Well, I was wrong

If you’ve read my latest book, “STAND”, you may have also skimmed over the afterword. In it, I talk a bit about the premise of the book and my hopes that it would strengthen the faith and resolve of the friends who read it. Of course, all of this still stands. However, one of the final points made in that short note was incorrect. Here’s the original passage:

I anticipate that some readers will take issue with the character of Luis Escobar, the Venezuelan smuggler who joins Alvin and Joyce on The Chariot and abandons his old life to join the Witnesses. Perhaps some will find it unfair that an unbeliever would be given such an opportunity to change at the last moment. Others may feel that once the great tribulation starts, there is no longer an opportunity for honest-hearted ones to join true worshippers. However, in researching our recent publications, I was unable to find such a claim.

However in light of the Watchtower study article from this weekend, I clearly was wrong. The article states:

Let us remember that once the great tribulation begins, it will be too late for people to turn to Jehovah. (w19 pp. 8-16, par 6)

Of course, this statement renders quite a bit of the newest trilogy incorrect. For example, Ronnie Feldman’s character or Luis Escobar would never have a chance to join the convoy. Similarly, the evacuation would not be open to outsiders, nor would there be a global preaching campaign to invite non-witnesses to join.

As stated in this foreword, I always make great efforts and thoroughly researching the elements portrayed in the books so as to make them as accurate and believable as possible, and while I had found nothing recent in our publications on this particular point at the time of my writing, that is no longer the case.

As always, I urge readers to take all of these books with a grain of salt and remember that at the end of the day it is all fiction, and that none of us should read too much into any of the events portrayed. If you find it upbuilding and strengthening, that is great, but it should not be viewed as spiritual food.

Thank you for reading!

STAND now available!

Well, August 10th is here, and as promised, so is the new book, STAND. It's been a long, wonderful ride, and I'm glad I had you all along for the company. EDIT: (At present,  the Kindle version and paperback versions are separate, but should be linked within a few hours.)

For those of you who plan on reading the serialized edition, head over to fleenovel.blogspot.com, where I've posted the prologue. (Subsequent chapters will be released every Monday.)

If you enjoy this conclusion to the FLEE series, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Happy reading!

In other news, I've been consistently uploading chapters of the FLEE audiobook, with a new chapter being released, on average, every couple of days. I'll do my best to get through the whole book!

Mark your calendars, STAND is almost here!

Hi all! Well, I'm happy to finally announce the release date for STAND, the final book in the FLEE trilogy. It's been a long and somewhat arduous process, but the book is completed and the editors have written back with their final feedback. As always, it's proven invaluable in helping me to deliver the best possible reading experience.

I'm excited to let you all know that STAND will be available on August 10th! That's just 6 days from now, and in the remaining time I'll be finishing the cover design, setting up the products on Amazon, and submitting the final documents for paperback printing.

At the same time, I've finally gotten around to recording an audio book for FLEE. The test reading I did a few days ago was a success, (thanks for your feedback), and I've released the second chapter on my YouTube channel. Now that I have what feels like a good grasp on the recording and editing of a reading, I'm a little more confident to say that more chapters will be released soon. I'm still not sure if I'll do this with all my books as I'd prefer to use the free time I have to create new stories, but we will have to wait and see. Perhaps, if the audio book of FLEE proves to be popular, I'll continue it for the rest of the series.

For those who've asked for the audio version on another platform such as Audible, I'm not yet certain I will go that route. I'm currently leaning towards the idea of leaving the audio recordings on YouTube. It's completely free to listen to and does not require a whole lot of work on my end (going the Audible route would require a whole other registration and validation process). However, we'll see how it goes!

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!

Surprise podcast

So I realize that less than a week ago I said I had no plans for a new podcast episode and that was true, but today I had a bit of time and I wanted to tell a story. I think that wrapping up the latest book in the FLEE series has me feeling sentimental. (I'm not too proud to say that while writing a recent section this week, I had to take a bit of a break for some fresh air because I was getting too emotional to continue–it's hard to write a novel when you can't see the screen clearly!)

In any case, I hope you like this podcast. It's a bit shorter and there aren't many drawings, but I hope that helps to slow the pace down a bit and let things sink in for you, just as they're sinking in for me. Please enjoy.

Checking in...

Hi all, hope you're doing well! Just a little post to say that I'm still alive and kicking and things are going well. I don't currently have any podcasts episodes in production as I've been trying to put as much of my free time into finishing STAND. That said, it's proceeding as planned and is still on track for a late August release.

As that deadline nears, I'm gradually beginning to dread finally putting an end to this saga. As I mentioned in a recent podcast about developing characters, penning the final chapter in any book is always a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, finishing a novel is an exhilarating accomplishment and feels simply wonderful. On the other hand, it means saying goodbye to characters I've become close with, and it's safe to say this trilogy more than any previous book has resulted in a a cast of characters I'll truly miss being around. In spite of that, I am excited to bring this series to a conclusion and can't wait to share the finale with all of you. (And I sincerely hope it lives up to your expectations!) When I first set about writing a trilogy back in 2016 I knew I was leaping into an ambitious project, but I'm relieved to know that I stuck with it through the ups and downs and am so close to the finish line.

So, what's next? I know many of you have requested another foray into paradise territory, while others have hoped for more modern-day adventures à la The Bloom of Youth. While I'm not opposed to either idea, nothing solid in either vein is currently in the works.

What is in the works, however, is a new project I plan to announce more as soon as STAND is finished and on the shelves. What I can say is that it's something I've had on the back burner for a while now, and the pieces have finally fallen in place to proceed. It's still in its early stages of development, but what's beginning to take form is incredibly exciting to me, and I can't wait to share.

So stay tuned!

I took a trip to Namibia, and here’s what I saw

Ok, so not a real, physical trip. While I’d absolutely love the chance to fly to the Southern end of Africa and explore Namibia’s canyons, its sprawling desert coast, and its majestic rivers and waterfalls, due to financial limitations such a trip is currently out of the question. (Maybe one day?)

For now, I’ve settled with traveling there through the wonders of technology, particularly via Google Earth. I’ve soared over the dunes of the Kalahari desert and strolled through the streets of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. I’ve trawled through Wikipedia’s copious articles on the indigenous tribes found in this part of Africa, like the mysterious desert-dwellers known as the San, renowned for their ability to draw water from the ground using only blades of grass and empty ostrich eggs.

I of course realize that many have found the premise of the FLEE series farfetched, and rightly so. The notion that we’d somehow be corralled into a single location for salvation during Armageddon is highly unlikely (some might even say impossible, though I'm wary of calling anything impossible). But if a mass evacuation were to happen, my bet is that we’d be headed here, to Africa, where the land is almost endlessly vast and largely uninhabited.

There is something uniquely alluring about this part of the world. Perhaps it is the fact that our first ancestors were likely given life in a land not so far away, so that much of our early history unfolded in a region similar to this, where many of the same plants and animals existed. Perhaps it is the presence of so many indigenous tribes down to this day that makes the land feel, in some ways, pure and untouched, so unlike our developed, technology-dependent cities.

Maybe it’s the raw beauty of the land: golden desert sands stretching for hundreds of miles before abruptly ending in the crystal blue waters of the Atlantic; natural rivers winding like arteries through otherwise barren scenery; stunning night panoramas that bring to mind Jehovah’s promise to Abraham about his seed becoming as numerous as the stars. In developed countries, that metaphor doesn’t evoke much, but here, where cities, billboards, and highways don’t exist to reflect so much light into the atmosphere, you can see with the naked eye more stars than you could count in a hundred lifetimes.

Of course, there’s another possibility for why I find myself so drawn to this part of the world. Perhaps there is something elegantly poetic about restarting civilization here, right where it all began so many millennia ago.
There is something irresistibly beautiful about such symmetry.

On a roll!

So I'm going to be cautiously optimistic and make it official: I'm on a roll with the writing of the final installment of the FLEE series, STAND. It can be a tricky thing to determine if momentum on such a large project is temporary or stable, but I'm feeling pretty good about this book after taking a few months off after The Bloom of Youth. I'm back on track and hitting daily writing goals and it feels great. There's still plenty of work left on it but we're still looking good for a late Summer release, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, check out the newest podcast episode. I've been asked in the past about the tools I use to write novels, and while I've talked here before about MacJournal, I thought a video of me actually navigating the program would be helpful. Enjoy!

On a roll...?

It's been a productive last couple of weeks. I've set clear writing targets for the last book in the FLEE series, STAND, and have really been motivated to progress with the story. As I mentioned in the last podcast, it's proving a real challenge to connect and conclude the story lines and character arcs introduced in previous books while moving the general plot of the series forward. But we're getting there, and it feels really good!

I've also been chipping away the the newest podcast episode when I have some spare time ("chipping away" meaning working on the illustrations for the video). My drawing skills aren't great and my digital drawing skills are even worse, but perhaps with time and practice the quality will improve some. In the meantime, I hope you can enjoy the illustrations, messy though they are.

This latest podcast episode, number 14, answers some of the questions I've gotten regarding the latest book, The Bloom of Youth, and in particular, whether or not Will's experiences parallel my own as a teen. Enjoy!

Podcast Episode #13 is here along with a sneak peak...

Yep, a new podcast. This one answers some of my most commonly asked questions regarding the FLEE series and also offers a sneak peak of the last book’s cover and title. Enjoy!