In this exclusive Nova News post, award winning author and USA Today bestseller, Joann Keeder shares her incredible journey of writing in the midst of profound personal crisis, and how focusing on her craft supported not only her healing, but helped stabilize her life, and her career as an author. 

It is no exaggeration to say that this year has been the worst of my life.
I never imagined that after forty years of marriage, the foundation of my life could crumble in such a surreal, almost absurd way. My husband didn’t leave me for a co-worker, a neighbor, or a long-lost love. He left me for karaoke. More specifically, for the woman who ran his online karaoke group.
One evening in December, I received a message from an anonymous source. They told me he was marrying her. I laughed at the idea, dismissing it as a nasty rumor. He had told me he was in Indonesia to take photographs, and I believed him because, after four decades, I still trusted him. But then I opened a link and saw the truth.

They told me he was marrying her.

There he was, sitting beside her on a makeshift throne. They laughed, touched each other’s hands, basked in their joy, and declared their vows in a livestream broadcast. I stared at the screen as if it belonged to another world, another couple, not to the man I had shared a life with.
But the humiliation didn’t stop there. She called herself an influencer, and she made sure I saw every detail of their $10,000 Bali honeymoon. Each day, she posted photos and captions, flaunting their travels. My private heartbreak had become her public performance.

The next morning, I went to the bank. What I discovered there was another blow, sharper than the first. Our retirement account—the savings we had worked for, sacrificed for, planned for—was empty. He had drained it completely. I wish I could say I felt rage, but the truth is I felt numb. There is a kind of shock that leaves the body hollow before the mind can fully understand what has been lost.
Over the months that followed, I uncovered betrayal after betrayal. I thought back to moments when I had stood by him in good faith. At his father’s funeral, I held his hand, promising again and again that I was there to share his grief. That very night, while I slept, he was online telling her that he wanted to make their relationship official. Those moments broke me in ways I still struggle to describe.

But even as my marriage dissolved, another promise weighed on me. I had readers waiting for a book—the third in a series I had committed to finishing. I didn’t want to let them down. Yet the question echoed in my head: how can you write about joy, humor, or even simple human connection when your own heart feels like ash?
Most mornings, I could barely get out of bed. My creativity, once a steady companion, had vanished. I struggled to leave home and my computer sat hidden underneath my bed to hide the shame I felt for abandoning my work.

I won’t soften this truth: there were nights when I thought about ending my life. Every “truth” I’d built my life on was gone and some days it felt like I couldn’t take one more blow.

Every “truth” I’d built my life on was gone and some days it felt like I couldn’t take one more blow.

For years, I told others I didn’t believe in writer’s block. If you can’t find a door, I said, then look for a window. Write about your character’s backstory, describe their kitchen, imagine their first heartbreak. Keep moving, even if it’s small. But suddenly, there were no doors. No windows. Just blank walls.

And then one night, I dreamt of my characters. I can’t tell you what they were doing or even if there was a plot, but I woke with the sense that they were waiting for me, urging me to keep going. The next morning, I struck a bargain with myself: fifteen minutes. Just fifteen minutes. That was all I had to give. And in those fifteen minutes, I wrote complete nonsense. But they were words.

A few days later, I tried again. Another fifteen minutes. Some words came, some didn’t, but I kept moving in small increments. If I couldn’t stand, I would crawl. If I couldn’t crawl, I would inch forward.
One day, I wrote half a chapter. It wasn’t brilliant. It wasn’t polished. But it was something. Proof that the spark inside me had not gone out completely.

I began returning to the coffee shop, where the baristas—young people I think of as adopted kids—noticed when I didn’t show up. They called to check on me. Their small kindnesses were reminders that I was still here, still part of the world, still seen.

But grief is tricky. Each time the coffee shop door opened, I expected to see him, smiling, ready to drive me home. Then I wondered how many times had he sat in that same car, texting her before walking in to greet me? That thought clawed at me, holding me back for months.
I never took to journaling, but I did start writing down what hurt the most each day. Naming the pain stripped it of some of its power. Each sentence was an arrow pulled from my heart and laid in the light, where it could wound me less.

Slowly, I began to reclaim myself. Writing returned, not in a rush but in slow waves. And I realized something vital: writing is not just a job for me. It is not even just a passion. It is a lifeline. It defines me as deeply as motherhood, as humor, as the stubborn refusal to be broken by grief.
I am not fully healed. Healing is not a straight path or a finish line. It is a practice—a choice made again and again, sometimes in tiny increments.

But I am here. I am writing again. And for now, that is enough.