Living Now Book Awards – Silver Medal Winner
Living Now Book Awards released their results for their 2014 Finalists on September 10th.
This Award Recognizes the Year’s Best Books for Better Living.
SILVER Medal in Adventure Fiction: The Longest Distance, by David Scott (Hesperides Publishing)
For a complete list of all the Living Now Book Awards 2014 Finalists, please click here.
Book Review Posted on I Heart Reading
Majanka, the blogger of I Heart Reading, posted her review of The Longest Distance on Thursday July 17th. Continue reading to see Majanka’s thoughts and her review.
Title: The Longest Distance
Author: David Scott
Genre: Spirituality, Self-Help, Inspiration and Personal Growth, Literary Fiction
Purchase: Amazon
Majanka’s Review of The Longest Distance:
The Longest Distance is an eclectic mix of genres – it’s a spiritual guide, a literary work, a mystery, an adventure, a love story, and a self-help book all in one. Main character Jeremy Braddock is the kind of person I could instantly connect with. We meet him at crossroads in his life. After coming face to face with tragedy, he goes off to search the answers to a series of questions about life, truth, love, and more. This is the start of an adventure spanning all around the globe, the journey of a lifetime.
The story was intriguing, but the real message the book wanted to portray was the most interesting part about the book for me. The writing is descriptive, lyrical, and the story flows well, mostly thanks to the writing. While the main character goes on a real journey, it’s his spiritual journey that offers the most, and that we learn from the most.
I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy this book, since it falls outside my usual reading niche, but I did. The story never slows down, the writing is solid, and overall, it’s just a good book. Recommended to anyone who has questions about life – and isn’t that just about everyone?
To read more of Majanka’s blog, please click here.
Author Interview – July 13, 2014
Cassidy Crimson, blogger of cassidycrimson.wordpress.com, hosted David Scott on her blog with an author interview on July 13th. Continue reading to see how the interview went.
Cassidy Crimson: Please tell us about yourself.
I was born in the US, and raised in the world. Ever since I was a little boy, I knew there was an explorer in me, one who was destined to traverse the globe (and have a best friend everywhere). I have spent my entire life living my childhood vision. I am perhaps best known for my work in education, building and stewarding large scale schools systems around the world. Everything I have experienced, both personally and professionally, has found its genesis in the relationship – between myself and another, myself with myself, or me with something higher, greater. As with the main character in The Longest Distance, Jeremy Braddock, I have been in constant search of let’s just call it ‘a greater version of me.’ And I have not been disappointed with what lies at the end of that sacred journey, the treasure hunt for the elusive.
Cassidy Crimson: Tell us about your book.
The book wrote itself, with me simply a co-creator and beneficiary of the process in its unfolding. I began it in Bogota, completed the first draft in Paris, and, with the help of my editor, polished it into its current form while living in China. The book was a co-creative process with something deeper inside me. It is the story of one man’s search for the answer to ‘our questions’ – about love, life, truth. Jeremy Braddock is shaken and awakened to a new course, a new path in Chapter 1. As is so often the case, however, there exists a great distance between the course we set upon and the experiences required to truly awaken to that which is our destiny – the jewel within. The main character finds himself in a new part of the world in every chapter, gathering clues, collecting the pieces that when woven together provide perhaps the tapestry of a greater knowing, a greater understanding. It is the story of one man’s search for Truth. And with the timely assistance of a host of ‘masters’ along the way, and the guidance provided us all from within, Jeremy Braddock may just get there – discover the ‘one thing’ he came here to know.
Cassidy Crimson: What inspired you to write The Longest Distance?
The Source from within inspired me to write TLD, as it has provided inspiration for so much of what makes me Me. I say this not as someone who floats continuously in the ethereal, but as a quite grounded man who has been blessed with accomplishments in the world in this lifetime. I am quite practical in the ways I go about the world, but have opened up along the way to that which provides for, let’s just call it a more graceful path. My meditations and contemplations have opened up a portal, an awakening of sorts, and I try each day to live in accord, in harmony with what one could call my spiritual heart.
Cassidy Crimson: How much time per week do you spend writing / editing your work?
My time demands are split between my work in the field of education and my work as an author. When I am in my writing process, I would wake up each morning and devote perhaps 4-6 hours per day in the creative zone, and maybe another hour or two in clean up. Due to the nature, the origin of the writing itself, it requires of me that I tap into that special place before anything of value can make its way from source to voice – in this case, to paper. There are days when it just flows so naturally, so gracefully. And there are days when it is best I step back, trust in the process, and re-visit the writing when I have entered that place again. Learning how to let go of what the mind wants to do, and allow the heart to lead, has been critical in the evolution of my writing process – my living process, as well.
Cassidy Crimson: If you could meet three authors, which authors would you choose?
Paulo Coelho would be one. I love his work, the way he tells his story in seemingly such a simple way, yet is entirely effective in delivering ‘the message.’ Another would be Shakespeare. Witty, clever, one who could spin a tale in such a manner it has taken centuries to make greater sense of it, he is a true master of the word, wrought with meanings to be uncovered by peeling back the layers. Finally — if I had to pick only three — I would love to meet Rumi. He was not a writer per se, but his creation in the form of what I consider the most brilliant mystical love poetry and prose moves me with each note upon paper. It beckons me to discover further the Love within the love that he captures with such grace.
Cassidy Crimson: What are you working on at the moment?
I am working on a trilogy, the details of which I cannot share at the moment. What I can reveal is that the first book in the trilogy takes us back to an ancient civilization, through reflection; one that made a similar set of choices and experienced a fate for such that is eerily familiar to the current race of humanity. The second book proposes a consequence of current times. The final in the trilogy a presumption of what lies ahead. Of course, there are masters interwoven in this series, as with TLD. It is messaging, revealing. It speaks to the importance of the relationship, how we all form mirrors, windows for one another. And of a Source greater than us that awaits our more awakened state. But this time I am writing in third person, so as to further develop the other characters, their thoughts, and understanding of them. The story, once completed, will be something of a Lord of the Rings meets the superheroes, just with more Light, greater depth.
To read more of Cassidy Crimson’s blog please click here.
