As of today, there is exactly one month before the Bumpy Landings Launch Party. There is a lot going on between now and then, but I thought it might be fun to share with you my writers’ journey thus far.

This story has been a part of my life for most of the last decade, and I’m more than a little awed at the prospect that it will soon become a part of others’ lives as well—hopefully many, many others.

My writing journey, like so many others, started with a love of books during my youth. I could often be found with my nose buried in a novel, and the library was one of my favorite places on earth.

I’ve always been at my happiest when creating, and as a teen dabbled in writing. However, those early attempts were extremely poor, and the nauseating results quickly caused me to set aside writing in favor of another creative process; one with much more instant gratification: music.

All through high school and college, I was in various bands and choirs. Playing music scratched the creative itch, and band membership provided much-needed social interaction. Reading became much less important, and any thoughts of writing were abandoned.

Once out of school, however, the ready-made musical opportunities disappeared. I tried on and off to keep music alive in my life, organizing bands at work and participating in ward choirs, but the level of satisfaction was never quite the same. I needed something more; something new and exciting.

I needed to make movies.

I haven’t given up on this blog, or my book. But unfortunately I haven’t touched either since my last post. Life has gotten in the way big time, and my plate has been very full.

However, I have tried to carve out a little slice of time to get back into the writing groove. Not nearly as much as during the BIAM (the plate is still too full for that), but some time to take care of these voices in my head.

The incentive to write got a little boost yesterday, as we who have signed up for the LDSStorymakers Writer’s Conference Boot Camp got our marching orders from Sargent Tristi.

We need to come up with six scenes – two pages each – to work on during the exercises. The themes are:

• Balancing Your Writing
• Showing Emotion
• Believable Antagonists
• Choosing Your Words
• Dialog vs. Narrative and Exposition
• Creating Lovable Characters

I have a pretty good idea which scenes to use for most of those. This will be a really good exercise, and powerful motivation to get the writing going again. The scenes are all very rough right now, but hopefully Ponopono can get them whipped into shape in time.

And I’ll keep my fingers crossed and knees bent in the hopes that our situation will still allow me to attend the conference next month.

Actually, there were five winners over at LDSPublisher’s Christmas Story Contest. One of them was me! I’m very excited!

You can read my story here.

Congratulations to the other winners, and everyone who entered the contest. I enjoyed reading the stories.

Finding writing time this holiday week has been much more difficult than I had expected. However, I managed to put in a couple of hours tonight and finish a very rough first draft of my Christmas Story for the LDS Publisher’s contest. It weighs in at 1399 words, which means I’ll need to make sure Ponopono (my internal editor) cuts as much as he adds when I let him out to edit this thing.

I’m actually excited to do some editing on this story. One reason I’m doing the story is to give Ponopono some practice and see if he’s as good as I remember.

The other reason, of course, is because Kumu Ka’ao told me to. She’s my muse, and she won’t tell me anything else about novel until this story is done.

It’s time for a confession: Historically, I’ve had very little interest in LDS Fiction.

When I was a young man developing my reading habits, one of the most popular LDS authors was Jack Weyland. My sisters and their friends loved his books, which by itself was a big red flag for me. Add the smiling girl on the cover and apparent need to keep tissues handy while reading, and I ran.

A fair number of LDS books that I was given to read were really not all that good. And many came across as 300-page Sunday School lessons. To a teenage boy, this was not exciting reading.

I did enjoy some of the LDS books that were handed my way. Charlie’s Monument by Blaine M. Yorgason was great, as was The Alliance by Gerald N. Lund (whom I like to refer to as “Uncle Gerry,” but that’s another post for another day).

For the most part, however, in my mind LDS fiction suffered from a stigma that I’m still trying to overcome.

So how is it that I ended up working on a manuscript destined for the LDS market, and making “blog buddies” with a bunch of LDS authors? Well, it wasn’t by design.

When my WIP first began to take shape, I did my best to remove all aspects of LDS-ness from it. What I ended up with was a group of characters who wouldn’t act the way I wanted no matter what I did. Once I finally relented and made most of my characters LDS, living in an LDS town and attending an LDS school (which is the environment where the seeds for this novel come from), everything fell into place.

The only problem I had was that with all of this Mormonism in the pages, I feared the only place this story had any hope of selling was the LDS market, which in my mind was still somewhat tainted because of my youthful experience.

Fortunately, I came across a great blog by LDS Publisher. In her blog, she talks about the current state of LDS fiction. She has mentioned many of the same concerns that I had, and what was happening in the industry to remedy them. This was very encouraging.

Through her blog site, I was also made aware of a number of current LDS authors with blogs, the links to which are found in the right hand side bar. I have enjoyed reading and participating in these blogs, and making a bunch of new internet friends.

Because of these new found connections, and an interest in finding out, for myself, the true and current state of LDS fiction, I have purchased seven new books by seven different authors I have met while blogging.

They are just now arriving, and it will no doubt take me some time to work my way through them. Many of these books I would have never even considered just six months ago. But I’m excited to read them now, because they were written by my friends.

Life has not been easy lately. I won’t bore you with the details – you can read them at my other blog if you really want to know. Let it suffice to say that there is a great deal of conflict and drama, often to the point that I sometimes wonder how I can go on.

But inevitably something happens to lighten my load just enough. A glimmer of hope. A small lifting of the burden. Just what I need to get me through until the next challenge weighs me down, and things start looking hopeless again.

I look at my life, compare it to my Work In Progress, and realize that one the story’s weaknesses is I’ve let my protagonist off too easy. WAY too easy. It’s time I make him suffer.

Oh, I’ll let him off in the end. Much sadder and wiser for the experience, but also much stronger and more capable, too.

I don’t know how my own difficulties will finally be resolved, and I don’t know how close I am to the end of these trials. It’d be nice to say “Well, things will get better soon – there’s only five pages left.”

I guess that’s why writing is so meaningful to me right now. I know how things will work out for my main character, and I know it will be for the best. I have to have faith that the author of my story knows the same things.

In the meantime, I have a whole bunch of new experiences to transfer to my poor, unsuspecting hero. Sorry, big guy. That’s just the way it has to be.

I did not set out to be a writer.

I was going to make movies. For many years I had dreams of being a filmmaker, if only as a hobby. But I lacked the equipment and expertise, so nothing much came from it.

Then several years ago, I began internet research into making small films, and felt this was something I could do. Eventually. When I could afford the equipment and had time to actually use it.

But the idea was planted, and I began thinking of little films I could make. I wrote a couple of short screenplays that received generally positive reviews from friends and family, which if nothing else helped my confidence.

As I was going through this process, an idea for a story came into my head. The story was set in a small Hawaiian town, which happens to be the kind of place I grew up. I think the Hawaiian setting came about because I was struggling through a cold Utah winter at the time.

Anyway, I started working on this screenplay. And I worked and I worked and came to the realization that this story would not make a very good film. Much of the conflict was internal to the main character, and that makes for a very boring movie.

But it might make for a decent novel, I thought.

Thus the slippery slope from relatively normal person to deluded aspiring novelist was traversed.

I have worked away at this project for several years, learning and growing and writing awful stuff, which helped me learn and grow some more.

I have read and researched what makes for good writing, and practiced writing descriptive prose and interesting dialog, and I’m ready to give this story one more go.

The motivation to start again came from Tristi Pinkston and her Book in a Month challenge, and my rough draft is starting to take shape. The accountability the challenge provides is strong motivation to get at least some writing done every day.

And the writing itself is making a huge difference in my life. Just the act of removing myself from the trials in the real world and spending a few minutes in an imaginary one has given me strength I never would have expected. And seeing the project progress has given me hope that carries over to the rest of my life.

The challenge is ending in a little over a week, and while I’m sure Tristi would let me continue to post my progress on her blog, I have decided instead to set up this blog where I can keep track of my progress and write about the things I have learned in the process.

Maybe this blog will help people who are starting into their own writing adventure. Maybe it will give experienced writers a reminder of their beginnings. Maybe everyone will just get a good laugh at how deluded I really am.

In any case, my plan is to post weekly (NOT weakly) and take responsibility for my own writing accountability.

With any luck, I’ll have a rough draft sometime in early 2008. Then the fun really begins.