This Golden Hour

57. S.D. Smith and The Green Ember Series

• Timothy Eaton

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In today’s episode, we get to spend time with S.D. Smith from West Virginia, author of The Green Ember Series, Mooses with Bazookas, and co-author with his son, Josiah, of Jack Zulu and the Waylander’s Key. Best known for The Green Ember Series, Smith opens up about his creative process, the foundations of his storytelling, and his journey from being a homeschool father sharing stories with his kids to becoming a globally recognized author. The discussion spans a variety of intriguing topics, including Smith's unique background, the roots of his imagination, and his insights into homeschooling. Whether you're an avid fan of S. D. Smith, an aspiring writer, or someone interested in the values and virtues of homeschooling, this episode offers a wealth of inspiration and wisdom.

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Mooses with Bazookas
Jack Zulu and the Waylander's Key
S. D. Smith Store
The Green Ember Series

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S. D. Smith:

Developing one good habit is probably more powerful than okay. Figuring out the perfect curriculum and figuring it out. I've got it all if you just do morning time, like probably if you just do morning time and there's like reading involved with it and like maybe scripture prayer, maybe you sing a song, maybe your kids eat food and don't starve that day. Like you're probably like. You're probably killing it. Like you're probably doing way better than you think.

Timmy Eaton:

Hi, I'm Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and doctor of education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out. But people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling. And homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of this Golden Hour Podcast as you exercise, drive, clean, or just chill. You're listening to this golden hour podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with SD Smith from West Virginia. Author of the Green Ember series, Mooses with Bazookas, and co author with his son Josiah of Jack Zulu and the Waylander's Key. Best known for the Green Ember series, Smith opens up about his creative process, the foundations of his storytelling, and his journey from being a homeschool father sharing stories with his kids to becoming a globally recognized author. The discussion spans a variety of intriguing topics, including Smith's unique background, the roots of his imagination, and his insights into homeschooling. Whether you're an avid fan of S. D. Smith, an aspiring writer, or someone interested in the values and virtues of homeschooling, this episode offers a wealth of inspiration and wisdom. Welcome back to this Golden Hour podcast. Today we are quite excited to have with us S. D. Smith, and S. D. Smith is the author of the very well known The Green Ember series, which actually spent time as the number one selling audiobook in the world on Audible. He's also the author of mooses with bazookas and the other stories. Children should never read. And then I'm really excited to hear about you co authoring a book with your son, Josiah, Jack Zulu and the Waylanders key. I need to know something about this, but it says that you're the when I look up all your stuff, the founder and owner of Story Warren, which is a publishing and events and IP development house. So, First of all, thank you for

S. D. Smith:

being with us. I'm so delighted to be with you, doctor. Timothy I'm trying to think of how to address you in the way that will irritate you the most.

Timmy Eaton:

You already accomplished that with doctor. That always feels like a kind of a joke.

S. D. Smith:

If they thought it was, yeah, usually when I'm dealing with a doctor, I have to wait in a waiting room for a very long time. It's uncomfortable. And so hopefully you'll be able to recreate that experience for us.

Timmy Eaton:

Awesome. Why don't you add anything to what I didn't say, and then give us at least a little bio of your life and then I know what I didn't say is that you're a homeschool father of four, and that's what my audience really needs to know. And then we're going to talk about that. And then also his career in writing and the last 10 years of his life have been amazing. So,

S. D. Smith:

well, you left out so much. I w I was born at a very old age to start off with That's actually a true story, because I was like overdue, significantly overdue. Born in a blizzard, for those of you dealing with cold as we are, there's snow everywhere out here in West Virginia right now. Born in a blizzard. My dad sent me a picture of the Ohio River, 1977, frozen over, and people Walking across it like lunatics and that that was my that was when I was born It was a state of emergency parents barely made it to the hospital. I was overdue I was already an old man very contemplative When I was born A lot of people like to joke that they were born at a young age, but not me But you left out so much. I was, I played, I went to school. I I think you undersold the value of the incredible literature that I'm creating. I'm sorry. I tried to get through it. I couldn't, I could get through it with a straight face. No, that, that was a very kind intro. I think you nailed the main thing, which is I am a ordinary dad with a, Ordinary slash extraordinary family in a little town in Appalachia in West Virginia. And we homeschool our family and I get to work from home. And I really love that and especially love that, that our family gets to serve through our work other families that are similar to us and love them and give them hopefully what I pray and work hard to to make is good gifts. So that's, it's a fun, a blessing to have that for a vocation.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes, indeed. No, thank you. I, is it really snowy there right now?

S. D. Smith:

It's not right now, but we had some pretty good we've had like close to 10 inches, I think where we are. So we're still, it's been probably two days since then, but we're still, like driving out to church. Sunday was like, driving between sort of two columns, like the parting of the Red Sea a thing. It wasn't that high, but it was, without Sunday afternoon, digging people out helping the neighborhood men get a lady out of her, get her truck out of the ice and snow. So yeah, it's a, it's, My passing coming out to my office here, which is just like a little shed near my house. My commute is about 10 seconds walk but I'll pass my daughter and her cousin out playing in the snow, make a snowman. So yeah. That's awesome.

Timmy Eaton:

How long have you had that locale as your your office?

S. D. Smith:

So we've been lived out here in Grandview, West Virginia, for about 20 years. This office, I probably we moved from one house to the next, which was about 50 feet. We moved up the Hill a little bit to another house and this, and the house had a garden shed that we turned into an office. So I think probably 10 years or something like that, 10 probably. Yeah. Something like that.

Timmy Eaton:

Maybe, cause I don't know this history either, but maybe let us know cause everybody listening who is familiar with your books will know, just, know you as an author and all the conferences that you attend every year, but what were you doing before that? Or and cause you've talked about like the transition from going to full. Time writing and author. So maybe tell us a little bit about that.

S. D. Smith:

I was in a life of crime. Not really.

Timmy Eaton:

Actually, I just listened to this awesome podcast yesterday on the mafia and I was like, this guy did come from that. And so I was ready. I was ready for the next

S. D. Smith:

episode. Yes, that's good. That's a good host there. You know all about me now. People, the name like Sam Smith, a lot of people think I am in witness protection.'cause that sounds like something that's made up. John Brown, John Johnson Dave Atkins. Sam Smith. Yeah. Very exciting name. But yeah, so my, my, my last job, my last real job before I quit to become a delinquent artist, I I was working in adult education doing something like the GEDI did a lot of driving around rural parts of West Virginia. That is to say. Parts of West Virginia because we're all, it's all rural here. But I would drive to like 13 counties and do assessments and that kind of thing. And which was good for the transition. It was a good job in a lot of ways. And because it's gave me a lot of time to listen to books. I would listen to the Bible a lot and I would listen to sometimes sermons, a lot of times just audio books, fiction, and it would give me time to think. And I would. Record notes for myself. And so it was a good, it was a good transition job. Gave me a lot of time to, to contemplate and work through some of the stuff that it would, that would later become this, more, more intentional, more, more focused vocation. And

Timmy Eaton:

were you always writing or is that something you were always doing

S. D. Smith:

or. No, and I look back I was always world building like I played a lot You know all kids play and I think it's almost there's some kind of cliche There's some kind of famous quote I can't remember what it is but something the effect of like basically a lot of times artists just don't they don't stop Kids draw and kids like make up stuff and they play and they create and then they just like, then you just stop at some point. I just didn't didn't stop on some of those things. And I did in some ways and didn't in others, but I don't draw, I quit drawing, but I was always that kind of a kid. And I didn't mind playing, I played with my brothers all the time, my baby sister, we lived in the, in a Wayne County, West Virginia. So far back in the woods that no one lived behind us, is what my dad said. And we used to play out there. So I'd play with them and we'd play army, we'd do Star Trek or Star Wars or we'd just make up our own stuff. And I was always making up games and making up characters. And I would inhabit those characters. And even if no one was around, I would play if I was alone. Say after school or something and I was walking a quarter by myself. I was always some kind of like I was a space captain and I was thinking through like how I was infiltrating the enemy ship. And so I had that overactive imagination. And I think that was, so I was always, I was, and we were not like Super duper wealthy. So what which is to say? I don't know if we were poor We were fine, but we didn't live in the luxury i'll say so I didn't have like toys and things So we had to make up stuff I remember my dad would cut out like a gun for us like from a wood like from a board he would Saw it out and you'd have a blazer gun, but it was He made it and I would make my own ships out of bark and paper airplanes and things. So we're a little bit You know that sort of boredom. I'm a big believer in the power of boredom And I think we don't have enough boredom today, which is maybe why we don't have very many original stories happening since the maybe like the invention of the iphone a lot of people talk about that. Yes We're rebooting a lot of things that were created in eras Back when people were more bored and that's not the only thing about it. But anyway, so I was I would combat boredom But with creativity and yeah, so I had those muscles I think and so basically that and that's the closest thing I think my vocation today is probably rooted in That capacity to play and I feel most like a child or most like those days when I'm Lost in the story that I'm telling And I forget that I'm the one telling and it's just happening and I'm just like Sort of recording it and it's a I love that because I'm very self forgetful time I don't think about anxieties or worries. I just get lost in the story and that's my fate. I love that so much. But to say I did write some, I wasn't a big reader. I didn't start reading probably till I was 15 or so. I found a copy of my brother, my oldest brother gave me a copy of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. And I read that and that really turned me into a reader. Went on to Tolkien and quickly started making up for lost time. I had a friend in high school that loved Shakespeare, took me to see The Tempest, and I got lost down that trail. My grandfather was a poet, started reading a lot of poetry, so I made up for a lot of lost time. But I was, I did, I wasn't like a typical oh, an author who just grew up at the library all the time from a very young age. But I'd always liked to write, and so I wrote poetry. I wrote songs, when I was 15, 16, 17, I had a guitar and I started writing songs. So it was always like expressive in those ways. And I didn't, I thought that's probably what I would do is I'd be like a singer songwriter type and I had some health trouble that really scuttled that a little bit. And I turned back to this earlier love, which was writing fiction. And and that's really where this vocation I think came out, but it was always there, but it was, I feel like I was haunted by the vocation of a storyteller. Finally, it came out a little bit later in life.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. So it sounds like your imagination was always live and well and very playful. And then those interests matured over time. So then maybe let people know a little bit who, whoever wouldn't know the background of how you, you know, Wrote the green ember, which is this beautiful story of rabbits. And that came actually from your own experience, observing rabbits in your own yard. Did it not? And just telling stories to your

S. D. Smith:

kids. Yeah, if you want the, if you want a really good rabbit adventure, then I would recommend. You love rabbits and you're like, Oh, I can't get enough of rabbits. I want to read stories that are very rabbit y. Then Watership Down is so good to me. I love Watership Down. It's it's just a wonderful story. I, yeah, it's the best travel book that will ever be written, in my opinion. And he's really his is more like that, like some real observation, really into it. But it was stories that he told his kids too. I never read those. It's funny because I got accused of plagiarism. In some reviews, people would say, Oh, this is obviously just a takeoff of water. Oh, really? Which or Redwall, they would say it's in it, which I've never hadn't read either one of them. When I wrote a degree number, so I didn't, I'm a pretty successful plagiarist for yeah. Good work. Yeah. And the truth is I've since read, Wash it down. I've still not read Redwall, but it's an absurd claim because it's so different. But my stories really came out of, yeah, I think you hinted at it, but it was really like a gift to my kids. And the rabbits were there when I was telling a story to my daughter when she was a toddler. And so I, so that's why I started telling her about a rabbit, but it wasn't, necessarily from observation of the rabbits, they just happen to be there. And the story came out of, the story is much more influenced from like the Lord of the Rings and Robin Hood, maybe particularly Robin Hood. I love those stories so much. Roger Lancel and Green's Robin Hood. I read when I was a, who was a friend, contemporary and friend of C. S. Lewis. I read his, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and I loved it so much, and so I read everything I could, and I loved Errol Flynn's Robin Hood movie The Adventures of Robin Hood again, I just, I could still, I could watch that a hundred times, and I'd never get bored of it, fantastic movie, wonderful family film. And I would, even like the Disney Fox Robin Hood a lot too, it was really good. So anyway, I love Robin Hood. So I think mostly influenced maybe by that kind of stuff, but that adventure, it's more it's not so much about the rabbits. I try to be faithful, try not to lose track of the fact that they're rabbits, but it's really about people. It's really about Souls it's about decisions about the inner life the moral complexity of the inner life Of the rabbits and they have these external battles And it's but it's really big idea stuff and sort of in the costume of rabbits and big events and big moral character Sort of stuff but there's plenty of vintage kind of adventure stuff in there for sure but it's The fact that they're rabbits. I think that the best thing about that is I think that You that was the gift because I love the irony of rabbits with swords. I love the irony of a rabbit being a naturally timid character that suits me. And I think it suits kids identify with that and to think about them being brave and overcoming obstacles. And I, I think that's a really cool setup that I didn't, I wasn't clever enough to figure out. It just was a gift. But I think anything that makes, Difficult adventure, high stakes adventure, epic adventure, accessible to kids, which is something that I think personifying animal stories can do really well is it can be a real gift. I think that's what's happened to help it relate to the kids. But I think parents equally relate to it as well.

Timmy Eaton:

It's the enjoyment of reading to our kids. I, when I've read, I'm reading, I'm in the midst actually of the, my kids have, I've had kids read 10 books, and then Others that have listened to it, but I'm reading to my two youngest right now, the first book right now. So I, I have that right here but what was the evolution? So what was the evolution of that? So you told these stories and then. Take us like on a timeline, like what happened after that you wrote the story and then, yeah, I don't, and then to see the response, like the overwhelming response from the world tell us about that.

S. D. Smith:

Yeah, like for a lot of people, it did start on my porch, about 50 yards from where I am right now. And it was me and my daughter, Ann, and I just was telling her the story of the first story. She really liked it. And I used to tell her different kinds of little stories. And she loved this one and so I told her about it. It was about a sister who had a little brother because she had a little brother and Eventually that little brother joined us. We started telling, I kept telling the story. It was like an ongoing cereal. I would tell them on the porch and bedtime and on walks. And really the beginning of the book sort of mirrors like the origin of where the stories came from, which was a dad telling stories to a kid. Yeah. and the two kids. And particularly an older sister, younger brother. And then a baby in the house, which is what we had at the time. And so for years, it was like we call it the rabbits at Jupiter's crossing and still in the file in the, this computer upon which I'm talking to you, if you would dig in there and you would look for the green number. As a master file, you wouldn't find it, but you would find the rabbits at Jupiter's crossing. You'd find the master file and then inside of that, you'd have all these different books and stories and ideas and stuff. So it was always the rabbits at Jupiter's crossing and and I would tell them, and it was an ongoing kind of thing as they got older, it got a little, it got less. As kids are really little, sometimes stories can be pretty black and white and moralistic and like this happened, but it got a little more complex. It got more honest, I think more honest, less didactic more more generous. I think as time went on, by the time it came to, so the climax of the book itself. of what is in the book climax that happened for us on a walk and I mean I'm my face is directed if I can see through the wall on the other side of my little office I would see the step tree which is where we were standing when that climax happened and it was pretty much a improvised, most, I didn't plan any of this stuff. It was just we're on a walk and we're like, okay, let's figure out what happens next. And that kind of thing. And it happened there and the kids were like really quiet and I was quiet and They were just, wow, daddy, you got, I was thinking in my mind that was pretty awesome. And they were thinking, and they said that they're like, oh, that was so great. Daddy, you have to write this down. So I decided to write it down novelize it mostly thought honestly what we shared was so special that I thought i'll memorialize this and we'll have i'll write the novel and if nobody else loves it, who cares like i've genuinely felt that way like Of course, I want other people to enjoy it, but I just thought it's fine totally fine If if it's just our family and it was a you know So so it would stay in our family this little this book and it would be this sort of memory And I honestly thought well, i'm i'm a writer. I'm okay. We're a writer You But, this is probably my first novel that we'll share and we'll, someday I'll write something that's good, kind of something this will be like a good little thing. It'll be our little family thing. And so we put it together. My brother in law, who's had some experience in publishing and really knew how to set up a book, He really loved it. And he said, let's, let's do it. Let's share this. And I was like okay. I was really scared. But we went out on a limb and just tried it and shared it on, in a Kickstarter. How long did it take?

Timmy Eaton:

How long did it take you to get it done?

S. D. Smith:

To write the book? Yeah. I don't know. I was working full time at the time. Honestly there's a whole story there. My dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer during that time and we almost lost him. He, that was almost probably 10 years ago, long time ago, over 10 years ago. Gosh. And he was, he's still with us, which is amazing. I had to take time off for that. And so it was just like a wild year really see the power of something beautiful being given birth to something beautiful through pain, the pains of labor. And that certainly the nothing good. Should have ever been produced from my pen during that year. It was just too crazy. But this gift came and it was surprising. And and we shared it with the world and again, weren't sure if there was anybody else that would be like us and that would enjoy what we enjoyed and we were fairly quickly, Exposed to the fact that well, a lot of people gave us a chance. First, we had some build up some goodwill over time, I think, and some people just, I never shared any fiction really like this. And but enough people gave it a try, which was cool. And then from there, boy, it just they started telling their friends about it. And we, I've tell the story often, but I remember, Go into an event where with a friend of ours and we set up a table by the bathroom, which is the only place they had a table. So they were right in front of the bathroom. So these embarrassed people walk past us. That was good conversations. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

You'd have a lot of people passing by,

S. D. Smith:

but we didn't know anything. And there were people there that were like. Oh my gosh, the green ember guy. I was like, what? What are you talking about? Like I was so surprised by that But that was I literally heard people whispering like oh, that's the green ember guy and I was like the green ember guy What the heck is that me? I was really confused by that but then a person there was like Really kind oh my goodness our family loves your books and you should go to the home school conferences And I was like, what is the home school conference? So I was not in this kind of a genius but anyway we ended up going there and and that was really a good crowd for us because I didn't think about that as a marketing strategy or anything, but that ended up being a really valuable, Place for us for to find a lot of people who were already talking about it and sharing it with each other It was funny because at that time I was working basically like two jobs coaching soccer involved in my church Trying to do this. I had no margin. We had little kids, Exhausted and just so i'm at this conference and I remember somebody coming up to me and saying so How are you doing this marketing? Like how's this? What's your see? What's your marketing secret? And I was like You Marketing, what are you talking about, like zero dollars, almost zero time, like anything. And it was really cool because people were, and you just can't beat word of mouth. I think the cover was good. Zach Franzen did a great job on the cover of the arts. Nice. And I think it's inviting and people, I think we'll give you a chance if it's not a horrible cover and it wasn't a horrible cover. It's good. What's your connection

Timmy Eaton:

to him? How did you find Zach?

S. D. Smith:

I met him through a friend friend of a friend. Yeah we my friend Jody said, Hey, these guys down here are making this incredible art. And so I got connected with them and was a fan from a distance. And then we became friends and he's still a very good friend. Brilliant guy. But I think that helped give us like a tryout. I think about life in a lot of sports terms, cause I'm, I love sports. So I think that gave us like a tryout and then like we got to show our stuff and then like you either sink or swim, but I think good cover gives you a tryout. So are we

Timmy Eaton:

in the first year when this is all going down? Or is this like the second year? Like how long into it since you, the day you started

S. D. Smith:

writing it? No, like I'm talking about when it came out so it's out at the end of 2014, really the beginning of 2015 is when it so this is like in the beginning of the year when this sort of conference stuff's happening and the people are saying like, Hey, you, what do you do for marketing? I'm like, what are you, I don't know, like we don't do anything for marketing. I don't know what you're talking about, but what we have. Instead of this like brilliant strategy of Oh, so clever. I figured out how to crack it up. All we have is like mostly homeschool moms saying to each and moms in general. But particularly maybe homeschool moms telling other moms about it and that's our Salesforce and they're like, where

Timmy Eaton:

did you start it though? Like, where did you pitch it first? Like, where did you and your brother in law like say, let's start it here.

S. D. Smith:

We didn't pitch it anywhere. So I had written online, we made a website called StoryMorin StoryMorin. com, which is about allies and imagination, was about serving parents. We built up some goodwill. We would write articles about fostering imagination at home and holy imagination and how to, what We're good materials out there for families, and so we've done some work So I think we build up some general goodwill like out there with people who didn't know me And then I think I'd also We also had to you know, my parents were missionaries and we knew some people, you know I know people in our community and So I think people just gave us, I think we had some goodwill, some personal goodwill too. And so that, that was like the little seed. And then that was like the little group that was, and then they became very influential by just sharing it. And they would share and they would share and they would tell us it was just a lot of really goodwill. And it was very, it was really organic, like really. And I still tell people that I heard, I think I heard Orson Scott Card say that years ago that the two things that sell books are covers and word of mouth. And and I yeah, if you don't have that, I think you're sunk, like you could be the most clever marketer in the world, but it doesn't matter if it's stinks and

Timmy Eaton:

In word of mouth, I was gonna say word of mouth implies an awesome

S. D. Smith:

product. At least trust and people trust the people that share that and I would just say I know that book. Again, I think that's true that like I've written. I think my my we have 12 books published and written several, a few more than that. And and The Green Number is not my best book, you know, by far, but it's like this entryway for tons of people to come through. So it's not that I was such a genius and that I wrote so beautifully and I was executed perfectly. What it's really not that. But something about it, I think the soul of it, I'd call it a new story with an old soul, resonated with the audience in a way that they were really hungry for. Yeah. The timing

Timmy Eaton:

or something, or like you said, like the trust, the trusting audience and the connections and relationships.

S. D. Smith:

And I think some of that is that new story with an old soul Zach friends on the illustrator. He's, he describes it as like a Jurassic Park a thing that, that you you these old time virtues, like more sort of old fashioned virtues. Like you can find those in old books. And you, and a lot of us, like that's where we go and we're like a little bit frustrated or concerned about some modern books. We might be like, I don't know, oh, this was written this year. I'm now I'm concerned about, Oh, what's going to be in it. Do I trust that for my kids? And I think and that's not just about being like puritanical or I'm worried about cuss words or something like we we are worried about that, but there's a little bit more to it. Like the, yeah, the moral sort of soul and center. And so we don't find that a lot in modern books. And so I think when Zach's observation was that it was the, that we think about those. Those virtues as being trapped in Amber or in a museum. And he said he said, he thought that the people reading the green number were experiencing Oh, that's something that belongs to the past, but it's but it's like running around, it's out there. Like it's in the, it's not in a museum. It's like in the street. And it's wow, that's cool. And people are hungry for that in a way. I think that's true because I think that's what was true about our family. That's what we wanted. We wanted A new story with an old soul. We wanted a modern novel pacing a little bit of like exciting movement sort of stuff, but we wanted like those old virtues. We wanted it to feel classic in a sense. Not that it is a classic for sure. Let's give it a few minutes. But but just that it has, it reminds people of that. So they got excited about that. And I think that's, so that's part of the story. I think it, but it's much more than just Oh, it was executed really well. I'm positive. That's not the case. I guess in a way

Timmy Eaton:

it's almost sad that it was like that, that people were deprived of just something that had that much goodness to it, that they're going, look, one thing that stands out to me when I read it to my kids is. Like Pickett in particular I, I feel I wanted to ask you that too. Who do you connect with the most, but I can feel those like inter battles that Pickett has. And he's just going, Oh, my character is not what I want it to be, but I can't get beyond my humanity and my mortality. And he just struggles with that. And so I could, when I read that, I can relate to it and maybe that's what people are talking about, but it is sad that and even as, as recent as the 1800s. That was just the way it was, but it's quickly dissipated. And that's why people are probably like, Oh, sweet. This is refreshing.

S. D. Smith:

Yeah, totally. You're exactly right. I think, and they love that they can have conversations like that. So I feel like more people have conversations about pickets challenges that they did. I think, this is my perspective but a lot of times I think we, we react to What's going on culturally. And we say I don't like that. Therefore I will make I don't like dirty stuff, so I will make clean and it will have no cuss words and nothing objectionable and it will be very safe. No problem. It's very, we think that like job done okay, now we've done that. And then like people, why don't people like the grandmother will buy that for the kid, but the kid will be like, oh, okay. But they don't, because it's not honest in a way. It's not honest about no, it's too sterile. It's too sterile. Exactly. So I think we're hungry for a little bit of authenticity, a little bit of like a good story. Like we can't, I don't know, Flannery Conner talks a lot about not dispensing with she talks about her, like the moral vision, like a religious vision. Of writing and he just, she just says that so much lousy literature has come to pass because of a religious instinct. And I totally think that's true. And she says that basically like what, as an, I'm paraphrasing her butchering her words terribly, but she basically says basically like that your moral compass, your religious lens, your worldview will be the thing by which but it will not be what and I think that's really powerful that like we You know, you can think about this a lot with film that we can think Oh, I don't like what Hollywood's doing. So therefore what I need to do is I think that children or families need good films. And so we need to have like money and fund and then we'll make a good film. And it's just you can't just do that. You can't, you have to actually be a filmmaker. You have to like, care about the project. And say we need it. Therefore. I'll do it. You have to be good at it. You have to do the It's be like showing up to NBA and say like a lot of these players are really they're swearing a lot and they have a bad lifestyle. So I, I want to be a Christian basketball player. So therefore I'll get the money and I'll get someone to put me in position and then I'll have influence. Yeah. And it's how about shooting 50, 000 shots You know, in your high school career and growing up and working out and do it. You have to do all that stuff to be good at basketball and most people can't do it. And I think it's true about novel writing. It's true. It's really true about filmmaking. It's so hard. And that's, I think that's why we see so many reactionary films in literature. That's so bad is because it's not, it's hard. It's super

Timmy Eaton:

hard. It's really hard. People are going from the model of. Do have be or have to be or something like that, but really it's be, do have, and I think that's what you're saying in the sense that you can't cheat the process of becoming and then somehow lie, it just doesn't work because you haven't

S. D. Smith:

become. It's funny, true because I come from like broadly evangelical Christian sort of background. And we have really, as a group, not been too hot as fiction writers. The LDS community, on the other hand, has incredible fiction writers. Roman Catholics have a lot better fiction writers, often. There's a lot of Anglicans, I'm an Anglican, but you see some of that. But there's something But you have people like a lot of my favorite authors are, Orson Scott Card and you've got people like Brandon Sanderson, people who are really, but people don't like them because it's not just people that affiliate with them or say Oh, I like them because of their religious sort of impulses, right? It's because they're great storytellers. And there's something

Timmy Eaton:

maybe that maybe the chosen is really tapped into that. I personally love the chosen and I feel like he, Dallas Jenkins. He is doing what you are. What you are describing where it's he's given the real life. He's not trying to he's giving I think what Appeal so much to the Christian world is that he is giving a view of Jesus that is so accessible and real That people love it and it just feels so real and maybe has anyone approached you about movie. I was wondering that

S. D. Smith:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's that. We could have a long conversation about that. There's yeah. I can summarize that by just saying we care a lot about it and we want to do a good job on that front and approach that carefully. We've been cautious and careful and we've not said yes to the first several opportunities we've had. And I think that's been good. Yeah. Wisdom. I don't think we are, but for us, it's really, Right time right partnerships and I agree with you that the chosen guys have done a great job and I really admire those guys I got to go on set and meet a lot of them and really And it's they're doing a great job. Love them and i'm a big fan of the producers and of Dallas and so yeah, we're always there's always conversations going on and It's not like front burner for me. I'm trying to be a good novelist. That's really like a big emphasis for me I'm trying to make sure i'm not you know, like looking at bright shiny things. I'm trying to yes Stay in my lane a little bit but also, yeah we're we want, we are exploring that and have been, and we

Timmy Eaton:

will. I appreciate though. That's a good example to anyone listening of just being humble and being cautious and wise in those decisions. Cause it could be really enticing to go, yeah, but this could be like game change, and so I think that's really good. I wanted to ask you if I could, I know I'm just mindful of our time, but I wanted to ask you just another question on on, this part of the interview and then transition a little bit toe to homeschool world a little bit. The one thing I wanted to ask you, and this is something I've always wondered about, especially fiction writers do you have a big picture idea? Of what the story is or have you found, especially because you were just giving stories to your kids and then it evolved or, and, but now that you've written, the green number series has 10 volumes. So do you have a big picture or does it just evolve and change? Like how do you navigate writing something of that length and that depth

S. D. Smith:

and breadth? Yeah, I can say it's like a mix for me for sure. So with the Green Ember, I had a lot of it had a lot of, so it was, it's funny you talk about filmmaking because I think a lot of our fans here say just do the script exactly like the book and do, make it exactly like the book. I think that's what a lot of people do the book, which I understand like a 20 hour movie. And I feel like also. Why don't we make let's do better like it's not the same. It's not the same media. It's different. It's different requirement. So we got to be awake to that. So I keep beating the drum on that to know and it's going to be an iteration. It was an iterate. It was iterated when it became a novel. And in many ways it was better than what I told my kids. It got tighter. More things came out. It got bigger. It got, there were different things that details. Yeah, I think that was, I think what people love is the soul of it, and I, that I will not tolerate changing in any iteration, whether that's a video game, board game, movie, TV show, whatever. But Yeah, so part of me, I have it and with the Green Ember, I didn't have all of it, but I had some, and then moved into sequels, I really developed more and more of the vision, I knew where I was going more as we went on, and I By the time I was really done writing Ember Falls, I think this is the second book of the main books, I knew the big picture a lot at that point and it was filling in details, which is what I do with novels, like an individual novel. I don't outline, there's the whole like gardener versus architect. The architect being an outliner the gardener being more, open, more of a pantser, they call it, right by the seat of your pants, or discovery writers, that sort of thing. And I've always been, everybody's something in between. I have like beats like I think this will happen and I'll write out beats and stuff and then like I'm but I'm always open like we can change we can grow we can find stuff. I want to say there's new characters. Helmer is a character that people love probably the most popular character in the series. He just showed up. I had no idea about him. He just, he was just there. Yeah. And there's so many characters were like that. And but I try to stay open to stuff because there's stuff that happens in worry that genuine genuinely feels like a discovery. Like you're like, it's a found thing instead of something that you invented. You feel like Stephen King describes it as brushing, like a archeologist sort of brushing and finding the bones and like brushing more. More. That is how it feels. A lot. And that's how it feels to me. Like I'm just finding this thing. Oh, that's cool. I didn't know that. I'm going to get curious about what happened there. Oh my goodness. Wow. Cool. That's how a lot of it feels. So I think that's true about the big picture. So the green number was, it was a little bit, assemble the airplane in mid flight a little bit but like the book I'm writing with my, the series um, my son, Josiah uh, he, and I, we Know a lot because we all the stuff I learned from doing the green ember We brought to the table like we got to know where we're going and we build

Timmy Eaton:

What we think you're starting at a different you're starting at a different point with that

S. D. Smith:

totally he honestly you think oh I have so much experience because and that's true I learned a lot we brought those but he's also like he you know, we started he was with

Timmy Eaton:

you on that journey

S. D. Smith:

Totally he was and he helped me in a lot of ways and he's 13 years old He's starting to write this story for a film Like for a tv show film sort of thing. So he's writing these treatments. He's thinking about it in a different way a more holistic way. So we both brought that together. And so the jack zulu series the first book is jack zulu key and we plan to do three of these to start off but we built this world that could hold It's like the ground do that naturally a little bit like that The green amber can hold the world can now hold a lot of stories. There's a lot of side doors open, a lot of back doors open. We intentionally built the the Wayland like that, the Jack Zulu sort of world. And so we're, that's been fun to apply those lessons. And that one's a lot more like we know, and we know where we're going. And so I think it tells, I think it's better. I think the Jack Zulu book's better than the green amber in a lot of ways. It's really it's. In a way that the Green Ember wasn't and isn't so it's I love that. So different stories are approached differently and knowing, but to me, generally speaking, I know a fair amount about where I'm going, but I'm really

Timmy Eaton:

open to yeah, it sounds like you have to be flexible because like you said, if a character like Helmer just shows up, that makes me think of, have you ever seen the movie? The man who invented Christmas about Charles Dickens.

S. D. Smith:

I haven't seen it now. My wife saw it. Oh,

Timmy Eaton:

that's a great movie, man. I, at least I think so. But to me, like the way that Scrooge shows up in that, like when you said shows up, I was like, if you watch that movie, that will definitely be. Prevalent to you. And it was beautiful. I just thought that movie was done so well and acted and funny and moving and everything anyway. So that, that made me think we have about seven to 10 minutes. And I was wondering if we could transition just for a, the last little bit about just a few questions on homeschool and then, I don't know, maybe in the future we could do this again and delve a little deeper, but does that sound good to you?

S. D. Smith:

Great. We will yeah, we'll have to wait. To see what the papers say about this one, we get good reviews, come back for another, if it's, if we're to get panned in the trades, I don't know if it's worth it. It's all about public approval. We got to,

Timmy Eaton:

for me, I'm like, man, I could just hang, I could just hang out with you and nobody know about it, man. This has been fun.

S. D. Smith:

So that's what's happening here. Yes. And let's just be

Timmy Eaton:

buddies. I I usually ask several questions, but I guess if I were to First of all, what was your guys first exposure to homeschool? How did you get into it? How did you get into that world?

S. D. Smith:

Oh, good question. I mean, I, so my, I would say my wife went to a Christian school, a little late Christian school and really loved it. Had a really good experience. Very stable. She lived in the same house and went to the same school. I'm a missionary kid. So I've moved like times, not really, but a bunch of times over continents, hills of West Virginia to Africa. South Africa in a really interesting time. Part of the time I went to school and I went to a little Christian school here and then left and then went to a public school in South Africa, British style uniforms, that kind of thing. It was all European school, which is a euphemism for white. And that was during apartheid. And my dad had started a Zulu church in the township with a Zulu pastor. So I had this like very interesting experience. I was at the school when it Became integrated when apartheid fell went to school when I went to South Africa, when Nelson Mandela was in prison. And when I left, he was the president. It was a time to be there, but I had a lot of different experiences. So part of the time over there we homeschooled and a part of the time it wasn't as it sounds like when when the apartheid fell, we got out of that, we got out of that school right away. That wasn't true. We moved. And And we moved to near Johannesburg at the time. And I can't remember all the decisions that went into it, but we did start homes. So we had some experience with it ourselves. I was favorably inclined toward it. My wife was very much that's super weird. It was the cliche, like we all knew homeschool at the time in the eighties, and it was like, they were the weirdest people in the world at that time. I was less inclined to look on that as a as a feature instead of a bug. Now I'm much more Oh, cool. The weirder, the better, like in a lot of ways, I realize it's just it's just the parents, like whatever the parents are. Oh

Timmy Eaton:

man. I'm so glad you said, I want to write something that just says apple. It's all about, the socialization, which is apples and trees.

S. D. Smith:

Yeah, totally. So I started seeing that and I think that calmed my wife down a little bit as to Oh, no, if the kids are gonna be like us, which is weird in some ways and it'll be weird for those people and it'll be like cool in other ways and it'll be fine and so we, and we like we're not against other kinds of, I think we just, we're looking around at our options. We didn't find some that we particularly love for our kids. And it's just such a huge, I think what I was a big fan of it and I didn't want to like, Hey, let's, we're doing this kind of thing. I wanted us to have a unity on deciding about this for our kids. But I think by the time our kids came around, we're old enough. I think my wife was just like, she was, she always wanted to be a homemaker. So we were traditional in that sense already. So That was her aspiration, really brilliant woman who could do any kind of a job for sure, but that's what that was her passion and what you wanted to do. And so I was like, I love that too. That was great. And great. So we had that sort of traditional thing. I think the more you spent with the kids, the more she would think we have a gift to give them here. And it was just looking at the time to how much time schools often spend, just like getting in line and going to eat and like how much time it is and the inefficiency, which is a challenge. And I don't feel like, Oh, superior. I just feel like that's a real challenge. That's. Yeah, just the reality. Yeah. It's just a tough one. And we were like, I think maybe we can be more efficient and give our kids. And so there's given trade, give and take with that, there's things that we've lost and things we gained, but we felt like the balance was really good in that sense. And I think that we feel, we still feel good about that for our kids have all turned out as criminals, they're jail, there's spots on their faces where you can't. Tattoos, but but they know how to learn. I'm just kidding. Yeah, they're, no they're doing pretty good. I think they're, I'm really pleased with

Timmy Eaton:

our kids. Have they all done just homeschool? Has it, have they, has anyone gone all the way straight through?

S. D. Smith:

Yeah, we have a 20, almost 21-year-old. We have two kids in college right now. And they're, yeah, they're doing pretty good. One of my son, the co-author, I just turned 18 um, in And he will graduate from college and as of right now in December, so it's just a crazy not, that's not one month away, but last October, now this December, cause he already took a bunch of college classes. So anyway, yeah. So homeschool has been great for us. He's able to do dual enrollment. The West Virginia has passed laws in the last five, four or five years about like the, the Tim Tebow stuff. So our kids are able to play sports. We're involved with, I coach a public school soccer team along with my brother. And we have a great relationship with them. Oh, cool. That's and that's been awesome. We got kids, we really a big sports family. So that was a gift for us. Yeah, I love homeschooling. Homeschooling has been awesome. I don't think it's perfect and I think it's challenging and it's hard and it's Beautiful, but it's been an investment for us that it's been, I think, even with our particular family weirdness as like our, that we have a a family business and we sometimes go places and we work together, like having the flexibility to be able to do that and to show the kids like what it's like to be an entrepreneur and be close to us in that has been, Yeah, you

Timmy Eaton:

couldn't do that. You couldn't do that with that lifestyle. How long will you guys be gone for at a

S. D. Smith:

time? Sometimes, and I'll take kids like so if we do a close event like the HEAV conference in Richmond, which is awesome. Love that one. We, that's close. We all go South Carolina. We'll all go if it's in Cincinnati. We'll all go if If it's in california or colorado or arizona, like i'll take a couple of kids usually I'll take a kid or something. So so sometimes those like we went on tour. Josiah caleb and last year we went to texas and we did some events there and then we drove to Arizona, did events in Phoenix. And so we were gone for, I don't know, two weeks or something on the road. It was with me the whole time. And it was so fun, so I, so that's, yeah, it

Timmy Eaton:

lends itself to that. That's one thing that I've like totally concluded from my own experience and then having now I think like 56 interviews, it's this Like it's not just about a learning, but it's a literally lifestyle. So homeschooling is a choice about learning for sure, but about lifestyle and family. Maybe the last two questions, if you could respond and then we'll wrap up is like one would be what would be the counsel you would give new homeschool families that are starting and overwhelmed and then the second, and you can do this in any order you want is what is the, what is like the hope that you and your wife have as the. As now you've had kids go all the way through, but what is the hope that you have for them as far as the outcome of this decision to homeschool? What is it you really hope for as a result of homeschooling for you, for your children?

S. D. Smith:

Yeah, so I can think of ways that those would go together. So to me, we I have a I think of my, I think of the calling. So I think about God making the world and that Christ coming to redeem. is redemption, and there's a doctrine of redemption. There's also a doctrine of creation that God made the world. There's a doctrine of vocation that God calls people. So when my kids are hungry and I make them a sandwich, I'm answering the call of God in my life to say yes to him to give food to my kids, particularly when they're young. I provide. So that's a calling. I believe that the farmers are called it's a vocation, vocal vokes. It's a calling that God puts on people's lives to fulfill these various roles in life that get, that literally keep us fed and a doctor, when I break my leg. Thank God that he's called a doctor to that vocation and I can go to him and he can heal my leg. And sometimes throughout history, God has directly healed people and directly given food. He's given manna. He's fed Elijah with ravens. Usually it's through mom and dad usually it's like somebody making a meal and I think that I like that stuff. I like that ordinary vocation stuff So so in that calling for me in my life and my wife There's there are these stewardship spheres, I think of, and I think of the stewardship of my family as being like the sort of first province of my stewardship that I have these other callings that are important. I have a calling in the world with my writing and with my that vocation. It's very public. And I like that, but my that could burn down. If I had to trade it for my family and we see that a lot in ministry or in other callings in the arts And I don't want that really badly want to say yes and be faithful in that first province So I think about that very seriously. So if that's the case, then i've got this big First province of stewardship with my kids and I want to do a good job I want to be faithful. I want to be faithful to jesus christ I want to say yes to him and what he has is like basically Be a human made in the image of god and say yes to jesus christ and be faithful for me that's being faithful to the scriptures and being faithful at church and saying yes to him and I have and to pass that along to pass that faith along which is not just about oh now I need to give you information from the scriptures about what it means to follow jesus to trust in him that is included that is That's also How do you help your baby sister? How do you love your neighbor? How do you it's the God, because God made the world. God didn't just send Christ to redeem the world. He made the world. So it's all his stuff. There's not an area that's that part is like secular and this part is sacred. It's all belongs to God. And I don't mean that in a dominant way, but I mean that as, it's like a stewardship, like I want to say yes to him. So this part of our little family. I want to say yes to be faithful to him. I feel like that homeschooling equipped us most effectively to say yes to that calling and to pass on our values and the virtues of of this life to our kids. And it was a great instrument for that. Now saying that, so that's a big advantage. Now then also saying the, what's the advice to someone who may be overwhelmed or struggling is, Really, I would, I'm a soccer coach and I can sometimes I'll coach youth soccer and I'll be young kids and make some inexperience some experience and I'll say, okay, what we're really going to try to do is we're going to press up. We're going to get up there halfway line. We're going to try to, let's try to trap here. Let's try. And so I'll give some instructions. Listen to you and remember you're the striker. So you stay up here. Don't come back all the way and be ready. We're going to try to play through here. And sometimes I'll see like blank faces or something and then I just say, okay, you just try to take a hold of that if you can, but listen, here's the main thing. Let's go out there and we're going to try to stop them from kicking it in our goal. And then we're going to try to kick it in their goal. And if you can do better than that, Awesome. But that's really the basic. So if you're not sure what to do, they seem to be kicking it toward our goal. Go try to stop it. We're going down just, and so that's, I try to reduce it down to really go to the basics for homeschoolers. I would just say, reduce it down. If you can, if you feel overwhelmed, reduce it down to the really basic stuff. And I think the power of habits is probably the most powerful thing. Developing one good habit is probably more powerful than okay. Figuring out the perfect curriculum and figuring it out. I've got it all if you just do morning time, like probably if you just do morning time and there's like reading involved with it and like maybe scripture prayer, maybe you sing a song, maybe your kids eat food and don't starve that day. Like you're probably like. You're probably killing it. Like you're probably doing way better than you think. So I just think even if there's a period of time, I heard Andrew Kern say something about that, but there was a family who got had a sickness and the mom was like someone was dying in the family and they just had to be at the hospital like so much. And she's Oh, I did during that time for homeschool as the kids would just come to the hospital and they would sit in the room and they would just read the whole time. And it was like six months or something. And I feel so bad. And Andrew Kern's they read. For six months, like good books, what

Timmy Eaton:

else do you want to happen in the education of seeing real life happening right before their eyes?

S. D. Smith:

Exactly. Exactly. They get, they experienced something that is like priceless as far as like encountering reality. They learn compassion. They learn. So yeah, so you're probably if you are worried and Oh, I'm doing that. You're probably doing an okay job and it's okay to be okay, particularly for a season. It's okay to go through a tough season and like books like reading and they're not. All the time playing Fortnite and all the time, watching YouTube all day long. That's pretty good. If you're just like they're doing like they're getting, you're in, they're eating, and they're not each other. So I would just say and release yourself, like to who you are in, for me as a Christian, it's I wanna be, I wanna follow Christ. So I, there is a inherent in that this notion that I need grace, that I am not done with what I'm becoming. Yes. And so I need the grace of God in my life and I need all the time. And I, and it's my life is not built upon this sort of. Of this illusion of my moral excellence and my perfection. I sometimes I think it is, and that's a set myself up for disappointment and disappointed for all people around me. But it's really that I'm like made in the image of God. I'm trying to grow every day and I, but I need mercy and I need grace. And so you have that. That's right there for you as a mom, as a dad. So receive that. And I tell my students my writing students, I have a course called the green writer, and it's all about that you're green. You have a green light. You don't have to wait until your muse strikes, green light go, but green, I'm a green, I am like a living thing. I am like a plant I am growing. That means I'm not yet what I'm going to be. So I need to be patient with myself. I need to be so I think that's what you are. You can't be the greatest. So be a green homeschooler, be someone who's going and growing and have mercy on yourself. But don't let that paralyze you into stopping, do the fundamentals, if you can't figure it a whole thing out try to kick it in their goal. Yep. No, that's

Timmy Eaton:

a great analogy. And I love those. Those are great final words. I really appreciate you doing that and expressing some of those things. Again, it would be cool to delve deeper. I, cause I, I would, it's so fun to hear about like the different challenges that families are experiencing and what your family, like what were the biggest problems and challenges and what were the greatest benefits and, but thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking time and good luck with your next I don't know if you have another interview coming up right now, but thank you again.

S. D. Smith:

My pleasure. Dr. Timothy. Tim, it was awesome talking to you. I loved it. And hopefully when I get to make it to Canada someday, we can hang out. Yeah, for sure.

Timmy Eaton:

You got a place to stay for sure in Southern Alberta. Thank you. That wraps up another edition of This Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.