Refilling the Well

By Ali Cross

This past weekend many of us attended the LDStorymakers Writer’s conference. What fun it was! I hope if you went, your well was filled and you’re home now thinking of all the ways you can improve your writing efforts and find success. If you weren’t able to join us this year, I hope you’ll consider attending the conference next year.
For me, attending such conferences are essential to my success, and my sanity.

At church we often hear of the importance of filling our well. We need to attend our Sunday meetings, to partake of the sacrament and renew our covenants with Heavenly Father. We need to study the scriptures and pray often. We don’t do these things only because they are necessary to our worship, our lifestyle and our hopes for the future; we do them because they draw us nearer to God, stoke the fires of our faith and help us stay true to the teachings of the gospel.

Similarly, we need to fill our writer’s well, and attending conferences can do that for us.

The friends we meet and visit with empathize with our struggles. The classes we attend inspire us and spark new ideas to move forward stagnant projects or witness the birth of new stories.

We come away with a greater desire to write and renewed energy to reach our goals. Our wells are filled.

In the intervening time, we can continue to fill our wells by reading this blog, and visiting the blogs of other writers, agents and publishers. But nothing beats the joy of spending two full days surrounded by like-minded people while exploring the craft of writing. I love this feeling and hope I can keep it alive until the next chance to fill my writing well. And of course, I hope you’ll join me!