What a Dream Can Do – The Journey of A Year Without the Grocery Store

Dreams

More than three years ago, I had a dream.  I thought about writing a book.  A lot of people dream about it.  Perhaps you’ve dreamed about it.  But I didn’t do that on my own. I wanted to take a class that walked me through writing my book step by step.  It was a substantial investment.  My husband saw the potential and approved the investment in the class.  I don’t think I say it enough either in person or online, my husband is an amazing man!

One of the things that the writers of the class suggested was to get an accountability partner.  So I put a request out on the Facebook group for the class, and I met my friend, Ally.  She has been walking with me for over THREE years now.  We meet once a week to spur each other on and to encourage each other to make progress on our goals.

It took me about six to eight months to write my book, but it happened.  Slowly but surely.  From writing the first version to the rewrites to the editing.  I have a wonderful Editor – Spencer Borup – who helped me through the editing process.

But it was scary.  Even as I worked toward my goal, the doubts mounted.  What if people don’t like my book?  What if nobody buys it?  Will people think that I’m off my rocker?  Will they think that I don’t know what I’m talking about?

But some of it was fun.

But there were fun aspects of writing a book.  Seeing my cover for the first time was amazing!  Learning to get the word out about my book – to people who had no idea about my book was a totally new experience.  I had a friend – Noreen Dreste – who went to town gathering names of people who just might be interested in knowing about my book on food storage and basic prepping.  I really just kinda stumbled through the marketing thing.

Then holding my book in my hands for the first time was amazing! But then all those nagging doubts started coming back.  What if people don’t like my book?  There are some that don’t.  What if nobody buys it?  Well, I’ve had some months where I don’t make much on it at all, and I’ve had a few really good months.  Will people think that I don’t know what I’m talking about?  Yep.  There are several reviews that have been left that say pretty much that exact thing.

And the Reviews

If you go check out the reviews on my book, you’ll see that there are people who think all of those things.  But you’ll also see this:

I have a 4.5-star rating and 541 ratings (as of the day I wrote this).  70% of the ratings are 5-star, and 15% are 4-star.

You’ll also see this review by Daisy Luther – The Organic Prepper

The stories bring this book to life – not another drab, boring how-to book!

“I loved this book! I also have a passion for pantries, and I enjoyed every word of A Year Without the Grocery Store. As someone who is pretty well-prepared, it’s always fascinating to me to get a glimpse inside the homes of others. The personal stories that Mrs. Morris shared bring the book to life – this isn’t another drab, boring how-to book. And while these stories add a lot of character, they also underline exactly WHY it’s so important to keep a big supply of food on hand,

“Even though I’ve been doing this for quite some time, I learned new strategies from this book I hadn’t even considered before. Her ideas for making space for it all were very helpful to me, as I’ve just moved from a 2500 square foot house in the country to a tiny 1000 square foot bungalow in town.

“I strongly recommend this book for new and experienced preppers alike. You’re definitely going to learn something and you’ll enjoy doing it!”

Launching My Website – Year One

Then the next week, I launched my website.  Here was my first post ever.  We’ve come a long way from that post.

At the very beginning of the blog, most of my posts were about food storage.

Some of the more notable ones (with hits in the thousands) include:

Five Food Storage Items People Forget to Buy

Gourmet Food Storage – Milk it for all it’s Worth

7 Simple Food Storage Breakfasts

Gourmet Food Storage – It Evaporated into Thin Air!

The most popular blog posts from my first year were

The Prepared & Organized Vehicle – Putting it All Together with Simplicity and Style

8 Lessons I’ve Learned from Bugging Out Three Times

Serious DIY Series – Salt Scrubs and Their Incredible Health Benefits

Year Two 

So I switched gears from my first year which was more focused on food storage, making things from scratch, and prepper DIY.  In the second year, I focused much more on preparedness topics.  My blog posts that were popular were now hitting in the tens of thousands of hits including these:

5 Tips For When You Don’t FEEL the Motivation to Prepare

15 Places To Find Free Firewood

Prepper Knowledge and Tools Won’t Save You If You Don’t Have This

The First 12 Things a New Prepper Should Do – A Refresher for the Rest of Us

10 Homesteading Skills for the Suburbs

10 Sneaky Places to Hide Money and Valuables – And 5 Not to

Year Three

So then this year, things started off, very much like normal, But sometime mid-January, we started hearing rumors of a virus circulating in China.  And that one thing threw the rest of our year into chaos.  And much changed – even on my blog.  My posting was more infrequent due to the demands on my time growing exponentially.

To date – year three’s three most popular articles are…

What You Should Be Doing Right Now to Prepare for the Second Wave

An EMP Hits and You Aren’t Home! What Do Your Kids At Home Do?

Fruits and Vegetables to Plant in October that Will Grow Over the Winter

But What’s Next?

So we have several plans on the horizon, that I’m really excited about.  First off, I have finished recording the audiobook version of A Year Without the Grocery Store!

We are also currently just beta-testing for a planner to help everyone stay focused on what’s important in your life.  I do it in a very, very easy way and include preparedness in the mix.  The cool thing though is that it’s not limited to preparedness.  Each of us has many arenas that we function in, and those each require balance.  The planner helps facilitate that delicate balance.

Also, book 3 is underway.  I’m going to try to focus on that after the editing of my audiobook is officially done and The Prepper Planner is set up for 2021.

All of this because I dreamed about writing a book.

What are your dreams?

Imagine where they could lead you in several years if you’d only dare to act on them.

What About You?

I’d love to hear about your dreams.  If time and money were not a factor what would you attempt to do?  How would you want to change the world – or at least your little corner of it?  Leave a comment below and share your thoughts with us so that we can all be better prepared.