whole lot of odds and ends have to get taken care of. There have been all these little things to do that don't add up to much but take up entire days like buying school supplies, going to redundant meetings, and standing in lots of lines. All this preparing for Tuesday when everything opens. 

Then there's the hurricane preparing. The hype caused our neighbors to remind us tie down deck furniture for a hurricane that never materialized. No one would go anywhere near the beaches for a few days. And that's a shame since the beaches are gorgeous right now. Late August and early September are probably the best times for a beach, or maybe that's just when I like it. We live right by Long Beach Island.

Here's our beach - I love the fences around the dunes. You can't see them so much in this picture, but most of them slope and have this great wobbly effect:

And the dock over the bay:

I just finished a book about writing theory and it said, "Never use weather to open your setting. It is too obvious a device." I think preparing for a hurricane would be a great opening to a book. I was thinking about writing theory as I read that book last night, and I'm not sure there is one - a writing theory I mean. I do remember running to the campus book store when I was 21 and ready to write my first novel. I bought about five of those books, anxious to get started. And I remember how the advice pretty much conflicted. I think I would sum up my writing theory as: Tell the story clearly, just make sure you have a really good story.  

I think this blog post is rambling since that pretty much matches what's been going on here lately. I did manage to figure out the "voice" in my next YA book that I've been struggling with for a year now. It's totally different from when it started and it's the first one I don't doubt. So maybe there is a reason that hyper type people like me are forced to wait. Even if it is for hurricanes that don't appear or classes that haven't started  or voices in novels that don't speak in a way that convinces me they can carry the story I intend to write. Maybe all this waiting is a writing lesson of some sort.