Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Three big accomplishments

Nothing makes me feel more deliciously self-indulgent than eating a whole lobster, but that's what Jeannie, Betty and I did tonight at Lucille's, a local restaurant that once a year sponsors Lobstrama for several weeks. A whole lobster is only $13.95, and we have it with the house salad which has a roquefort-vinaigrette dressing. Needless to say, I'm stuffed but happy. I've gotten pretty good at dealing with a whole lobster and extracting the meat, especially the claw meat that is so sweet and tender. Betty laughs that she always needs instuction, though she did well tonight, and Jeannie found meat in the body cavity where I never think to look--I was full by the time I got to that. Lovely evening, although the restaurant got so crowded it was hard for me to hear, in spite of the fact that the volume on my hearing aids has been re-set and turned up a lot.
But that was only my final accomplishment of the day. The first was  cleaning closets, a chore I hate and am fully capable of putting off for two years or more. But I got a notice that the ARC would be in my neighborhood tomorrow (Association for Retarded Citizens? Surely not. There must be a more pc name for it now, but they do help people with intellectual and developmental disabilities). It sparked my conscience. I kept the notice on my desk for a week or so, thinking surely I could come up with one bag. Today, with a/c repairmen putting the finishing touches on the duct work for my new furnace, seemed like a good time to clean closets, so I did. Got four bags, including one of shoes. I was ruthless--or pretty much so. There are some things I gave leniency to for another year, and in a couple of instances, I discarded the pants, skirt or jumper but kept the top. I even straightened the shoes that were strewn haphazardly on my closet floor, put them on the shoe rack, and swept the closet. Oh, the feeling of righteousness! Tomorrow I'll put the bags out with the appropriate sign.
Then this afternoon I spent about two hours posting my short story collection, Sue Ellen Learns to Dance and Other Stories, to Kindle. They really do make it simple, though I'm afraid my text came through with no paragraph indents. Stiill, I was enormously proud of myself for having accomplished this. I priced it at $2.99, the lowest price Kindle allows. I've heard that at that price you get a lot of sales. It wilil be two or three days before it shows up in the Kindle shop.
Why, then, with these accomplishments for the day, do I feel edgy? It's the lack of a next project, but I made a resolve today: I'll finish the draft of my work-in-progress, a cozy mystery, and then move on to a nonfiction project that's floating in my head since my agent mentioned a possible assignment. I hope I'll stick to that resolution. I also have to obtain e-book permission from previous publishers and send copies of the books to the agent. And I'm still waiting for an editorial opinion on the Texas food book. Yep, I'm not giving up on the career yet.

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