I am in the midst of trying to get the first 100 pages of my fifth novel, All Men Fear Me together to send in to my editor. Here is how the process works at Poisoned Pen Press, who are the publishers of my series : when a returning author (one who is in the midst of writing a series or who have had books published by PPP before) is ready to submit a new novel, she is required to first send in an outline and/or synopsis of her proposed series for approval. The editor either gives the go-ahead or proposes alterations - or rejects the idea, in which case the author is free to either submit something else or take his book to another press. If the idea is accepted, the next step is to submit the first 100 pages of the novel so the editor can make suggestions about the way the story is going before the author runs completely off the rails and writes an entire book that the press doesn’t want to publish. Said 100 pages don’t have to be perfectly polished and in finished form. In fact, I’ve never heard of an author whose first 100 stayed the same from first approval to last. Mine certainly never have. In any event, I have already written well over 100 pages of All Men Fear Me. But now I have to put them in some sort of order that makes sense, and cobble the scenes together. Consequently, unless something is broken, or Don needs tending, I can’t think about anything else but the book right now. I have 90 email messages saved as new! If I owe you a letter, be patient. I’ll get to it one of these days. And if you think this is bad, wait until I get the go ahead to submit the entire novel!

I do want to mention that unless something goes awry, I will be doing an event at Poisoned Pen Bookstore on July 17, beginning at 7:00 p.m. in conjunction with the bookstore’s Bookfest in the West. The 17th is History Mystery night, and I’ll be participating on a panel with other historical mystery novelists. If you’re a fan of historical mysteries, it should be a fun event. Check it out at the store’s website, www.poisonedpen.com.

Sadly for my powers of concentration, there have been a lot of things broken around here lately. In my last entry, I mentioned the section of stockade fence that fell down. We bought several 4-foot metal tree stakes at Lowe’s. I managed to wrestle the fence back into place, then Don leaned on the fence to keep it in place while I pounded the stakes into the ground and secured the fence to them with wire. It’ll do for a while. Of course, I could hardly move the next day. So, I’m feeling all proud of myself, until about 11 p.m. the next evening, when Don walks in and says, “The air conditioner sounds funny.” Lo and behold, no air coming out.

I live in southern Arizona. If the a/c goes out in June, this is not something you can put off fixing. I called the a/c people at 8 a.m., and they had someone out by 9. Turns out the motor failed. This ticks me off, since the air conditioner is only five years old. The technician has to go find another motor and install it, so it takes him until about 2:30 to finish, at which time it’s 108 degrees outside. But here’s the good news - there was still 2 months to go on the warranty, so it didn’t cost one red cent to fix! I asked the guy how much it would have cost to repair, and he said between $700 and $800. So I was feeling all proud of myself, until I called the a/c company to ask how much it will be to renew the warranty for another five years. Guess what she said? Go ahead, guess!

You are correct! Between $700 and $800! $775, to be precise. I will be digging into the savings, after all.
Awaiting my further attention is the sagging front door, not to mention the tale of the leaking sink. It’s not just husbands who fall apart after a certain age - houses seem to, as well.

And speaking of husbands of a certain age, for those of you who are following Don’s progress, the latest is that he will be going into the hospital this Monday, July 6, for an outpatient procedure to have the tubes switched out and a dye test performed. We thought that they would be tying the tubes off at the same time, but it seems not. Apparently we will have to wait until he sees the urologist on July 16. He has a busy July, doctor-wise. He’s scheduled for an echocardiogram on July 9, and has appointments with his cardiologist on July 20 and his GP on July 22. However, if it all goes as planned, the tests will all go swimmingly and he’ll be able to have the nephrostomy tubes removed. As of July 5, it will be six months since I took him into the emergency room with kidney failure.

We saw Doogie the teenaged urologist today (actually, I call him Zippy, but I don’t want you to think he’s a pinhead. He just moves very fast) for Don’s post hospitalization follow up. Here’s the deal. His belly wounds are healing up very nicely. The Doc took off all the dressings, so he’s not all bandaged up in the front any more. The doctor wants to wait three more weeks to make sure the ureters are healed up, then Don will have a bunch of blood tests to make sure the kidneys are functioning well, followed by another outpatient trip to the hospital. They will inject dye into him to make sure the ureters are open, then insert new tubes, but tie them off for a week. This way they’ll see if he’s passing enough urine naturally, and if something is amiss, we can open up the tubes and let the urine out. We’ll go back to the doctor’s office after one week, and if everything works as it should, he’ll make arrangements to have the tubes removed. So. We shall see.

As I noted in my last post, I’ve been doodling around with book number five for over a year, writing in fits and starts, and I have finally reached a point where I am able to begin connecting all the dots. I have enough of a manuscript now that I hope to send it to my editor for approval within days, and gain a spot on the publishing schedule . That doesn’t mean it’s finished, but it does mean that I’m doing more rewriting than writing now, and I’ve managed to come up with something like a book. Maybe I’ll have a book out in 2010 after all! No more emergencies, please God.

I’m hoping that our next three weeks will be fairly quiet, and I can finish my outline and continue working on the book, but I’ll keep you posted. July is jam packed with doctor’s appointments, heart, kidneys, ureters, and general practice. If I never have to see another hospital or doctor’s office again, it’ll be too soon for me.

Things are going well. Don’s belly piercings are healing up nicely, and he’s feeling pretty good. We’ve had a couple of little outings since he got home from the hospital on the 6th, a drive or two, and even a lunch out. For the past day or two, he’s been helping me create the outline I have to send in to my publisher before my next book is approved and placed on the publishing schedule. As anyone who has every tried to outline a book knows, this is a horrible task. How does one explain the story one has in mind in such a way that it doesn’t make the editor’s eye glaze over? However can I convey to her how incredibly exciting and fascinating this book is going to be?

The truth is, you just can’t. Fortunately, a good editor knows how to glean the potential from your outline. Part of the problem is that the book isn’t entirely written yet, and believe me, as I write it, it will depart from the outline in ways that I cannot possibly foresee. A good editor knows that, as well.

I’ve been working on this book in fits and starts for over a year. I’ll just get going, and my poor old darling will have some new crisis, and that is the end of my writing efforts for weeks on end. However, just by sheer perseverance over time, I have managed to produce a fairly complete manuscript. All I need is an end. I know who done it, and I know that Alafair is going to be the catalyst for discovering who done it, but I haven’t quite figured out how those two things are going to converge.

Oh, well. By now I know that if I simply sit down and start writing the scene, some miracle will happen and it will all come together in such a way that it’ll seem like I knew what I was doing all along.

Don will be visiting the urologist this Thursday, and we hope we’ll be able to discover how well the operation worked. I’ll try to post whatever we find out shortly thereafter.

After spending five and a half days in the hospital, Don is finally home. I brought him home late in the afternoon on D-Day. I felt rather like we had just been through a war, too. What a relief to be home. He feels good, all things considered. They kept him in the hospital longer than usual, I think, because the surgery was so long and complicated, and to make sure his heart issues weren’t going to give him any problems. We were told on Friday that he’d get to go home the next day, but as anyone who has ever been in the hospital knows, it took forEVER to get checked out on Saturday. The surgeon/urologist gave his okay to go at about 2 p.m. Then the nurse removed his metal staples and covered the slits with an antibiotic tape, removed his foley (what fun), and pulled the IV tube out of his neck. For some reason they put the IV in his neck instead of his arm. He said that having his tubes ripped out wasn’t all that enjoyable, but it didn’t bother him that much either. He has an amazing tolerance for discomfort. Since the day of the operation, he has not had any pain medication stronger than Tylenol.

Oddly, when Don came out of the recovery room on Monday, he had a black eye, which he did not have before he went in. The anesthesiologist thought that maybe the oxygen tube they stuck up his nose may have caused it, and the surgeon agreed. I wondered if perhaps the anesthesiologist had studied at the Popeye the Sailor Man School of Putting People to Sleep By Socking Them in the Eye. If so, he wouldn’t admit to it.

We have an appointment to see the urologist on June 18. The Doc said we’ll just have to wait and see if everything will begin to function normally. At least the stones are gone, the operation ordeal is over, and Don is out of the hospital. Our plan now is to sleep for two or three days.

On Monday, the day of Don’s surgery, I finally got home at 11 p.m.  The surgery was scheduled for 11 a.m., but they didn’t take him in until around noon.  The doc came out at about 4 p.m. and told me that side 1 was done and looked good.  He then went back into the OR and I heard nothing until 8 p.m., when the doc came and told me that side 2 was done. It had taken longer because of the scar tissue left from Don’s bowel resection back in 1965. He was able to do both sides by robotic surgery and didn’t have to cut him open. The urologist said that the stones were so embedded that he couldn’t get them out, so he ended up cutting out a little chunk of the ureters along with the stones and sewing them back together.  Apparently everything went very well and the STONES ARE OUT!  He still has the tubes, until they see how well he heals up and if everything opens up like it ought.  They didn’t let me in to see him until about 10:15 p.m., and then only for a few minutes.  He was groggy, but lucid and in pretty good spirits.  He said the worst pain he had was a very sore throat from the breathing tube.  

They moved Don out of the ICU and to a regular hospital room early this afternoon, which is a good thing, except for the fact that the regular room is very small and tight.  Don is still feeling okay.  The only pain relievers he’s had since the day of the operation is Tylenol.  He still has tubes sticking out all over the place.   Now we’re just waiting to see if the ureters will start functioning normally after all the trauma. If all goes well, he might be able to go home tomorrow, or perhaps the day after. I’m just hoping they’ll remove at least a few of those tubes before he does.

I’ve been living at the hospital, except to sleep, so I’m way behind on my e-mails and everything else having to do with regular life.

And that’s about all I know at this point. I’ll post more news when I get the chance. Until then, thanks for all the notes and calls and good wishes.  

We drove up to Banner Desert Hospital Thursday morning for Don’s pre-op conference.  We spent an hour or so talking to an exceedingly pleasant and upbeat nurse named Joan, who is from Maine and had such a heavy New England accent that it sounded like a joke.   She took all his history and list of meds, and told us what would happen from the time we check in on Monday morning until he’s discharged.  She explained all the advantages of robotic surgery, which is much safer and easier to heal from, but takes about twice as long to do.  The surgeon has scheduled the operating room for 4 1/2 hours.  We’re supposed to get to the hospital at 9 am, and the surgery is at 11 am.  So Monday will be a long, long day for me, though Don will be asleep through most of it.

The Doctor told us early on that because of Don’s bowel resection back in 1965 there is a possibility that he has too much scar tissue for the robotic surgery to work, in which case they’ll resort to conventional surgery then and there.  He’ll be in the hospital 3 days or so with robotic surgery, up to a week if they have to cut the regular way.

In any event, Joan was very good at her job, and we came away feeling educated and fairly upbeat.  After we left the hospital, we grabbed some lunch and had a walk in the nearest mall, trying to get some exercise.  We got home around 2:30, and my ambitious plan was to sit right down and write on Book 5, but as it turned out, I could not keep my eyes open.  I lay down to take a short rest, and lo and behold the next thing I know it’s 5 o’clock.  This is most unusual - I don’t know where the sudden exhaustion came from, but there you have it.

In other plumbing news, after lots of measuring and cutting out of templates, I did buy a new sink to go into the bathroom to replace the rusted-out one that no longer holds water.  The plumber came out on Friday to install them, and we now have two new bathroom sinks.  They look marvelous.

It occurred to me yesterday that Don’s car has been sitting undriven in our driveway for close to three months.  When he first got sick, I was good about alternating cars, but since he’s been home and I’ve been chauffeuring him, we’ve been using our Toyota Highlander exclusively, since he can’t get in and out of the low-slung Saturn.  I was a bit wary about starting it, so I emailed all the relatives and asked if anyone had any advice about what I should do first. It’s hot and dry here, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if every fluid in the car had dried up. Fortunately, Don is not so sickly that he couldn’t check the oil and the water, after which I got in the Saturn and it started right up.  I drove it around for a while - it ran great.  I’ll drive it around a few minutes a day, and then after Don gets home from the hospital I’ll have it checked over and washed. Being a car idiot isn’t useful when you’re in charge of things.

Wish us luck for the stone removal on Monday. I’m hoping this is the beginning of the end of a months long ordeal. I have the oddest feeling that everything is going to be all right.

Don’s tube change last week went off without a hitch. The worst thing about it was the wait. We had to be there at 8 am for a 10 am procedure, which didn’t actually happen until about 11. This is the third time he’s had the tubes changed, and it’s just a slam, bam, thank you ma’am event now. He didn’t even have anesthetic. They numbed the skin with a local and did the deed. Since he was never put out, he didn’t have to spend two hours in recovery, and when the deal was over, he just walked himself out to the waiting room and got me, and we left.

The more traumatic event of the week happened yesterday - Sunday, of course - , when the handle on the hot water faucet in one of the bathrooms blew off and sent water spewing upwards like Old Faithful. I came running in, half dressed, crawled under the cabinet, and turned the water off. Don was drenched by then, and had pretty well exhausted his vocabulary of colorful words. The irony of the situation is that we’ve known for months that those faucets needed replacing, and I had vowed to go to Home Depot to buy new fixtures the next day. Circumstances intervened.

We do have a service contract with a plumbing company, which I’ve spent a lot of money for over the years, yet never had to use. This is the first time I’ve thought the contract was worth it. I called them, and, lo, they sent someone out within the hour. No extra weekend charge, either. Long story short, he replaced all my drippy faucets, both bathrooms and the kitchen. He had the proper bathroom faucets on his truck, but no kitchen faucet, so while he was working, I drove to Home Depot and bought a kitchen fixture for him to install.

As I was driving home, I was feeling almost elated, to tell you the truth, just to have the job done at last, and with the fact that it hadn’t turned into a disaster. I was listening to Garrison Keillor’s show, and a performer began to sing the old hymn, “Just As I Am.” Suddenly, I was slammed back in time, to an old country church, my father’s mother and all his many aunts. When you’re a kid, there’s nothing like sitting on a big fat lap, my father always told us. Though her lap was anything but big and fat, I was all at once overwhelmed with a longing for my mother, and I almost had to pull over and pull myself together. Sometimes I hate being at the top of the generation tree. Even the aged need their mothers occasionally.

In the end,we got new faucets, but you didn’t think that was all there was to it, did you? No, it seems that one of the bathroom sinks is too rusted through to support the new drain plug, and now it won’t hold water. That sink has to be replaced. Don and I spent today calling and driving around trying to find the right fit. However, it seems they don’t make ‘em like that any more…

This is what happens when you live in a 30 year old house. At least it gives us something to think about besides kidney stones!

I trekked up to Poisoned Pen Bookstore last Saturday to see Louise Ure and Laurie King, two of my very favorite authors. Louise is touting her third book, Liars Anonymous. Her first two books, Forcing Amaryllis and The Fault Tree, were knock-’em-dead good. Thus far, all her novels have been stand-alones set in Tucson, and all feature really original protagonists. (The main character of The Fault Tree was a blind female auto mechanic!) Since I always suffer a lot with my plotting, I was really interested to hear Louise describe herself as a bad plotter. I would beg to differ. However, she did say that she gets one good idea per year, which is enough, since it apparently is a hell of an idea. I haven’t read Liars yet, but it sounds yummy. The protagonist is an On Star operator with a sketchy past who overhears a murder being committed when she contacts a driver to see if he needs help after an auto accident.

I’m happy to announce that Louise will be doing a guest blog entry for us at Type M 4 Murder next Sunday, May 17. The web address is www.typem4murder.blogspot.com, or just click on the link in the upper left corner of this page.

As for Laurie King, what can I say? She has another new Mary Russell book out, The Language of Bees. Mary Russell, for those of you who don’t know, is the infinitely younger wife of Sherlock Holmes, and their adventures occur after the Conan Doyle books end, in the early 20th Century, through the First World War and into the 1920s. They get to meet many fascinating historical figures - T.E. Lawrence and Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, among many. I love these books.

And now for the kidney stone review: Don is going in this Wednesday, May 13th, to have his tubes changed for a fresh pair. It’s about time, too. The old tubes and bags look like they’ve been through the mill, all patched up with duct tape at the top, where we’ve been pinning them to his shirt. (You really can use duct tape for everything!) Last night, one of his nephrostomy bags sprung a leak. This is the first time something like this has occurred, and had we not been told long ago that it might happen, we wouldn’t have had any idea that the bag can be popped off the tube and replaced. They look like they are permanently attached. Fortunately, we were more or less prepared, and after a Keystone Kops-like period of fumbling around and trying to figure out how to do it, we managed to get the old one off and a spare reattached.

When I was young and visualizing the course of my life, I never once saw myself standing over a bathtub and helping my husband replace his nephrostomy bags. One’s life is a continual stream of surprises.

The latest update on my husband’s health quest is below, but since writing is the raison d’etre for this blog, I thought I might mention that I’ve been reading Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel, which is something of a bible for novelists, and it’s really been helpful in getting me to work on my current book-in-progress. At least I sit in front of my computer for an hour or two a day and type. Whether what I’m typing makes any sense is still a question, but at least I’m doing it.

Don had an appointment with the kidney doctor yesterday. He said Don’s kidney function is okay, so there wasn’t any permanent damage done. They do their job, they just have no good outlet. We told him about the stuck stone problem and the scheduled operation, and asked if he had any bright ideas, but he said that the urologist is the get-the-stones-out expert. His job is to keep Don from ever getting stones again, and he was going to do it, too, by gum. It’s nice to be reassured.

Remember the 24 hour urine collection Don did back in March? We got the results while we were there. Seems that his stones are the common calcium sort, and that his system is too acidic. So, the doc gave him a prescription for bicarbonate of soda tablets, which should help him alkalize his system. The doctor also told him to cut way down on salt and to be judicious about eating high oxalate food, of which he gave us a list. Here’s what that means: don’t eat much spinach or other very dark leafy greens. Cut back on beans. Rhubarb is bad. Not so many tomatoes or cucumbers. White flour is better than whole wheat (!). Celery is problematic, as are berries and nuts. Meat is bad.

The doctor said not to cut the high oxalate foods out entirely, just eat less. Potatoes, eggs, and dairy are fine, and bunches of other fruits and veggies. I say that from now on, we live on pasta Alfredo, asparagus quiche, and custard pie. Peach and apple pie are good, too. Oooh - pancakes.

By the way, Don has gained over 20 pounds since he went into the hospital in January. He weighed 144 when the nurse weighed him at the doctor’s office yesterday. We won’t discuss what has happened to my weight over the last four months. I don’t anticipate a diet in my immediate future, either (see above).

And now I’m off to attempt fiction again.

Got my annual royalty check today.

Sigh.

I did not officially have a book come out in 2008. The Sky Took Him was officially published in January of 2009, but it was actually available for purchase in December of 2008, so I did make a little bit of money on it. And I do mean a little bit. I did, however, receive a larger advance on Sky than on the previous three books, and the book did cover the advance in the first month. So that’s good.

For those of you who are not familiar with how this works, here’s a little explanation : When a manuscript is accepted for publication, many publishers, including mine, send you a check for half the advance. When the book is actually delivered to the booksellers, you get the other half of the advance. The book has to make back however much money they gave you for the advance before you get any more royalty money. An author usually makes 8% to 12% of the sales price of the book in royalties. So if the book sells for $25, the author gets two to three dollars in royalties. And that’s how that works. Unless you’re Lee Child, don’t expect to get rich as a novelist.

Tuesday, I went to Scottsdale to see my friend and fellow Poisoned Pen author Jon Talton speak about his latest book, The Pain Nurse. I’ve been looking forward to this book since I heard about it several months ago, and can’t wait to read it. Jon is a wonderful author, a newspaper and internet columnist, and something of an agent provocateur. We did an event or two together when he lived in Phoenix, but he moved to Seattle last year, and is now the economics columnist for the Seattle Times. Jon is anything but a soothing voice, and every time I read his columns - and books, too, for that matter - I’m torn between taking to the street with a torch and a pitchfork, and wanting to throw myself off the nearest bridge. Jon’s web addresses are http://jontalton.com, (books) and http://roguecolumnist.typepad.com

And now for the periodic medical update on Don - We’ve gotten the surgery clearances from the cardiologist and the GP (better known these days as the Primary Care Physician). In fact we just saw the PCP yesterday morning, who said he’d fax his permission right away. By the time we got home, there was a message on the machine from the scheduler saying that the surgery is set for 11:45 a.m. on June 1 at Banner Desert Hospital. We’ve been told he’ll be in the hospital between three days and a week. Don is still supposed to get his tubes changed out shortly, (an outpatient procedure) but we haven’t been notified about that yet.

We’re coming to the end of our home health-care nurses. Only one more visit scheduled for next Tuesday. They will have been changing the dressings on Don’s back piercings for sixteen weeks by the time the enrollment period is over. They’ve also been monitoring his progress, which has been excellent. So, as of her last visit, the primary nurse started teaching me to change his dressings and clean the wounds. I can do it without much problem, but let me assure you that I don’t enjoy it. I fear doing something wrong. There are a couple of other reasons, but I shan’t go into detail. The nurse told us that after the surgery, he may very well be re-certified for eight more weeks of home care.

So, we have a month before they start digging around inside Don with little knives and spoons trying to get those rocks out of him. Plenty of time to visualize, try alternative remedies, and pray for a miracle.