Another day of recuperation. The sun streams into the studio until noon. Thought I would listen to some music and see how stitching would feel.
Mighty Madam Salem beat me to the stitching chair. She normally gets up and goes when I ask. Not today.
Things quickly got worse.
I can't imagine who was attached to the hand in the left forefront. My baby sister Patty was tied to the kitchen step stool. That hand was probably assigned to keep her on the seat. Pat had been recently bumper from the Little Darling spot by my baby brother Rob, the baby in my dad's arms, my mother right across from them.
My aunt Vera next to Mom (was that a smile? Not likely.) Across from her, the portly Clark Gable, my Uncle Bob. The man beside me, Grampa, and across from me, my sister Kitty. We couldn't quite kick each other under the table but I'll bet we tried.
I remember these meals as occasions where we would have to choose the least noxious vegetable to make our plate look like a balanced meal. As this was likely my grandparent's house, we were in for trouble. Turnips, pearl onions, lima beans, cooked carrots! {shudder}
Of course, it was my Grandma Nelly, nabbing history with her beloved Brownie box camera. Again.
These days, a big chunk of a writer's time has to be given over to things that used to be handled by a publisher, if you were lucky enough to land one. On the front end, among many other things, editing ( I feel, yah, Dee). And on the back end, marketing. (I wonder just how many of those commas were in the right place?)
Before I forget, today is the last day you can get all three e-books of Prophets Tango for free.
The 'Zon lets us run a sale like this once every 90 days and for those of you who don't know, writers still earn money based on the number of pages read. No king's ransom, but I'll take it. So we take this gamble if we think we've written a page-turner. I can't imagine reading a book that wasn't.
Yes, I've rented my soul to the devil (Amazon) for a second ninety-day hitch. A commitment that keeps me from selling books elsewhere, but it's about the only way a self-published author can make any waves these days and there are a lot of friggin' fish in the sea.
So this whole week, which I really only picked out of the blue, has been a study in timing. Between tending Charlie (who gifted me this lovely cold), prepping, and cooking for Thanksgiving, I've been haunting the
I am so ready to crawl into a hole on a beach and just wait for high tide.
Christmas decorations? Shopping? Fuggedaboutit for now.
How do you like my solution for not being able to lift the bird in order to make gravy?
The furnace murmurs on under the house. All three cats are on the bed, their ongoing war silenced. The house smells like Bell Seasoning and dark, greasy gravy with the promise of cold turkey sandwiches.
