Dear Readers,

When we last spoke, I referenced having been through a recent cancer scare. Well, now we can add Rona scare to that. On Friday, Oct. 9^th, around 10:30am, I got suddenly sick. I felt like I had been run over by a bus. We are talking a low fever, chills, body aches, and chest tightness. You might be tempted to think flu, but I’ve already had my flu shot. Getting tested proved to be difficult. According to the website of, let’s just say a large retail pharmacy, they had a store in my town that was doing testing. I made an appointment for that afternoon and got an email confirmation and everything. So imagine my surprise when I drove over there and they had a big sign that said, “NO TESTING AT THIS LOCATION.” No big deal. I called my GP. His office said they have nothing to do with testing and that I should call the county health department. I have health insurance and I didn’t want to take a free test away from someone who doesn’t have insurance. Thankfully, I was able to make an appointment at a free-standing ER in the next town over for Saturday morning.

Oddly enough, I felt a little better when I got up on Saturday morning, but my wife drove me over to get the test anyway. It wasn’t too bad. I know some people have said that the test is horribly uncomfortable, but that is probably a matter of perspective. Due to my chronic bowel obstructions, I am used to having a large bore NG tube shoved up my nose, down my throat, and into my stomach. So the COVID test was a breeze for me! My eyes didn’t even water. I didn’t get the results right away. They said I’d have them by text and email within an hour. We had a thirty minute drive home, and we were almost there when I got the text. NEGATIVE. As I know there is a risk of a false negative, I am still quarantining at home for two weeks (not that I’ve been leaving the house anyway for the past seven months). My fever was gone by Saturday afternoon, as were the chills and body aches. I’m mostly left with chest congestion which tends to indicate that this is a run of the mill Upper Respiratory Infection.

On the very day that I was stricken ill, I received the copyedits back for Molly’s Song. Saturday, I worked through all of them and made the suggested corrections. Then it was time for the book to go out on submission. That is where is stands now. I’ll keep you posted on future developments here and on my social media accounts. At this time, I have no updates other than to say that it is out on submission. We’ll see what happens next, if anything. As I’ve said before, authors have to be able to handle rejection. You get a lot of it in your writing career. Thankfully, having gone through the fire academy and the police academy, spending months getting berated by instructions for everything imaginable, I can take what the submission process throws my way.

Until next time, Dear Readers, take care of yourselves. And each other.

L.H.