FLEE Audiobook finally here!

It's been months since I started the approval process (the files were last submitted on January 25th!), but I'm pleased to announce that my first audiobook, FLEE, is finally available on Amazon.

You may have already caught some of these chapters on my YouTube channel, but much of this audiobook has been re-recorded with professional equipment. I personally think it sounds a lot better than the old version!

So if you're a fan of audiobooks, consider checking this one out!

Small update

So, I've got some good news and bad news.

Let's start with the bad news. I've done very little work on the new book in the last month. As I posted about a couple of months back, Covid-19 has presented very unique challenges for my wife and I in the country we are currently serving in. We are healthy, as are most of our friends, but life is not quite normal at the moment and we are currently under quarantine. With so many things in the air, the book hasn't been high on list of things to do. I apologize if you've written me with emails and comments recently that I have not yet replied to. I trust you will understand.

Now the goods news. For the last couple of years, I have been working on a very special project with a close friend of mine who is also serving here in our area with his wife. We grew up together, in fact, making our friendship quite unique and close. Over the last couple of years this project has turned into something I'd never imagined would've been possible. With all of the bad news (disease, locust swarms, fires, global warming) on the media right now, I think this particular project is coming at the right time. (What free time I do have is therefore going into this project rather than the book.)

So, what is it, you ask?

Well, it's a video game, and it's for you guys--our brothers and sisters.

Can't say more just yet. Stay tuned.

New podcast episode out – I know, about time!

Bloom of Youth sequel progress slow but steady

Hi all! Hope you are doing well this first month of the new decade. I know I've been a little hit or miss lately with updates so I thought I'd  jump on here to let you all know what the latest is with writing projects and my life in general.

First off, life. As many of you are already aware, I'm currently serving as a need greater in Asia with my wife. I've been here nearly eleven years now, and as you might imagine, life in a foreign country comes with challenges (both expected and unexpected). The standard of living is lower than America (where I am from originally), and with that comes a vast difference in education, cleanliness, and mentality. One way this is most evident is in personal hygeine.

While I tend to think that sometimes in the West we go overboard with our use of antibacterials, which is dangerous in its own right, here in the East, knowledge about bacteria, germs, and the general spread of disease seems, at times, to be almost non-existent.

As an example, where we live it is common to see people emerge from bathrooms without washing their hands. Most worrying, this is even true among employees in schools and restaurants. On top of this, many refuse Western medicine, (and with it, Western standards of hygiene), feeling that their own culture's remedies and herbal concoctions are superior. Of course, there is probably some truth to all of this, and I've learned over the years not to dismiss something merely on the grounds that it is foreign––after all, that's precisely what the locals are doing!

That said, the recent 2019-nCoV outbreak has many on edge here. In the area we are in, the streets, markets, and public squares have all but been deserted due to fears of contracting the disease. Much has been done locally to educate the population on hand washing (for once, an emphasis is being made on using warm water and soap––a novel concept for many here), and today while out buying groceries I was pleasantly surprised to find antibacterial hand washing stations set up at the checkout lines. But whether or not this will be enough to stem the spread of disease... That remains to be seen.

In book-related news, the sequel to The Bloom of Youth is progressing, albeit a bit slowly with everything else going on with life at the moment. The title of the book (which may change), is: The Bloom of Youth 2: Time and Unforeseen. I'm experimenting with some different subject matter in this book, while still trying to maintain Will's comical and semi-neurotic voice. It's a fun little book so far, and I hope you'll all enjoy it.

I've also finally mustered the energy to get back into mastering the audio files for the FLEE audiobook. I know that many of you have asked for this and I'd really love to be able to list the audio version along with the Kindle and paperback versions on Amazon, so hopefully I can get this sorted soon!

Can you believe it's 2020?

I certainly can't! I never pictured us experiencing this date on this side of the system, but here we are.

I wanted to update you all on how things have been going lately, since I know it's been a bit quiet over the last few months since the release of STAND. As has become my custom, I've taken a little breather after the completion of the last novel to recoup. In addition, life has been a bit of whirlwind since August (when the book was released), with conventions and other events keeping me busy.

In the midst of all this, I was working on the audiobook for FLEE, which I completed and released as promised for free on YouTube. I later went back and re-recorded many of the older chapters and planned to put everything up on Audible so that the audiobook version could be purchased alongside the Kindle and paperback versions on Amazon, but this turned into a bigger headache than I imagined.

The software I used to record and edit has not worked well with Audible's audio proofing process, with numerous issues and errors keeping me from publishing every time I try to submit the files. In addition, Amazon's customer support has been less than ideal, with many of my inquiries going unanswered and customer reps changing constantly, requiring me to re-explain the issues in detail. All of this, you can imagine, has slowed down the process and frankly killed a lot of my motivation to pursue this particular project. I'm not giving up just yet, but I've turned my attention to other things for the time being.

Going forward with the books, I've had about five different projects on the back burner for the last year or so. On occasion I'll go back over these ideas and write a bit here and there, perhaps fleshing out a scene or two or trying to piece together a rough synopsis to give me a launching point. These books span quite a range of genres, from a historical fiction set in 15th century England centered around a small ragtag team of Bible smugglers to a sci-fi interplanetary-colonization series set several millennia into the New World. All fun ideas, yes, but so far nothing has really jumped out at me.

That is, until I sat down about a month ago and started work on a brand new project, something completely unrelated to the ideas I'd had stewing in the back of my mind for so long. This story is much more grounded in our present reality, and is, in fact, a sequel. And just so I don't encourage any false hopes out there, I'll go ahead and tell you that it's the second part to Will Larson's story from The Bloom of Youth.

When we left Will in the last story, we'd seen him grown partway to manhood. He'd learned, through a tumultuous adolescent year, to make the truth his own and take a stand for what he believed in. At the time, I was happy leaving the story at that, until I started thinking more about my own adolescence and all the other things I learned and experienced during those difficult years.

Since I'm only a fraction of the way into writing the first draft, I don't have a title or a cover to share here just yet, I just wanted to let you all know what's in store. Hope you're all having a lovely (and not too cold) January 1st.

Still can't believe we're in 2020!

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!

Tiny update!

It’s been almost a month since my last post, and I know things have been pretty quiet here since, so I thought I’d write up a short update for you all.

The audiobook (including re-recorded chapters) is finally complete and is currently going through Amazon’s Audible review process. This has been a bit more tiresome of a process than I originally anticipated, and many chapters were rejected multiple times due to minor sound issues (some of the peaks were too high, some of the narration was too soft). Each review process can take from 7-10 days, and each time new files are uploaded the process has to restart, so it’s taking a much longer time than I’d expected.

As always, jumping into a completely new medium was a tremendous learning experience, and I’ll be releasing a podcast episode soon on a few of the practical lessons I came away with. A lot of them apply to public reading and speaking, and many of you might find them useful in your own talks/readings/ministry. Reading is such an essential part of what we do as Witnesses, but there’s so much more to it than just speaking words from a page. Stay tuned for the podcast and you’ll see what I mean.

Of course, in spite of all the experience gleaned from this audiobook, I’m still a novice narrator (performer?), and there’s plenty of room for improvement in future books. My goal at present is to begin work on the audiobooks for STAY and STAND once FLEE is released. Once the trilogy is done, I’ve got other ideas for projects that I’d love to dive into as time permits. More than likely, this’ll mean that there will be no new books coming in 2020, but if you’ve been following my work for any length of time you’ll know that plans can and will change, so we shall see!