6 7 8 . . . 3 2 1!

By Darvell Hunt

I’m sure by now you’ve heard of the 6 7 8 Conference hosted by CFI last weekend. I’m not going to give a review of the conference here, because other attendees may have done so on their blogs already, but instead I want to tell you about a practical result from this conference.

When I got home from the conference on Saturday evening, I started writing a new book. Yeah, okay, you say, so what? Don’t writers do that sometimes? Isn’t that why we call ourselves writers?

Yes, that’s true. I’ve done just that probably a dozen times by now and more than half of those I’ve completed. But this one is different. This one has no real plot.

Doug Johnston at Cedar Fort gave away tons of books at the conference on Saturday. I didn’t win any of the drawings, but I noticed something very interesting. I didn’t take specific notes on what the titles were, but it seemed to me that the majority of them were non-fiction. Why is that, I thought?

Well, the answer, I'm guessing, is that non-fiction books are easier to sell than fiction, so I think they may actually be publishing more non-fiction. Thus far my LDS writing career has focused on telling stories, but I’ve been planning a non-fiction book in my head now for about two years.

Seeing that non-fiction seems to be selling so well, I decided that it was time to write my own non-fiction LDS book. So, immediately after the conference, I started writing it. It’s not going to be a long book, but it is going to be a meaty book. I’m giving myself 30 days to finish it and 30 days to edit it. I’m planning to submit it to Cedar Fort first, because I’m so impressed with their marketing strategies and their apparent interest in their authors.

Yes, this is a rigorous schedule for this book, but I’ve got my feet squarely planted in the starting blocks and I’m ready to go! This is my chance to show why I’m a member of this blog group, which is this: I write. I’m LDS. And I write LDS books.

While I plan to keep secret this current project during its initial stages, I will announce my progress here on this blog. My goal is to have this book accepted by the end of this year. Hopefully I’ll be able to track the progress of this book from conception, to writing, to editing, to acceptance, and finally to bookshelf, here on LDS Writers Blogck.

This doesn’t mean I’m not still concentrating on my fiction, just refocusing my efforts for the next few months.

3… 2… 1… Ready, set, write!