How Dark Souls Taught Me Optimism

Hi I’m Ryan (the hubby). Just a little about me, I work as a computer scientist. I like video games, cosplay, and a hundred other things that I can’t commit fully too (Electrical engineering, learning Mandarin Chinese, music theory, etc.).

On the more spiritual side of things, I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I served as a missionary for my church for two years in the southern United States. I spent most of my time in rural Georgia and Dothan, Alabama. My mission taught me a lot of things, one of which I’d like to focus on. That is the idea that spiritual truths can be found and learned anywhere. I believe there are life changing truths we can learn from any church, any philosophy, and even video games!

One such lesson I’ve learned recently comes from a surprising source, Dark Souls. Dark Souls is a game that has a bit of a reputation for being very difficult. You typically play as a knight or sorcerer and the game centers around making it from one checkpoint to the next defeating the enemies along the way, sounds fairly typical right? Well get familiar with this screen.

As you defeat enemies you gain souls which acts as a type of currency in the game. When you die you lose all of it. If you can make it back to the place you died to can get it back but die again and it’s just gone.

As a rule I struggle with perseverance, especially when things get hard. As mentioned before I have a lot of interests and I tend to pick them up with a lot of enthusiasm. Unfortunately I also tend to quickly move on when I hit that first wall that comes with learning something new.

I went into Dark Souls knowing it would be hard and so I prepped myself by repeating over and over “don’t get mad, dying is an intentional part of the game”. I did die many, many times but through it all I kept the attitude that it was just part of the experience.

Eventually I had a breakthrough with the game and I was able to get past the boss that was giving me trouble. I felt the amazing rush of accomplishing something that had seemed impossible before. The rest of the game slowly started to come easier and easier, until finally I defeated the final boss. This breakthrough wasn’t just a breakthrough in the game, it was a breakthrough in my life.

Turns out accepting mistakes in life as “part of the game” does a great deal to help us to actually improve. Often we can get discouraged by what we perceive as big set backs but what if those set backs aren’t actually set backs at all? If we learned, if we kept going, didn’t we come out of the experience ahead? Whatever we lost we can get back, wherever we were we can get there again.

Through Jesus Christ all of our shortcomings, all of the negativity in our lives, all of the weaknesses we have can be turned for our Good. Mistakes are part of the game. Praise The Son

A Life Hack for Writers

I have a Life Hack for writers who find it hard to actually sit down and write. You’re welcome. 😊

Write in the Small Moments

This seems obvious, but when it comes down to it, it’s surprisingly difficult to actually sit down and write. When you’re a teenager, you’re often bogged down with a lot of things in your schedule. School, sometimes work, friends, sports, band, on and on! But there’s always tiny moments that everyone has. There’s an object lesson that I’m sure you all have seen at least once in your life.

In the demonstration, you get a jar that is supposed to represent our lives. There’s a jar of sand, a jar of big rocks, and a jar of pebbles.

The big rocks represent the extremely significant.

The pebbles represent the somewhat significant things.

The sand represents that not so significant things.

If you fill up the jar with sand, you can’t fit anything else. But if you put the big rocks in first, then the pebbles, then the sand, you end up with a jar full of rocks and sand.

The message of this is simple, but profound.

If you fill your life with things that don’t really matter that much, you won’t have time in the day for the things that do.

Here’s a video that demonstrates this experiment. >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvvw2yy-dn4

How does this apply to writing?

If you want writing to be a priority, you have to make it one. It doesn’t have to be a huge rock, unless you have the means to make it so. If we’re really honest with ourselves, we don’t have that. So what do we do?

Write in the small moments!

Get a pen, paper, the notes app on your phone, whatever you choose to write on and just write a sentence in the five minutes you have before work in the morning. Listen to music that inspires you to write on your commute or while you’re going to the grocery store. Even when you’re not physically writing words, you can still be in your world.

You can always take a few seconds out of the day and write. Even if it’s only a sentence, that’s still one more piece of the puzzle you’ve found! Embrace that and don’t think of whether you’ve written the entire novel in two days.

It’s okay. You got this! Keep writing and fill your jar with little bits of writing every day. I’ll see you next time.

~ Chandler R. Williamson

How I Became an Author

I was 11 when I decided I wanted to become an author. I’m now a self-published author with 3 novels published under my name. My novels, The Holiday Spirit, Convicted: 25 to Life, and Beyond My Words, were published at the same time in 2020.

I had a friend named Kendra who I’d been friends with since I was really little. We were literally born a week apart from each other. During church every Sunday, we drew these little comics, if you will, of random stuff and exchange them after the meeting was over. Eventually, as we got older, the comics became less about drawing fun pictures for each other and more about stories. It really started to become more elaborate with legitimate story lines until it turned into a full-blown story.

The first story I ever wrote was called The Island Stowaways. I’m planning on actually revisiting that story at a later date, but for now, it’s still in the infant stages of production as a novel.

Kendra and I would spend time every day after school reading stories we’d written to each other over the phone. She was the first person who heard the story of my series, Beyond My Words, which I started writing when I was thirteen-years-old in 2008. I’m still writing that story after all this time.

I wrote almost constantly as a teenager. I wanted to be a writer more than anything in the world. It was definitely my dream job and I’m aware of how unbelievably blessed I am to call myself an author now.

Since I was 4, I’d taken ballet lessons only to find out that I’m not very graceful. At 16, I was held back a year for the second time after a very unfortunate year with a . . . eccentric teacher. My mom gave me the option to quit ballet and do my writing critique group full-time or continue with ballet and quit my critique group. Ultimately, I chose writing, but it was actually a really tough decision that took some serious prayer and consideration.

I get asked a lot what my biggest piece of advice is when it comes to teenagers wanting to become authors. Here’s what I tell them.

Advice for Teen Writers

  • Join a writing/critique group! They can help you become the best author you cane be.
  • Go to teen writing conferences! This will help you learn about the writing world and get acquainted with different styles and methods of writing.
  • Never stop writing and working toward your dream! It’s really easy to stop writing. But the more you write, the better you get. Practice makes perfect!
  • Believe in yourself! Anything that is worthwhile is going to take work. And A LOT of it! Writing a novel isn’t easy, but it’s extremely doable if you believe in yourself and get to work! Even if others discourage you or try to tell you it’s too hard. If it brings you joy to create stories and characters, do it in spite of those who might doubt you!
  • Don’t compare yourself to other writers! You are you. I’ve never liked when people say I’ll be “the next J.K. Rowling!” For the simple reason of, I’m not her and I love and respect other authors like her, I’m not her. No one else can write your story. It’s yours.

The best thing you can do for yourself as a writer is believing that you can do it and that you’re capable of great things!

Anyway.

Dropping ballet for that critique group was the best thing I could’ve done. It helped me embrace my creativity in a way that suited me. Ballet was fun and I made a lot of really awesome friends there, but I grew way more through being a writer than I ever would’ve as a ballerina.

So, thanks, Mom!

Fast-forwarding several years, I published my first novels, like I said, at the same time in 2020, the year we all try to forget happened. I have been spending my summers every since then at art fairs selling my books. My main genre is romance, though I refer to them as love stories because there’s a stigma with the title of being a romance novelist. People tend to assume I write filth like Fifty Shades of Grey if I write romance. I write clean romance. Not only for myself, but also because I want my readers to trust me and know that they don’t have to be embarrassed reading my books while on a bus.

  • Photo by Mental Health America (MHA) on Pexels.com

Now, I’m working on the second book of the Beyond My Words Saga. I’m an author, a wife, and a mommy! I love it so much and the life I always dreamed for myself.

Miscarriage

I know this website was supposed to be a positive place to share fun updates and inspiration. But I also want to be honest and not pretend like we’re perfect and everything is sunshine and roses all the time. I don’t like to pretend like I’m prefect. I know I’m not. I struggle with depression and anxiety. I don’t always have a clean home. I haven’t been physically able to clean for several weeks. (It’s killing me!) I don’t like to act smarter than I am. I was given advice about a previous blog post that I needed to appear more assertive about the facts and opinions I was sharing.

I only like pretend when my kiddo hands me a small box of tissues wanting me to talk to Grandma.

That being said, this has been one of the hardest weeks of my entire life.

In August, 2021, we found out we were expecting a second little baby in our family. I told Ryan I was pregnant by watching a specific episode of the TV show, Boy Meets World. I’ll link the segment here >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH8uGYo8MMs We had been trying for a few months to conceive, so it was really exciting to finally be expecting. It was a day or two before our 4th anniversary. We celebrated up in Bear Lake, Idaho, where Ryan’s family owns a cabin and had lots of fun enjoying each other’s company.

My mom and best friend, Jessica, were the first to know, even before Ryan. But we waited to tell his family until we were 7 weeks along and had our first ultrasound picture. I know it’s not advised to tell family until at least the end of the first trimester, but I was starting to show pretty badly. So we told everyone in Ryan’s family at Sunday dinner, a few days before the annual family reunion at the cabin.

The next day, I started spotting.

It freaked me out at first. I researched and obsessed over what could possibly be causing it. When I asked my OB-GYN about it at the ultrasound, she said it can be normal and to just watch it and let her know if it got any worse. Our baby had a strong, healthy heartbeat which was a massive relief after seeing blood. For odd reasons, however, I was told that our baby was a week behind in growth from what I’d calculated from my last period. This struck me as so weird because I was pretty on top of my cycle at the time and knew exactly when everything had taken place.

The next few days passed and we went to the family reunion in Bear Lake. The spotting continued, but I tried not to think anything of it until the last day of our vacation when the blood turned from brown to bright red.

I called my OB-GYN as fast as I could. They told me to take it easy that weekend until they could see me on Monday. I’d spent nearly the entire week lying in bed, doing what I considered “taking it easy.” I don’t do bedrest very well, but I tried my best under the circumstances.

Saturday, I couldn’t stand up without bleeding.

I was absolutely terrified. I still experienced symptoms of pregnancy, but I was bleeding. It didn’t make sense to me.

Sunday, I woke up with signs of infection and more blood. We went to the emergency room. They tried an abdominal ultrasound where they saw the baby, but not clearly enough. I went to the bathroom and felt something drop inside me. In the toilet was a tiny ball of tissue. Terror and dread overcame me and I felt sick to my stomach and dizzy. I didn’t want to believe that I’d just miscarried, so I told myself it wasn’t anything to be worried about.

When we did another ultrasound, baby was gone. My womb was empty and so was my heart.

The nurse, for some reason, showed me a before and after image. I don’t know why because it only made the grieving process harder. I didn’t want to look at that monitor showing my empty womb anymore and begged to go home. I didn’t want to do anything but cry. My little baby was gone. Flushed down a toilet.

The first thing I did after coming home from the hospital was take a shower, hoping that would help cleanse my body and heart of what’d just happened. Maybe it would make the experience go away. But then I passed the placenta. That was when it really sunk in. I’d lost my baby. I’d miscarried and the hopes I’d had for that little one were gone. My pregnancy was over. I felt like my life was too.

I turned to Heaven with tears in my eyes and said, “God, I know that You did this for my good because you’re good. I know You wouldn’t do this to me unless it would be good for me.” And I tried really hard to believe my own words.

Then, I remembered feeling my child’s spiritual presence in the room as we looked at the image of my empty womb. I remembered sensing the disappointment in my child at being sent back to Heaven. Most importantly, I remembered feeling the presence of my Savior in the room with us.

In our religion, we believe that there is life before and after this life on Earth.

This knowledge has been more comforting than any words could ever be. This experience has been unspeakably difficult. But I’m so grateful for my knowledge of the Plan my Father in Heaven has for me and my family. It has made me appreciate my little boy, Garrett, so much more.

I know that my child is safe with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.