The New Writing Plan: I will nurture and protect my creativity

This is pretty much the crux of the whole plan.

I will nurture and protect my creativity. 

Both letting go of certain things and surrounding myself with beauty are important parts of this step.

I will excerise often and get enough sleep.

I will have daily scripture study, prayer, and meditation.

I will attend the temple monthly.

I will communicate and connect with friends and family.

I will use social media properly.

I will sing with the Musettes.

I will practice my guitar daily.

I will have fun.

I will dance in public. Ha!

How do you nurture your creativity?

The New Writing Plan: I will surround myself with beauty

I will surround myself with beauty.

I added an antique hutch and chair

This is probably the easiest part of the plan to implement, since that is my natural tendency anyway. And look at where I live. (See the blog header.) Easy-peasy, right? I am also focusing on less visible forms of beauty. 

I will create beauty in my home and my writing room. 

 I will listen to beautiful music. (Another easy-peasy step.)

I will notice and appreciate the beautiful things around me. 

I will surround myself with good people.

I will do random acts of kindness.

I will be beautiful outside and inside.

I will only use beautiful words. (No gossiping, complaining, yelling, etc.)

How do you create beauty in your life?

My new bulletin board of inspiration

The New Writing Plan: I will let go of my need for wordly rewards

So a couple of weeks ago, I told you about my New Writing Plan. I took some time off writing for Spring Break, because I was feeling creatively empty. Now I'm back and ready to put this plan into action.

Though the plan isn't in any particular order, the first thing that came to my mind when I thought about my future in the writing business was this:

I will let go of my need for worldly rewards.

This, I think, is one of the most important steps for me. Here are my thoughts on how to achieve that.


I will only check book sales on the last day of each month.

I will not ask for reviews, award nominations, or popularity votes.

I will not post "brag" posts about my books.

I will not look at any rankings of any kind.

I will not read reviews.

I will do only minimal marketing, such as maintaining my social networks, blogging, and taking advantage of opportunities that come my way. 

Yes, I basically decided to stop marketing my books. I'm afraid that's just shooting myself in the foot, but I feel it is necessary, at least for now, if I am to regain any joy in writing. So. We'll see how this goes.

Apocalypse Panel Question #2: Why draws me to write apocalyptic stories?

It's time for the Apocalypse Panel again! This month's question is a little less nightmare inducing. :)

What draws you to write apocalyptic stories?

To be completely honest, I'm not sure I am drawn to write apocalyptic stories. But I can tell you why I felt drawn to write Defenders of the Covenant, which features apocalypse-by-alien-invasion. This is from my website:

I first came up with the idea for Defenders of the Covenant while pondering the question of how far I would go to keep the covenants I have made. I take those covenants very seriously. What might I be asked to sacrifice? My life? Something harder? My mind churned up a worst case scenario of an alien invasion and a mother asked to give up her child to save the human race. That led to the short story which eventually became the novella, Consecrated.

I was fascinated with the "what if" behind that story. What if aliens invaded Earth? How would my church react? That was the basic grain of the novel.

For me, I wasn't thinking so much about the end of the world as I was about faith. Writing about the end of the world is an excellent way to delve into concepts of faith and loyalty and all sorts of things. Will I write any more apocalyptic stories? Hard to say. I don't have any in the works right now, but I never what sort of ideas are going to rear up and take hold of me.

What do you feel drawn to write?

Be sure to check out the responses of the other panelists!