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.)