"Bloom of Youth" audio book finally here!

Great news! After months of waiting for news back from Amazon's Audible service, The Bloom of Youth is now available in their store! If you've already got a subscription to Audible, be sure to give it a listen. If you'd like to hear an extended sample, check out the first chapter here on my YouTube channel.

Also, I apologize for the long wait in sharing the winning submissions I received for the bloom of youth writing contest. I'm still waiting to hear back from one of the applicants (so if you submitted a story and didn't hear back yet be sure to check your email!). In the meantime, I've decided to share one of the stories today. (I'll share another one next week) Enjoy, and thanks again to all of you who participated!

My Bloom of Youth Story, submitted by M.S.

I was raised around the Truth my whole life. My mother has been faithful to Jehovah for a long time. Unfortunately my father was disfellowshipped when I was 13, so he has been away from Jehovah for 24 years.

Growing up as a teen I had influences from both my parents as well as young ones in the congregation leading double lives at school. I thought I could just lead a double life myself. And I did, or thought I did successfully up until I was 18. One of my classmates had lost her grandmother in death, so I started witnessing to her about the resurrection hope.

She looked at me and said, “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

"Yes, of course," was my reply.

She said, “If that was really true, why are you with us?”

Wow! It was like my world started crumbling. I couldn’t fool my schoolmates. I couldn’t fool Jehovah. And I needed to make a change... I decided that I needed to be either all for Jehovah or all for the world, I couldn’t do both anymore.

Fortunately I made the right decision. I have been serving Jehovah now for many years. I’ve been pioneering since 2004. (Been to Pioneer School 3 times, 2 of those times with my husband.) And I have been able to serve where the need was great up until August of this year. Now my husband and I are living with my mom in US and hopefully she will be joining us in the pioneer work soon! Serving Jehovah is the best life ever and I really wish I figured that out sooner!

"Bloom of Youth" writing contest now closed

Well, today is November 10th, meaning that the writing contest for your "Bloom of Youth" stories is now closed. Thank you all so much for submitting your stories! I thoroughly enjoyed reading each and every one (I even read a few to my wife, who loved them just as much!)

I have already contacted the three winners of this contest, and I will be shipping your hard copies of Time and Unforeseen out to you as soon as I hear back (so check your emails!). I'll also be sharing your stories here within a few days, and I'm sure many of you readers will enjoy them! As for those of you who didn't win this time, thank you again so much for participating and sharing your wonderful, funny, and sometimes emotional stories!

As I teased in my last podcast, I'm also very close to announcing some very big news regarding a project I've been working on for some time now with another brother and close friend of mine. This announcement will likely be made at the end of this month (at the very latest, December 1st). It's something that I think could not be coming at a better time, and hopefully will bring a lot of enjoyment and wholesome entertainment for many out there.

So please stay tuned!

"Time and Unforeseen" Now Here!

 

Hi all! It's November 1st and Time and Unforeseen is now available on Kindle and as a paperback on Amazon. I hope you all enjoy Will's new story!

The "bloom of youth" contest is still open for anyone wanting to submit a story for a chance to win free books. It will end on November 10th!

Pre-order "Time and Unforeseen" Now!

Hi all! Time and Unforeseen is now available for pre-order here, meaning that if you purchase now, it'll become instantly available to read this Sunday, November 1st, the release date. The paperback book will also be available for purchase shortly, which will allow you to order now and have it in your hands within a few days (hopefully around the day of its release, but due to shipping times this is impossible to guarantee).

Also, if you haven't yet submitted your "bloom of youth story", be sure to do so soon for a chance to win a couple of copies of the new book. The submissions I've gotten so far have all been good, and I can tell it's going to be a challenge to pick only three!

Finally, I've done another podcast episode for my YouTube channel, which has been very sparsely uploaded to this year (the podcast explains why, if you haven't been following the blog). Enjoy!

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"Time and Unforeseen" Almost Here + A Fun Giveaway

Hello all, and thank you, as always, for your patience!

I realize that the time span between these two book releases has been longer than usual (15 months! Yikes!), but as I've written about here extensively, this year has been a crazy one for my wife and I. We moved suddenly halfway around the world (with our two cats, too!) and are now facing towers of paperwork to allow my wife to stay in the United States (she's not from around here). Like Will Larson, I've truly been a victim of "time and unforeseen occurrence."

Even so, I'm thrilled to announce that the second draft of The Bloom of Youth 2: Time and Unforeseen is finished and off to my team of editors. I've already gotten some invaluable feedback that will help to make this book even better for its final release. It's a very different story than the last, but I think it'll resonate with many of you out there, especially having experienced the insanity that is the Year 2020.

Here's the book's description:

"Just as things appear to be settling down in Will Larson’s life, events beyond his control will once again throw his world into a tailspin. Join him on his second journey as he faces his greatest anxieties and learns to let go."

My goal is to have this book released by November 1st, just two weeks from now, but please don't hold me to that; Amazon is notoriously unpredictable with their review times for new titles! (Case in point, they've just responded to my Bloom of Youth audio book submission, citing a number of changes that need to be made before publication... *sigh*)

Also, I'm trying something new for the release of this book: A Giveaway!

Here's how it's gonna work:

To enter, all you need to do is email me (allthingsnewnovel(AT)gmail(DOT)com) a short story from your teenage years. It can be anything: something sad, something funny, something inspirational, something spiritually-centered. It doesn't have to be long or fancy. In the header of your email, write: "My Bloom of Youth Story" (Alternately, you can fill out the form here.)

Before the book's release, I'll choose my favorite three submissions and post them here. Winners will receive two free copies of Time and Unforeseen. This is an international contest open to anyone, so feel free to spread the word and let your friends know!

See you soon!

Tiny Update

 Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire! My wife and I just fled one country due to a pandemic, only to find ourselves surrounded by local wildfires, smoke-filled skies, and raining ash. I woke up this morning at 9:00, thinking it was much earlier, only to discover a view of the sky similar to the one in the picture below.

As if this year weren't already crazy enough, now we have apocalyptic views right outside our window. At this point, nothing would surprise me! It's good to know we're so close to the end; it's hard to imagine things getting any more wild than they already are.

In book-related news, I'm still waiting on the approval of The Bloom of Youth Audible audio book. As I've said previously, it's impossible to tell how long Audible will take in giving me the green light, so we'll have to keep waiting and seeing. As for the sequel of The Bloom of Youth, The Bloom of Youth 2: Time and Unforeseen, I'm still working on it but it's progressing steadily and should still be done in time for a fall '20 release.

In the meantime, I'd like to talk a little about this upcoming book, but I think I'll save it for a podcast episode!

Hope you're all staying safe and healthy out there!

Bloom of Youth Audio Book finished

Hey! Good news for those of you who enjoyed listening to the first chapter of the audio book for The Bloom of Youth! The entire book is recorded, edited, and submitted for the Audible review process. What I've found about this process, however, is that the time needed for approval varies wildly. My first audio book, FLEE, took nearly five months to go through the process. The second, The Unrighteous, took less than two weeks!

So really, it's anyone's guess how long this third audio book will take, but rest assured, I'll be letting you all know here once it's available.

Recording this audio book was quite the experience, as I did it while relocating across the globe. Due to the pandemic and sudden visa changes, my wife and I were forced to leave our previous home of eleven years and return to the United States. This means that approximately half of the book was recorded in my old office, a room in our high rise apartment, late at night when the traffic outside wasn't loud enough to show up in the audio. The second half was recorded in the home we are staying at now, which belongs to family. Living with more people and being in a new environment meant a lot of trial and error with recording times and locations, trying to find that sweet spot that would match the audio from the previous half of the book. Eventually, I managed, and I hope the transition from one recording locale to the next isn't too noticeable!

In other news, I haven't touched The Bloom of Youth 2 much in the last couple of months, but now that I'm settling in here and I've got much more time on my hands than before, I'll start chipping away at the remainder of the project. I still plan to release it this fall, so stay tuned...