New podcast episode is here

And it's another Paradise Home Review, enjoy!

STAND now in the proofing process

That's right! The final draft of STAND was completed yesterday afternoon and sent off to the editors, who've already begun writing back with their input. As always, their suggestions are proving invaluable (no matter how many times I comb through a manuscript I can never manage to catch all the errors).

In addition, the FLEE blogsite has been updated to prepare for the serial release for the new book, the first chapter of which will coincide with the release of the full book on Amazon.

Here's the synopsis:  

With Angelica missing and tensions rising aboard their rig, Peter Burton and the other overseers face new trials as they strive to keep the friends calm. In the Pacific, a separate Witness convoy embarks on its own journey, with many challenges just on the horizon. Meanwhile, in Namibia, the brothers and sisters are hard at work preparing the colonies while pressures from governmental authorities continue to mount…

STAND is nearly 120,000 words long, roughly fifty percent longer than the previous two books. (This is one of the reasons it took so much longer to write than the others.) Can't wait to share it!

Editing STAND is a blast

I'm about halfway through the final draft and I'm having so much fun! As I said in the last blog post, editing affords me an opportunity to read the book with a fresh set of eyes and see if all the parts are working correctly, and so far it seems to have really come together!

Of course, there are always changes needed, and I've found myself combining certain characters (if two characters can be combined into one, it's always better than littering the pages with throw-away characters that exist only for exposition's sake or to bring about some plot device). I've also come to realize that certain events or character arcs weren't properly set up in the first draft, so that's been another thing requiring some adjustment.

I've also surprised myself with certain parts of the story which have come across more humorous than I intended. In most cases, I've found, that's ok, as it provides needed levity to an intense (and occasionally dark) story. It also humanizes and grounds the characters, something which has always been one of my primary goals for the series.

So overall, I'm happy with this manuscript. I feel like it's tied up all the loose ends of the other books and brought about a satisfying conclusion to the series. I can only hope you all will have the same reaction to it!

In other news, I was shocked to find the other day that the EKJ Podcast channel on YouTube just reached 100 subscribers! The subscriber count has never been too important to me and I've never asked for subs, but I was happy to reach this milestone because it means that YouTube's custom URL feature is now enabled. This feature allows me to use a more memorable and succinct web address for the channel, and I've chosen youtube.com/c/EKJonathan as mine. (Glad there aren't any other "EK Jonathans" already on the platform!)

For the last month or so I've been tinkering with a new podcast episode, but with the completion of STAND looming on the horizon I haven't had time to put on the final touches. If all goes well, it should drop sometime within the week, so stay tuned!

Can't wait to share this new book with you all!

It's DONE

After nearly a whole year of writing, I'm overjoyed to announce that the first draft of STAND is finished. As you can see from the word count chart above (I do this for all of my books), there were ups and downs in the writing process, and at times weeks or even months would go by with little progress. But since February of this year, I was able to finally lock into a sustainable pace, and continued that pace up till now.

There is nothing like the feeling of completing a first draft. It's an exhilarating mix of accomplishment, excitement, and relief: accomplishment at having finished such a formidable project, excitement at the prospect of being able to share it soon with the world, and relief for not  giving up mid-way!

And now comes the fun part–editing! It may sound strange to say that this is my favorite part, but it truly is. When I'm writing the first draft, I resist the urge to go back and read previous sections of the story. In fact, except for going back to double-check facts, I try not to look at what I've written at all. This can be a hard urge to resist, but I feel it's important to keep the writing momentum going. Editing the first draft is for me an opportunity to read the completed story for the first time–I can actually enjoy the book as a new reader would. And because, at this point, so much of the writing was done months prior, I've forgotten much of it myself. This helps me judge the beats of the story objectively; if certain character arcs aren't working or if the dialogue is clunky, this is where I'll often catch it.

Once my editing work is done, the book is formatted and sent out to my small team of editors and proofreaders. They are invaluable in catching errors, inconsistencies, and typos that I missed. Many readers have written in asking why All Things New and The Unrighteous don't feel as polished as the later books, and a lack of editors is the reason. With those first two books it was just me doing everything, but with later books I've always relied on outside sets of eyes to help proofread, and it really shows.

As I've said previously, the book will be released sometime next month, in August. So please stay tuned and enjoy your regional conventions!