Drafts: Pop Culture Over the Pulpit

Tomorrow, be sure to go to LDSLiving.com and look for a blog post called "Sounds Like Scripture (But Isn't)." I'd link you directly to it, but it doesn't go live until tomorrow, so...

I must say, I had the hardest time putting that post together. I was working on it all week. Basically, my assignment was to recycle a blog post from like five years ago, about how "phantom scripture" comes about. 

You know, like that "doctrine" where today's youth were generals in the war in heaven and when we die we'll get to heaven and everyone there will bow to us in awe. Wow, it sounds so pompous and contrived just writing about it, but I distinctly remember being told that story many MANY times as a kid. 

That's "phantom scripture"--stuff that people keep passing around without really knowing where it came from. Everyone keeps attributing it to "um...some general authority...?" until one of the Brethren shoots it down as false.

Anyways, that's what the original article was about, but when I was working on it all week, it just wasn't working for me. It seemed like such a bland topic (it was more about how phantom scripture comes about), and the original article was so aggressive (which we're trying very hard to avoid right now), so I kept looking it over, making little alterations, but not feeling that happy creative flow.

Thankfully I asked my friend Jenny to help me figure out a better angle, and in the end I just rewrote the entire thing. 

Now it's written in a much more chipper "blog voice," and is a little tongue-in-cheek. Once I decided that's what I wanted to do, I wrote the thing in under an hour. We had more trouble coming up with a title and finding a good photo to go with it, but now it's all done, and I'm happy with it! 

I'm sure it'll get the usual internet backlash that we always get no matter WHAT we write, but I had fun writing it, it made my co-workers laugh, and I got it done on time. That's all that matters. :)

Best of all, it definitely got me through that creativity lapse. For the rest of work today I was able to contribute more creative ideas and title suggestions and such to the team discussions, and I finally felt like I was undoubtedly valuable to LDS Living.

Now I need to stay that way. I'm really putting my heart and soul into this job. I love it, and I love the people I work with. It's a shame it's temporary.