Last night we watched Knives Out on Prime. It was the girls’ first time to view it. Everyone adored the film, of course, but I especially loved what came after: a chat about craft totally unprompted by me. And this gem: Cheeze Ball said, “If I could write something like that…” as stars twinkled in her eyes.
Lights out got a bit late. Turns out, we’re not very good at it.
Still, we were up this morning before the sun. We tag-teamed the kitchen, since we spent most of yesterday without water access. And we huddled in the fort to write new six-sentence stories (snake, rubbish, acute) and overview the day.
A is still for Adapt, and the kids are taking the works of fiction they reviewed yesterday, charting them on a five-act or three-act structure, and then altering the structure. SIM campers are then doing it again for their own works.
B, still for Business, covers book publicists and book marketers. The people who force you to buy all the books against your will (and pocketbook) are some of the most interesting. How do they do it? Well, we got in the weeds with that question this morning. For exercises today, the campers prepared several promotional materials, including an author bio, press release, author Q&A, artifact (like a bookmark, coloring page, screen saver), back cover copy, and a draft email to book bloggers.
While they turn things in separately, it was delightful to hear them working collaboratively today. From the office I heard Cheese Ball say, “Figgy is helping me with my press release.” For two brothers, that’s significant!
And we had some bumps today. Playing the instrument for less than the allotted time. Singing at top-voice while not doing assignments and other people were working. Control issues surrounding the group write. Let it be known: Book Camp is not for the faint of heart!
There was even a slight existential crisis, and it wasn’t even mine.
Today sleep reared its pernicious head and I needed to sleep at 5 pm. Thankfully, the kids gathered up to revise their group write, and the A.D. led dinner efforts, so I awoke to laughter and a dinner plate.
For dinner there was a delicious comedy if errors that featured bison and angel hair pasta.
Now we’re watching a movie that gets paused periodically as the A.D. or I point out gross stuff like white privilege and misogyny. We’re definitely the fun aunt and uncle / parents.
Until tomorrow…