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July 16th, 2009

I’ve more or less finished the first 100 pages of All Men Fear Me. Don is reading them now, which is always my last step before sending them in to the editor. I just gave him the pages last night, but I’ve already decided that two scenes need major revision. As anyone who has every written any fiction knows, there is no such word as done. You’re finished when the thing goes to press and there isn’t any way for you to get to it any more.

I’ll be at Poisoned Pen Bookstore tomorrow night, along with Ken Kuhlken and Priscilla Royal. The bookstore is holding a book festival this month, Bookfest in the West, and tomorrow is historical mystery author night. I do the 1910s, Ken does the mid-Twentieth Century, and Priscilla does 12th Century England.

And now for the husband update : On July 6, Don had his nephrostomy bags removed and his tubes capped in an outpatient procedure. We were given a set of bags in case his ureters didn’t start to function, but lo and behold, they did! So he’s been bagless for ten days, though he still has about six inches of tube coming out of both sides, taped down to his skin. We saw the the doctor for a follow-up this afternoon, and I was hoping that Don would be able to get the tubes removed, but no such luck. Don is still peeing like a pro, but the urologist wanted him to go immediately and have a blood test to make sure the kidneys are eliminating properly, then have another blood test in 3 weeks, followed a day or two later by yet one more outpatient nephrostogram (dye test to see that the ureters are still open), and if all is well, the tubes will be removed right then and there. So, three more weeks. We were both feeling optimistic that the end was in sight when we went in, but came out feeling… well, not so much. We were both hoping to have seen the last of hospitals for a while. He seems to have regained his equilibrium already. I’ll be fine, eventually. The endless uncertainty is what’ll get to you.

He’s going in to see the cardiologist on Monday, to get the results of the echocardiogram he had on the 10th. I expect the news will be good. Though nothing surprises me any more.

And finally, one good result of Don’s enforced leisure is that he’s been having a lot of poetry published in several different literary magazines lately. A poetry broadside called Bellowing Ark just came out this week with eight of his poems in it. The editor of that mag is going to publish a chapbook of Don’s poetry which is supposed to come out next spring. The tentative title is “Small Towns in Oklahoma.” Who know that growing up out in the boonies would end up inspiring both of us to literary careers? Now, if I could just manage to get my mind back on mine…

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