Happy Holidays

I have a new book contract. I never EVER would have predicted that, a year after the first one, I would get another contract to write another memoir. It’s exciting. Its pressure filled! It’s the start of another interesting year.

So I decided to spend the holidays alone. I needed the time to write -- I’m under contract to produce some chapters after all -- so I decided not to fly to Minnesota to be with family. I put up my tree and have a Jenny-O, turkey breast in the oven, au-gratin potatoes, and will make a nice vegetable stir fry. I’ve been at the keyboard most of the day, and have produced some readable words, but it’s strange. Home alone. Christmas happening in homes all around me. Weird.

Was this the right thing to do? I have so much trouble writing in the evenings. Weekends just don’t seem long enough. I felt like the holidays would be my only opportunity to really get into this story.

Now there is icy rain falling outside and its chilly here. I feel a little lonely but then again, if I had gone home, I’d be worried about getting the work done anyway.

Tomorrow will be a better day. It will be the day AFTER Christmas and I’ll be able to write without feeling strange about it.

Right now, dinner is almost ready, the cat is curled up behind me on the chair, the rain is slapping against the windows and I’m feeling okay. Happy Holidays!

The Groove

There are those times when sitting at the keyboard feels like something other than work. It is very close to magic. You feel your characters. You know your story. You find the words. You’re in the groove.


It’s been a long time since I’ve found the groove. I’ve searched for it. I pretended I’d found it but I wasn’t fooling myself.

Last weekend I found it again. Not sure where I found it, but it was there. It took me a long time to realize where I was but when I did, I knew I couldn’t let it get away again. So I took an extra day off for this long holiday weekend and I’m hoping I can keep it for an entire five days. If I can keep it, this will be a very good weekend indeed.

I know why I lost it before. I wasn’t writing every day and I let it get away. In fact there were weeks when I didn’t write and you can’t find the groove if you stay away from it for so long.

Now that I have it again, I hope I can be smarter and keep it and write. Every day.

Another beautiful Saturday and I’m stuck at my computer, writing. I shouldn’t complain, I know. I am doing this because I want to but it does make me feel a little guilty that I’m sitting here in the semi-darkness typing away. There’s a whole world of possibilities out there …


The answer to this dilemma is that I need to earn enough of a living with WRITING so I can quit my day job. What a luxury to write without restricting that creative time to evenings and weekends. Maybe. Someday.

My First Review

I read my first review today. It was published in the online version of Publisher’s Weekly. When I learned the book had been reviewed by PW, I got very nervous. PW can be mean. Down right nasty actually, and I had no idea what to expect. They didn’t gush over the book. I didn’t expect that. But they did say a couple of nice things and even mentioned my name. I can’t complain. In fact, I’m quite giddy about it. I know the next one could be completely opposite but for now, I’m deciding to be happy about this.

Here is the review:

I'm Still Standing: From Captive Soldier to Free Citizen—My Journey Home Shoshana Johnson with M.L. Doyle. Touchstone, $23.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4165-6748-6

Johnson gained national attention as America's first black female prisoner of war. She was in the 507th Maintenance Company convoy ambushed on March 23, 2003, in Nasiriyah, and captured with five other soldiers including Jessica Lynch. One might call Johnson's presence in a firefight a compound accident. She was a cook who had enlisted in 1998 hoping to earn money for her education and perhaps “meet a nice guy,” and was a cook with the 507th, which existed to maintain Patriot missiles. But she was sent with the convoy, and the bullets Johnson took in both ankles did not ask for her military occupational specialty. Though objectively treated well enough by her Iraqi captors, she was wounded, female, and black: three reasons for being afraid. Rescued three weeks later in a daring raid, Johnson emerged with a Bronze Star, a case of post-traumatic stress disorder, and an unwanted celebrity status sufficiently resented by the system that she left the army. Johnson endured her captivity with courage and emerged with honor. With the help of former army reservist Doyle, she vividly, simply, and unpretentiously tells her tale . (Feb.)

Chatting with a friend

I just spent the last hour and a half chatting with a friend who is deployed to Afghanistan. We tried to do a video call but I could hear her but not see her. She could see me and not hear me. Frustrating!

But the cool thing was that we were having a conversation from opposite sides of the world. I miss her and I’ve been so curious about what her life is like. I now feel like I have a better idea of what she is dealing with there in the desert. I worry about her because danger is just around the corner and it bothers me that she will be there until the end of the summer next year. A lot can happen in all that time.

At least now I know I can get in touch with her when I want. I look forward to chatting with her again. One thing I did learn was that they are having a hard time getting videos and books to keep them occupied. I'll definately be sending her a box of good things to read and watch. My tiny bit for the cause.

What Success Looks Like!

I’m pretty sure this is what writing success looks like. You haven't heard of her yet, but you may very soon. This is Tracy Kiely, a talented Maryland native who has finally seen the culmination of her hard work appear in hardcover and on the front aisles of your neighborhood book store. Tracy's first novel, Murder at Longbourn is now in stores. I simply had to attend her first book signing at the Barnes and Noble at Annapolis Harbor Mall and I have to say, I was a bit surprised at the number of people there. Folks in Annapolis know how to support one of their own!


Tracy and I participated in a writing group a couple of years ago. I was working on my first novel. Tracy was looking for input on her second book. At the time, she was looking for an agent, looking for a publisher and it was easy to see that sooner or later, someone would figure out that her work was worthy of publication. Once she finally found an agent, it only took about three weeks before St. Martin’s Press, one of the biggies in publishing, wrote her a two-book contract. WAY TO GO TRACY!

Her writing is witty, sharp and entirely entertaining. If you like an Agatha Christie type murder mystery, you’ll enjoy this book. And for those Jane Austin fans out there, you’ll love the books too. You’ll find all kinds of ties to Pride and Prejudice in Murder at Longbourn. It’s tons of fun.
And when you buy your copy, take a look at the acknowledgements! It’s the first time EVER yours truly has been mentioned in one of those. Makes me blush!

Publishing. AT LAST!

To blog or not to blog? I seem to continually choose not to blog. I’ve had a lot to keep me busy and away from the blogging key board. I bought a house and the search, closing, moving were huge time suckers. Now that I’m in my new home, I have to say that as difficult as the entire process was at times, it was all worth it. I sit now in my new office in a beautiful row house in Baltimore. A place I plan to spend countless hours in working and creating. More on all of that later.

The biggest task that kept me away from blogging was finishing my first published book. For more than a year, I have been working on writing the memoir for Shoshana Johnson which chronicles the story of the ambush of her convoy in the early days of the war in Iraq, her capture and her 22 days in captivity. The book also covers her return home, her treatment in the press, her difficulties with the military medical system, and the challenges of trying to live a normal life after such an extraordinary experience. It’s a powerful story. It’s hard to believe I was given the opportunity to help tell it.

When I received the pages from the line editor I thought someone was joking. The pages were covered in red. Every single page, every single one, had red all over it. Sometimes there were as many as 10 corrections on a single page. It was proof that, any English training I may have had in the past, simply didn’t take. It was humiliating. I kept picturing that poor editor as she corrected the same mistakes over and over again, cussing me out and shaking her head and thinking, “We paid her to write this crap?”

I made the corrections and returned the pages and just weeks later; I was looking at the pages as they would be type set in the book. It was beautiful. I loved the titles for each chapter. Loved the way everything seemed to read differently now that they weren’t simply words on a page I created. These pages had been printed, by someone in a publishing house, had been read by editors and line editors and the guy in the printing room who was responsible for printing the thing so that it could be wrapped in a hardcover and bound. Heady stuff.

I had been thrill to see the printed pages. What I really wanted to see was what they had planned for the cover. I imagined many different possibilities. None of my imaginings came close to how great the cover really is. I love it. Simply love it!

Shana likes it too and that’s the most important thing. She loves the book. Her family, well, I know there are things in there that are hard for them to read, but I they appreciate that finally, her story will be told in its entirety.

Now, I wait for February when it will finally come out. Its hard to believe that I‘m done with it. In the mean time, I’m back to work on the second novel in the Master Sergeant Harper series. I found a new writing group and I know they will be helpful. More, much more on them later.