LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories

From Grief to Grace: When God Rewrites Your Story: Anneka Walker's Story - Latter-Day Lights

• Scott Brandley and Emily Hemmert

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How do you keep your faith in God when grief keeps rewriting the life you always dreamed of?

In this week’s episode of Latter-Day Lights, Scott and Emily sit down with author, mother, and Praiseworthy Award Winner Anneka Walker, to explore how faith, loss, and creativity brought about healing and renewed purpose into her journey as a writer.

When multiple miscarriages and high-risk pregnancies crushed her dreams of becoming a mother to 13 children, Anneka’s belief in God still led her to unexpected miracles—including a life-saving experience with her miracle baby, and a newfound calling to write. She reflects on how storytelling became a sacred refuge during seasons of grief, helping her process pain, preserve hope, and uplift others through wholesome romance and historical fiction.

Having received a Praiseworthy Award for her book, “The Lady Glass” from “The Enchanted Regency Romance Series,” she affirms that God was still shaping something beautiful from her broken plans, and that the stories born from her deepest grief could become a source of inspiration for countless readers.

Tune in as Scott, Emily, and Anneka discuss the power of counting blessings amidst loss, navigating doubt and criticism, creating real-life character development, and trusting that God can still write a redemptive life story, even when it doesn’t go according to plan.

*** Please SHARE Anneka's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***

To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/3LQn9OSZBQg

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To READ Anneka's Praiseworthy Award Winning book, "The Lady Glass" from "The Enchanted Regency Romance Series," visit: https://a.co/d/3sMeP9X

To READ Scott’s new book “Faith to Stay” for free, visit: https://www.faithtostay.com/

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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.

Scott Brandley:

Hey there, as a Latter Day Lights listener, I want to give you a very special gift today. My brand new book, Faith to Stay. This book is filled with inspiring stories, powerful discoveries, and even fresh insights to help strengthen your faith during the storms of life. So if you're looking to be inspired, uplifted, and spiritually recharged, just visit faith2.com. Now, let's get back to the show. Hey everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Emily Hemmert:

And I'm Emily Hemmert. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth, and inspire others.

Scott Brandley:

On today's episode, we're going to hear how creating stories helped a young grieving mother to find comfort and joy that she could share with others. Welcome to Latter Day Light. Hey everyone, welcome to the show. On today's episode, we have the privilege of speaking with Annika Walker. Welcome, Annika.

Anneka Walker:

Thank you for having me.

Scott Brandley:

You bet. So um I'm also lucky to have as my co-host Emily Hammert. Um, she's been on the podcast a few times, and she is the founder of the Markovia Project. So welcome, Emily. Thanks for coming.

Emily Hemmert:

No, thanks for having me.

Scott Brandley:

Awesome. Well, um, Annika, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself to get started?

Anneka Walker:

I am primarily a mother, a writer, and a disciple of Jesus Christ. I was born in Idaho, but I currently reside in Washington State. I'm married to a faithful man, and together we have five beautiful children, ages 9 to 19. We'd love to be together, play games, camp, hike, play sports. When I'm not chauffeuring my kids around or playing Cook or Maid, I put on my author hat and I write books. I primarily write romance, historical, and contemporary fiction. I've written 28 stories that are in various stages of publication.

Scott Brandley:

Wow. That is amazing. How do you find the time to do that?

Anneka Walker:

That is a great question. And I always wondered the same thing when I sit down to write. Primarily, I started writing during nap times. And as my children started going to school, I had more windows of opportunities open up. I am often found with a laptop at sports events and a dance practices or in a car somewhere between events. So I write when I can. That's awesome.

Scott Brandley:

Wow. Well, and I know we're going to talk about some of your writing as one of the praiseworthy. That's such a hard word to say, praiseworthy award winners, um, which congratulations. Thank you. We're going to talk about that book and some of your some of the other adventures and and things that you do as well, and and some of your background. So why don't we just jump right into it and tell us where your story begins.

Anneka Walker:

Awesome. So before I talk about my books, I want to talk about how my story started because I feel like that has helped me create my books that I write. So uh, and that's a little daunting because it's easy for me to talk about my books and you know what goes into writing, but talking about myself is a little daunting, feels a little vulnerable. So it's my story starts um basically with my parents. My mom, um, when she was young, she was actually a teenager. She had a dream that she would have 12 children. And she had that dream three times. And when she was dating my dad, she told him about her dream and he just laughed. He only had one sibling and he could not take her seriously. Well, her dream came true, and I am the ninth of 12 children. So being a part of a big family is an integral part of my identity, and it does influence my writing pretty heavily. Those who have been who have been a part of a big family know there's a culture to it, and always loved having someone around to talk to and the chaotic wonderfulness of it. Our home wasn't perfect, but it was the perfect place for me to grow up with. Um, my older siblings had a lot of children, so I had a lot of nieces and nephews around. And I loved babies. If there was one in the room, I wanted to hold it at school. When they asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, I wanted to be a mother. I used to walk around the congregation at church and offer my babysitting skills to families, and I got paid anywhere from three to five dollars an hour, and I was happy to babysit for free. By the time I was 12, I was a fairly seasoned babysitter and was babysitter certified. I went to live with my sister the summer after sixth grade and became her daughter's nanny where she attended graduate school. And I continued to babysit through high school and sometimes even in college, different jobs, not for my sister. That was only a summer gig. In high school, I told my friends that I wanted 13 children. I was going to one up my parents. By this time, I had babysat overnight several times. I'd been thrown up on, cleaned up poop off the walls, had a dishwasher overflow on me, and even got headlines from some of the kids I attended. I felt prepared for motherhood. I just had to find someone to marry me first. Thankfully, the Lord took care of that. And I met my husband in college and we got married, and a fun, unexpected twist. My husband is one of 12 kids in his family. And so from the get-go, he was on board with all 13 children that I wanted. And uh my I became pregnant a few months after our wedding, and my dreams of motherhood were finally turning into a reality. At this point, I want to stop my story and share with you my favorite scripture because I feel like it has been a it has played a pivotal role in my life. Proverbs 3, 5 through 6, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not into thine own understanding. In all thy ways, acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. My life is a lot like all of yours. It did not turn out as planned. Spoiler alert, if you paid attention in my bio, I do not have 13 children. Um, but I hope with what I'm sharing that you will understand. Um, my personal theme is to trust that God will help write your story. And that is what has happened in my life. And my my first pregnancy shocked my system. I threw up all day long. I did not have the strength to leave my couch. I weighed 80-something pounds by the time my mom dragged me to see a doctor. She likely saved my life. I was too ill to see how far I was gone. And with IVs and medicine, I survived that pregnancy, but the experience was repeated with the next child. And each child I carried took a toll on my body. After my first two children, it took some prayers to get baby number three, baby number four. I lost at 14 weeks gestation. And I was blessed with two more children, but my second loss was at 18 weeks, and nothing has been more heart-wrenching to me than burying a baby. I have a lot of family who passed away, including my big brother. And the death of loved ones has been a heavy trial in my life. And losing a baby rocked me. During the grieving of this second loss, my health had reached a point where it was dangerous for me to be pregnant again. I had some high-risk stuff going on. And I was devastated that my health wasn't keeping up with my dreams. Um, and ending my childhood or my childbearing years after our loss left just a gaping hole inside of me. I had so many plans for more children, and we had even bought this big, huge table that would see more. And I just felt my dreams were just going down the pipe. And I was willing to give my life if the Lord willed it. But after years of fasting and prayers, the answer continued to be no. So many who hear this story might think, well, she had five healthy children, so she shouldn't complain. But no one knows what trials we need more than our Heavenly Father. And this was mine. Uh, sometimes our hearts are so deep that they shut out reason. And I had set my hopes and dreams on this one thing and I couldn't make it come true. Uh, this proved to be a really dark time for me while I was mourning the loss of my baby boy, the idea of a and the idea of a bigger family. My husband got a new job and we had to move to a new state, and I had to leave behind my support group. In the midst of these heavy trials, I had to ask myself why I didn't turn away from God. And for me, remembering how the Lord has blessed me in the past helped me to keep going. So I would love to share with you one of these stories that helped me keep going because I I feel like it's played a pivotal role in my life as well. So after my first miscarriage, I became pregnant with a sweet rainbow baby. So if you're unaware of the term rainbow baby, it means baby after loss. We named him Hunter after President Howard W. Hunter. All of our boys have profit names. When Hunter was 11 months old, he asked for a dumbbell popcorn kernel. We were having a movie party with some friends, and Hunter and he somehow found a kernel while crawling around and put it in his mouth and started choking. I called 911, the firefighters showed up and an ambulance whisked him away where he was intubated at the hospital. He had one collapsed lung and one partially collapsed lung. And we were told that if he did if he developed a fever and pneumonia before the morning, he wouldn't live long enough for the doctors to remove the kernel from his lung. And of course, he developed a fever. I shut myself in the hospital bathroom and fell to my knees. I've since learned that hospital bathrooms are sacred places. Those floors have felt a million prayers, no doubt. As I poured my heart out to Heavenly Father, I remembered the last time I had asked for a miracle when I had my first marriage carriage and my desire was not granted. I lost that baby. I felt scared to ask again, but I also wanted the Lord to know that I wasn't a fair mother disciple and that I would continue to believe in him if he called Hunter home too. The spiritual experience that followed this prayer changed my life. This time a miracle was granted. And despite a window of time without oxygen, Hunter is alive and well today. He's intelligent, active, and not surprisingly, he doesn't really care for popcorn. He's living proof of a merciful God. We don't refer to him as our rainbow baby, but a miracle baby. And of course, you know, I wish I could say that I never had doubts again after this experience because it was pretty powerful. But um it did strengthen my faith. And I I was a little bit more prepared when I had my second loss. Um, but it still it still was very difficult for me to go through. Uh I can't tell you how scared I was when I stopped feeling movement in my womb. Uh this time my prayers were not answered the way I hoped, but miracles don't always look the same. And it doesn't mean I didn't get one. While yes, I still lost that baby and my dreams of having twice as many children. I had other miracles. My life was preserved. I had an emergency surgery after the delivery, and I was given a chance to raise my five children. And God placed me in a position of growth that has continued to bless me. One of those miracles was my writing. God gave me stories to help me carry on. While babies were my long-term goal, I've always loved books. My mom was a library director and my dad taught English while putting himself through law school. He even published his own book. And during my pregnancies, when I was sickest, reading was all I was capable of. If I could read something uplifting, I could forget to feel sorry for myself. And sometimes I could even forget how sick I felt. There was a shortage of clean reads at my library. So I was motivated to fix the problem and I started writing stories of my own after the birth of my second child. But over those next 10 years that I wrote books, I never felt like I should publish them. I actually felt strongly that I should not and that I should focus on my family. So I trusted this prompting and kept mothering and writing during nap times. And finally, after 10 years, I received an impression to submit my work. My book was accepted a month before my last pregnancy loss. Coincidence and miracle. I would argue the latter. The Lord knew I would need a new purpose to carry me. And he was right. But it's I still needed a lot of growth, apparently, because this new journey has not been an easy one. Um, the pivot from full-time mom totally rocked me. I had no idea how involved I would become in the writing world and how many stories the Lord would bless me with. But it's been beyond my imagination. It's been hard and so fulfilling. I still ache for what I've lost, but stories have been a gift. I always think about the savior, how he used the power of story to share the gospel. My stories, they don't even they don't compare to his. But in my own simple way, I feel like I'm trying to put some of the savior's attributes into my stories: love, hope, forgiveness, service. I want my readers to feel uplifted. And I often tell people that my books contain humor, heart, and all the happy endings. It's my way of gifting them a few hours of respite that had been gifted to me when I was struggling. And in turn, I have been uplifted myself. It's allowed me to study human emotions and relationships and given me a greater perspective than I had before. It's introduced me to hundreds of people, both online and through events. God knew what I needed. And I have a testimony that He put me on the right path, and it wasn't the one I initially chose. I published independently and through the proper romance line desert book, and I try to write stories that anyone in the room can feel comfortable listening to. My life continues to take turns, but I hope I can continue to trust God through the process.

Scott Brandley:

Wow. Um, there's a lot to unpack there, but um one thing that I thought of when you were talking is even though you've had some tragedies happen to you, um, I like that you realized the importance of the blessings that you had, right? That you were able to get better and that you're able to take care of these five kids. That's a huge blessing. It's it's hard to see some of the some of the blessings that we do, all or a lot of the blessings that we do have when we're going through a tragedy or something that's really hard in our lives.

Anneka Walker:

That's true. And I I find myself examining that as I write my characters because in a story, you want your character to have growth, right? You want them to experience a character arc. And while my characters are experiencing their trial and hard thing, they have to experience also, they have to have that drop, that that loss, that dark moment, but they need to climb back out of it. And that's as readers, we put ourselves in their position, and we can experience that climb back out too. And that has been so good for me to experience that through fictional characters.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah. What are some of the inspiration? Where do you get your inspiration? I mean, you said you've started writing 28 different books in different areas of completion. How do you get this these ideas?

Anneka Walker:

Uh so ideas aren't as hard for me as the time to write. I feel like I could have written five times that number if I have the opportunity. This the ideas come to me, um, not necessarily in a full story, but like I, since I'm a romance writer, there's a lot of tropes that just kind of repeat themselves. So, for example, to write a meet cute where uh a boy and a girl meet for the first time. Those are my favorite to write. And I love coming up with those. I could come up with a few just write here for you. And that to me can spark an entire novel. So I love that. Some of my other inspiration comes from, like I said, being part of a big family has really influenced me. My grandma, um, the one I wrote this book that won the award, The Lady Glass, her stories and my grandpa's stories heavily influenced that story. And from little things, there's a violin in the story. And my grandpa gifted me a violin when I was a little girl that was from Slovakia that he brought home from his mission. And I I had to put that in the story. You know, I I use different parts of my family history. And I still do that, not as heavily as I've I've done in that book. But uh those kinds of things um are are great resources for inspiration.

Scott Brandley:

So um tell us a little bit about this particular story that that you won the praiseworthy award for. How did how did you get the idea? What's the background behind it?

Anneka Walker:

Okay, well, most of my books are historical. They are written in the Regency period. If anyone's familiar with Jane Austen, that is that she's my books are contemporary to Jane Austen. And so it's it's just a short window of time, but readers love that time period so much. And so the book I wanted to write, I wanted to set it in that time period because so many of my other books were set there too. But I wanted to include some of my family history. So I I mentioned that my um grandparents served a mission. Well, they served in Czechoslovakia, they uh the Czech Republic. And there's so much history to those countries, and they've evolved so much and changed names so many times. So I had to go back pretty far to see what matched with my story. And then I used names from my family history, and I created just a delightful couple with um a Cinderella trope. So my this is a third book in a series, and they're all fairy tale retellings. And uh the series is called the Enchanted Regency series, and they aren't um magical. I would say magical realism, maybe there is an illusion. Uh magical whimsy things, but there's no magic in them. They're very historical, very well researched. In fact, my publisher is very careful. If I use a word that didn't exist in that time period, it doesn't go in the book. So we are very particular in what we write. And so it took a lot of research. I also had a side plot that consisted of the Congress of Vienna at the time uh, you know, after Napoleon and a time where the European powers were readjusting. And that took a ton of research to get right. And the book premise itself is really fun. It's about um Teresa de Boric. She is an immigrant to England. And so she's automatically looked down upon. And her dad has died, and her stepmother sends her to a ladies' seminary and kind of just wants to get rid of her. Well, when she reaches of age, she leaves the seminary behind and comes back to get her dowry, which is a priceless vase. Her dad was a glass blower, a famous glass blower. And Napoleon had tried to hire him to create a chandelier in one of his palaces. And um, her father turned him down because he he wasn't a fan of what Napoleon was doing to Europe. And he fled to England. And his most priceless possession was this vase. It was worth the most amount of money, and it was going to be his daughter's dowry. And when she gets there, she discovers that the dowry or that the vase has been sold. Just as soon as she gets there, it's pretty much sold overnight where she's there because the mother knows that that's what she wants. So she decides to chase it to a house party. At the same time, there is a man named Captain Roland Reese. He's just returned from the Napoleonic Wars, and he finds out that there is a threat against his father, who was part of a committee for the Congress of Vienna trying to help England get the most amount of power as they're trying to rearrange powers. And so there is a threat of some French threat of trying to kill off anybody that is trying to uh promote this. And so they think it's a brilliant idea to have a house party and invite all the suspects to there's an original murder and those that are threatening to the father to this house party. And my character Teresa has no idea that she is coming to this house party in disguise and to join a group of murder suspects. So obviously it's a romance because that's what I write. So we have a really fun meet cute. We have a really fun second meet cute, and dare I see third. So anything that can make my readers laugh, I will try to put in, even uh under serious circumstances.

Scott Brandley:

This sounds right down my wife's alley. She loves first of all, she loves staying off and and she loves romance books. Yeah, this is she's gonna love this. So um, as you were writing it, did you feel, or as you write in general? I mean, I I think a lot of authors, you know, did you feel like um like in it have any imposter syndrome or feel inadequate or like any feelings of you know, why me, or am I good enough to do this? That kind of stuff.

Anneka Walker:

Uh during some of my research, I did question if I was a good enough researcher to get all the elements accurate. And in my line of work, you have readers that are extremely knowledgeable on on the time period because they're they're obsessed with the Regency time period and they go to these conferences and you know, dances and whatever, and they know the rules. And if you break one, uh they are not quiet about it. So you want to be as accurate as you can so you don't get ripped apart in reviews. And so that that can be daunting. I have an amazing critique group with some incredibly intelligent women, and I run things by them as much as I can. But you just you never know when you're gonna mess up. You know, I've I've messed up a title before, I've messed up, you know, I've made mistakes. And I have been so blessed. My readers have been so forgiving. I I don't get called out like some other authors do, but it's there's still that fear. So I try to be very careful. And I would say that the real imposter syndrome for me comes as soon as the book hits publication. As soon as it hits the shelves, I start to worry what are people going to say. And I get tagged a lot in reviews, and I'm always afraid at the beginning, like, oh, will everyone like it? Well, will people say nice things? And it it's hard to have your work be so very public and so open for criticism. It's a daunting thing. And one line in a review that is all praise, if it if there's one line that's negative, that's the one you remember. It just is the way it is.

Scott Brandley:

Interesting. What a um what about AI? How does how has that impacted your writing?

Anneka Walker:

Uh I know there's a lot of fear with AI right now, uh especially amongst artists. I have I have learned that AI can be a tool. And I also know that I need to be careful with it, but I use AI quite frequently. Uh, I use Chat GPT to help me with my brainstorming. I can ask Chat GPT to help me create, uh, I've recently asked it to help me create a whole apartment complex designed from an old granary that was turned into an apartment. And I had little things I wanted it to have, and ChatGPT helped me come up with a visual so I could use it for my brainstorming. And I mean, it it can be a powerful tool, but I could see how it can be used wrongly too. I I don't appreciate when my books are, you know, copyrighted and put back out again. There's different things happening all the time that are not okay. Um I know my book has been used illegally to help feed AI machines, and I I'm trying to fight where I can to protect my work, but um I don't think it has to be all a negative thing.

Scott Brandley:

Okay.

Emily Hemmert:

So would you consider it it would you consider it historical fiction or would just fiction?

Anneka Walker:

For so I have I have written some contemporary, which is modern day fiction, and I I would consider my other books as um romantic historical fiction. So it's a slightly different category than just straight historical fiction, because the romance plot line is like a certain percentage of the book puts it more in a romantic subcategory. So if I had written maybe 30% of a romance, then it would be straight historical romance.

Scott Brandley:

Interesting. And when you get an idea, how do you come up with the plan to write the book? Like, is there do you have a certain procedure that you follow when you come up with a with a book idea?

Anneka Walker:

Yeah, so a lot of people have plotting methods. I I feel like my system changes with every book. Sometimes I the scene is so strong, I just sit down and write those scenes that are just coming to me before I ever take the time to really organize the whole story because I am always short on time. So I'm going to do whatever I feel like is going to be the most productive because I've got this narrow window before kids get home. I have kids that are in running start right now. So they're home in the morning. And so I really only have like two hours to myself. So I've got to, I gotta write as fast as I can. So sometimes I have um a more plotted manuscript and I can do little character assessments about my character. Like I can figure out what their emotional shield is, I can figure out their hobbies, and I can kind of do a little portfolio about them so that when I'm writing them, I really know them. And other times I discover them as I write. So it just kind of depends. That's probably a terrible answer, but I'm a little bit of a plancer, uh, panser and a plotter. Two hours though, it's not very much time.

Scott Brandley:

How do you keep the storylines separate in your head as you're writing?

Anneka Walker:

I can't read a lot when I'm drafting because that will kind of pull me from my own story and I'll start thinking about their character more than my own character. So that's one trick I found for myself. I have to read in between stories that I'm writing. And um I I think about them when I'm not writing. That's helpful. If I take too much of a break, like if if I write on Monday and I don't have time to write till Friday, I will lose the story in my head and I'll have to go back and reread the chapters and try to immerse myself back in. And that's time consuming and takes up that precious little window that I have. So if I can write consistently a little bit every day, that's really helpful.

Emily Hemmert:

And how many how many books do you have published right now?

Anneka Walker:

Oh, see, it's so hard to keep track of. Um, at least 21. And then I have a handful that are in the lineup coming in the next year or two. Some already written. I think I have three. Well, probably five. Okay, it's got to add up to 28. So somewhere in there are some that are fully written. I have one that I'm just about to write at the end on.

Emily Hemmert:

So anyway, it's it's and and some of them are on Desert Book, the other ones are just available generally.

Anneka Walker:

Yeah, so I am published through a traditional publisher and I'm also self-published. So some of my books, majority of them, are with Desert Book. And you can find them on the Desert Book app and Bookshelf Plus uh or at the store or on Amazon. My self-published works. The ebook is only available on Amazon and the paperback, but the audio is wide. You can find those on a lot of platforms. Awesome.

Emily Hemmert:

I have Deseret Plus, and I'm gonna have to go a little read through those while I'd take me a long time to read that many books.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, 21 books. You're gonna, you're gonna, it's gonna take you a while.

Anneka Walker:

Some of them are novellas. I have several novellas that are in anthologies. So if you got an anthology, you would maybe have like four, three or four other writers in that book. And we've all compiled our stories together. It's a great way to like discover our new writer.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, that's cool. So, do you have any advice that you'd give to up-and-coming writers that are trying to get their books published or get their work out there?

Anneka Walker:

Yes, people reach out to me quite often actually asking me how to get started. And my number one piece of advice is learn everything you can and go to conferences. I feel like I could only learn so much online and by reading books, but conferences and going to classes and talking to other authors uh really helped me. Also, a lot of conferences have critique group options that you can join. And that is a very valuable asset to be in a critique group.

Emily Hemmert:

Sounds stressful, but probably good, right?

Anneka Walker:

It's humbling for sure, especially those when you're a newbie and the feedback is negative, it is hard to take, but it's the only way you're going to progress. So I find it very valuable.

Emily Hemmert:

And do you read all the reviews? You said like it's hard to see reviews, but do you take the time and like read the reviews or just ignore the haters or I don't read my Amazon reviews or my goodreads reviews, but if you tag me on Amaz on like Instagram or Facebook, I will read that review.

Anneka Walker:

A lot of times I use that as my marketing and I share it to my stories. So I I do read those. I don't have someone filtering them for me, unfortunately. I've thought about that many times. I have somebody who's helping me right now with my social media, but she doesn't do any of the comments. She just helps me create content. And I I'm not ready quite to give that up. But I think if it gets to a point that it's messing with my creativity, I would like turn off.

Emily Hemmert:

Yeah, there's a way to filter that, right? Where you can filter the comments.

Anneka Walker:

Yeah, well, I would just say to my assistant, you get to read them first. Yeah.

Emily Hemmert:

That was funny.

Scott Brandley:

It is hard to get criticism, you know, like uh even like doing the podcast. I mean, we've done this for four years. There's been people that have been critical that you know that have said things that hurt. And you do for some reason you you put a lot of weight on the few people that that criticize you versus all the positive feedback that you get. I mean, I maybe that's human nature. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?

Anneka Walker:

I think it is human nature. But as as I was thinking about, as I was writing my story, and I was I was thinking about why didn't I turn away from God? And so much of it was remembering past times I've been blessed. I think that's the same with me when I'm I'm looking at reviews and feedback from my stories. It's important for me to look back at the positive feedback I've been given. And it is something you have to actively try to shift your focus on. Um, I was talking to my husband the other day about 2025 and my feelings about 2025. And at first I was like, oh, I don't think I had a very good year. And then I started flipping through some of my pictures of this last year, and I was overwhelmed with all the amazing experiences we had. And it was just interesting how my focus had shifted by looking in those pictures and remembering. So I would definitely encourage anybody who's in a creative position or career that they print out those positive feedbacks, put them somewhere or someplace that they can look back at them at some point, because that is it's really important to recognize that there is good in what you're doing. And if you get caught up in the negative, those voices will really kill any desire to continue to do good. And that's exactly what Satan wants. He doesn't want us to continue to put out good content. So we need to do whatever we can to keep our focus on the right path. Yeah.

Emily Hemmert:

Yeah, I think it's good you're feeling a need of like there's a need for good, clean content or like good clean stuff, because a lot of stuff is not that great.

Anneka Walker:

No, it's not. There is so many more clean and wholesome writers out there than I think there's ever been. It's just knowing how to find them. And I love that that community is growing. I think we need it. We we really need it. Uh and I also love that like you can have a grandmother read my book, and you can have um a 12-year-old read my book. I have a lot of little girls that read my books and I get messages from, and it is so sweet. I love it. I love that they can read my story and there's no language in there, there's no sex scenes or anything explicit. It's safe for them to read and hopefully has an uplifting moral to it as well.

Scott Brandley:

So going forward, what do you what does the future look like for Annika?

Anneka Walker:

That's a good question. This has been a really interesting year because one of my publishers just closed their doors and my other publisher is shifting in and making some big changes. So I am in a position where I have to ask myself, am I going the right direction? I don't know. I think it's one of those positions where you just have to keep trusting and moving forward till the Lord directs you one way or another. And that's kind of what I've decided to do. I will still continue to write. I don't exactly know where my stories will land right now. Um, I do have some already locked away with publishers and some my own line of publishing. So anyway, for sure in the next year you'll see plenty of more romance stories from me.

Emily Hemmert:

It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna for sure read the lady glass. I don't know if I can do 28, but I can for I'll for sure read that one.

Anneka Walker:

I hope I suck you in and get you to read that. Yeah.

Scott Brandley:

Well, your description of it was cool.

Anneka Walker:

Yeah, it sounds awesome. I'm a better writer than I am, talker. I don't tell you that. There's no delete button when I'm talking.

Scott Brandley:

So um, as we kind of wrap things up, do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share?

Anneka Walker:

Uh it's been a privilege talking with you guys. I love what you're doing. I love that you are putting so much good out into the world. And I hope that something I've said resonates with someone. And I just wish you all a good night.

Scott Brandley:

Well, thanks for being on the show, Annika. We really appreciate you and congratulations on your award. Thank you. That's exciting. And thanks everyone for tuning in. Make sure you go and hit that share button so we can get Annika's story out there and share her light and her inspiration with others. If you have a story that you'd like to share, go to latterdaylights.com or you can email us at latterdaylights at gmail.com and you can be on the show as well. We can share your story with others. And thanks again, Annika, for being on the show, and we'll see you guys next week with another episode. Till then, take care. Bye bye.

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Scott Brandley

Host
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Alisha Coakley

Co-host