Nephite Captain Glyph - Step 2

Step 2: The Nephite Captain I am designing will be an ornament for the blog design and I wanted to make his features a more noble so I changed the basic image by adjusting the jaw line and by modifying the nose. By making these changes I communicate the nobility and courage through some of his features. Examine for just a moment how I changed the looks and how those small changes influence the basic appearance of the Nephite Captain. The image on the left is the basic drawing I did first and the image on the right reflects the modifications that I made.

Nephite Captain Glyph - Step 1

When I create images I often start with a sketch that I do freehand and scan into the computer so that I can create a vector image of the image. I have moved away from doing much freehand as a prelude to creating electronic images even though I do still sketch. I have replaced the sketch and scan process with a Bamboo pad which enables me to draw directly on screen. I do my drawings in Adobe Photoshop and copy them into Adobe Illustrator to create the vector images.

Step 1: Because I have drawn dozens of these faces in the past I can skip the sketch step and go right to creating the image as a vector image in Adobe Illustrator. In less than five minutes I create a simple outline of what the face will look like. It may be of interest that I will exaggerate various features such as the jaw, neck and the nose to help reflect the character of the person that I am drawing.

It is worth noting that this basic image needs some additional changes because I am designing a Nephite Captain and I don't feel like this basic image will work for him. Nevertheless it is a good starting point and gives me the design elements I need to begin with.

Site Enhancement

I am doing some redesign for my blog in order to make it more appealing and more suited to the title. As part of the design enhancement I am going to create a series of postings about the process that I follow in creating images. I will discuss the software, thought process and other relevant information that is involved in the creation of these images. Some of the images that I have planned for the site are:

Nephite Captain
Golden Plates
Weaponry
Maps

The first element that I am going to add to my site is a glyph of a Nephite Captain from the Book of Mormon and I will blog the process.

A Fine Line...No More

When an author is involved in promoting his book there is a significant amount of leg work that must be done. I mentioned in a previous post how involved this is but what I failed to mention was that it is an enlightening experience as well. In fact, as a function of this process I had an experience yesterday that effectively changed my public position in a very stark way. For years I have attempted to walk a fine line between secular and spiritual life as I have worked to avoid offending people. In my work I deal with a significant number of people who not only don't approve of my faith but go the extra mile to assure that I know about it. Consequently I have tried to avoid making my faith the focal point of important discussions about spirituality and about any of my professional endeavors. Yesterday I found that a change was in order.

To be clear, I have never felt ashamed of being Mormon - quite the contrary. I have included my faith in a central way in my book and it is the core of my spiritual life and informs my temporal life in limitless ways. But I behaved in a way that held back in order to avoid confusing important issues and in an attempt to keep specific doctrines out of the fore in lieu of more general themes. That was up until the day before yesterday. Yesterday, I came to understand that I had to make a choice. If I am to be completely forthright about who I am I must invariably discuss my faith, its guiding effect on my life and how any success that I have enjoyed in my life has been the result of my adopted faith and the covenants I have made with my Heavenly Father.

The turning point was simple enough. In fact, the person who was the catalyst had no way of knowing any of the points but they were instrumental nevertheless. The change resulted from an email that I received from someone who was not critical of my book but was critical of my faith. Among other things she said was this:

"I can’t help but wonder -- I’ve studied much about Mormonism, and cannot see how one who is inside of it, even to writing a book about it, cannot see clearly the holes and fallacies in it that lead to despair.......?"

I must admit that I was taken aback and could not for the life of me figure out what would have prompted such a note.

One thing that has always been a source of confusion for me is the condescending nature of many people who oppose the teachings of the LDS church. They often seek to lecture me on the tenets of the faith as if I am completely unaware. I find it strange to be "instructed" by people who often have a minimal understanding of the church and its history but feel as though they are scholars on a subject upon which my life is built. I don't know how often this happens to other members but it is fairly common for me. I must give the impression that I don't know anything about the church. Alas, I digress.

The email that I received helped to clarify something that has always troubled me and I realized that my faith is and will always be the defining descriptor of my life and work. LDS author, LDS researcher, LDS father are all important descriptors of me and I can think of no better way to be known. With the realization that I cannot and should not attempt to walk the line between secular reputation and religious reputation I have opted for a public life that embraces being Mormon as publicly as I embrace any of my other roles. I must also say that with this realization has come a bit of embarrassment. Not for what I have done but for what I have left undone. In walking the line that I have for these many years it could have given some the impression that I am reluctant to speak about my faith or that I somehow don't ascribe to it the way that I should. Nothing could be further from the truth.

To make my new stance very clear I gave considerable thought to how I would have responded to an email like the one I received versus how I actually did respond given my improved stance regarding my faith. The recipient of my email did not foresee the way I would respond but it heartened me to stand firmly in the place where I belong. My response included the following text:

I was not raised in the LDS church but came to it after years of searching for the true gospel. Having been outside of the church for my formative years and living as I did amid the chaos that surrounded me with the drugs, violence and the sex trade I sought for guidance and help on an almost continual basis.

I know the distinct difference that being a member of the LDS church has had on my life, the life of my sweet wife and on the lives of our four sons. But seeing the fruits of a tree is only part of the picture. When I was converted, I was converted by the power of the Holy Ghost. The truth of the gospel was made manifest to my heart not merely by understanding the atonement of Christ in a factual manner but by feeling the amazing gift that He so willingly offers.

I first grasped the way that the Holy Ghost teaches spirit to spirit by studying the Bible for many years prior to knowing anything about Mormons. In fact, when I first met with the missionaries I had hoped to dissuade them from continuing to follow the Mormon faith. Somewhere during the meeting I had what might be described as an experience somewhat like Saul on the road to Damascus. After the LDS missionaries explained the basics of the gospel, I turned to God for answers. As I sought out His guidance I felt a powerful sensation and an undeniable truth that Jesus is the Christ, that He lives and that the Book of Mormon was in fact “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.” I knew then that what I was learning was not just correct but essential and I could not deny it. To deny the powerful sensation that God had given me after following the admonition in James 1:5 would be to deny the Master himself.

Promoting My Book

It may sound strange but I think promoting my book may be more involved than writing it. The promotion that I have going right now is the "Signed Copy Giveway." I have a contest posted on my website for people to submit entries in order to win a signed copy of Soul Survivor. I am planning to have it go through mid June but that depends on whether I get anyone to enter the contest. Other steps that I have taken to promote my book are:

• Asked friends and friends of friends to promote the book on their blog by promoting the contest
• Created a MySpace page and am trying to get friends
• Created different graphics that can be used to post on various websites
• Sent my book to a few news outlets and sent emails to a number of radio stations and TV stations in hopes of getting a story

I anticipate that my book will show up on Amazon.com at some point in June and perhaps that will help but I'm not going to rely on osmosis to get the word out. Some of the books have sold already but I need to increase awareness in a more significant way.

Soul Survivor

At long last my book is ready. Soul Survivor has been a labor of love for me for a number of years and the process of making it ready for print has been both painful and cathartic. My book is now available and I have chosen to make it available through the publisher Lulu. There is both a print version and an electronic version available for download. The summary of the book can be viewed from the Lulu site by following this link Soul Survivor on Lulu.

The front cover of the book is pictured below:

Latest News and Coming Events

I was recently asked to provide a series of presentations to various audiences in Florida during the Vitamin Shoppe seminar in June. I am thrilled about this opportunity because it looks like we will be focusing on vitamins for the presentation. In the nutrition world vitamins are about the least "sexy" subject to present but I am hopeful that I add some zazz to the presentation that will make it interesting. Nutraceutical is one of the sponsors for the event and will have a large booth and a private room for my presentation. I have worked with many of the a large retailers such as Vitamin Cottage, Whole Foods, Henry's and Boney's but I have never worked with Vitamin Cottage on this level before and I am grateful for the chance.

Last week I conducted a training seminar for two days with new sales people for Nutraceutical. I was using a brand new training format that I just designed for the event and I felt that it worked out very well. It is a nice looking presentation and takes advantage of the way adults learn and provides a number of take aways for the participants. The new sales people were all very sharp and I learned quite a bit from them even while conducting the training.