Episode 150
From Novels to Films: An Author’s Journey
Episode 150 - From Novels to Films: An Author’s Journey
In this episode of the Faith and Family Filmmakers podcast, your host Jaclyn Whitt interviews Dan Walsh, a bestselling Christian fiction author. Dan shares his unique journey from being a pastor for 25 years to becoming a full-time novelist in 2010, with 29 novels on Amazon and over 1.8 million copies in circulation. He discusses how his first novel 'The Unfinished Gift,' inspired by classic Christmas films, led to his publishing success and eventual transition to indie publishing. Dan also delves into the adaptation of his novels into faith-based films, including 'The Unfinished Gift' and 'The Reunion,' the latter being picked up by producers of the hit movie 'Reagan.' Dan's story highlights the importance of God's timing and sovereignty in realizing one's dreams.
Highlights Include:
- Welcome and Introduction
- Journey to Becoming a Writer
- The Breakthrough Novel: The Unfinished Gift
- Finding a Publisher
- Navigating the Changing Publishing Landscape
- Transition to Independent Publishing
- From Books to Movies: ‘The Reunion’ Saga
- Challenges and Triumphs in Film Adaptation
- Conclusion and Reflections
Bio:
Dan Walsh is a bestselling Christian fiction author, writing fulltime since 2010, with 29 novels on Amazon. His books have received over 65,000 reviews (4.7 Avg). Over 1.8 million copies are in print or downloaded. Two fan-favorites are now being made into faith-based films. His very first novel, a Christmas story set on the homefront during WW2, The Unfinished Gift, is in pre-production with his son's production team. The rights to another of his most popular books, The Reunion, have been bought by the producers of the hit movie, Reagan. The script is written, and it's currently in pre-production with them also.
Promo for Unfinished Gift https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo3AhsClPv0
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Editing by Michael Roth
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Transcript
Welcome to the Faith and Family Filmmakers podcast.
Speaker:My name is Jaclyn and today I am speaking with Dan Walsh.
Speaker:Dan Walsh is a bestselling Christian fiction author writing full-time
Speaker:since 2010 with 29 novels on Amazon.
Speaker:His books have received over 65,000 reviews, typically at a 4.7 average.
Speaker:Over 1.8 million copies are in print or downloaded.
Speaker:Two fan favorites are now being made into faith-based films.
Speaker:His very first novel, a Christmas story set on the home front during World War ii.
Speaker:The unfinished gift is in pre-production with his son's production team.
Speaker:The rights to another of his most popular books.
Speaker:The reunion have been bought by the producers of the hit movie, Reagan.
Speaker:The script is written and it's currently in pre-production with them also.
Speaker:Welcome to the podcast, Dan.
Speaker:Thanks for having me, I'm really glad to be here with you guys.
Speaker:Yeah, so this is really interesting.
Speaker:So you are the first novelist that we've had on our podcast, so this is gonna
Speaker:be a great conversation because I know it is one of those things like when you
Speaker:look at the stats for, the percentage of movies that are made that are taken from
Speaker:A book turned into a film are pretty high.
Speaker:Like it's more than one in five.
Speaker:It, it's somewhere around there, like around 20%, 23%, something like that.
Speaker:So it, it's a pretty decent number.
Speaker:So it, it's actually really good for us to have this conversation.
Speaker:And I'm curious though, bef.
Speaker:Before we dive into that side of it, I wanna kind of back up and I
Speaker:wanna get to know you as a writer.
Speaker:When did writing become the main thing for you?
Speaker:Because it said in the bio that since 2010 you've been writing full time.
Speaker:So where did that begin and how did you get to that stage?
Speaker:Fortunately, I've answered this question enough that I think I can keep it short.
Speaker:It's kind of quite a, quite a tale, but I actually was a pastor
Speaker:for 25 years full-time and of a smallish church, 250, 300 total.
Speaker:I think it this, it was a, you know, by the end of it wasn't the large church,
Speaker:it was like small staff, you know, me and one of the pastor and full-time secretary.
Speaker:So got to wear a lot of hats as a lot of smaller.
Speaker:Pastors learn how to do.
Speaker:I actually wanted to be a writer though.
Speaker:If you go back to 11th grade, that's what I thought I was gonna
Speaker:do with my life is write novels.
Speaker:I had wound up taking a creative writing elective course in 11th
Speaker:grade, and before that, I don't think I wrote maybe more than a couple
Speaker:of sentences on a greeting card.
Speaker:So it wasn't like I had this awareness that I could write.
Speaker:But after I took that class, we kind of just lit up
Speaker:something in me and everything.
Speaker:I turned in, she's like eight plus plus.
Speaker:She read stuff to the client.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I was a little bit embarrassed, obviously, 'cause I'm a, I had this
Speaker:sort of images long, long-haired surfer dude, and all of a sudden I'm, you
Speaker:know, people are saying you can write.
Speaker:I'm like, I'd never written anything right until that moment.
Speaker:So, and then after the class was over, she actually, like, before the summer
Speaker:break, she pulled me aside and she said.
Speaker:You might be one of the most naturally gifted writers I've ever taught.
Speaker:You could really be a writer if you, if you worked that hard at it.
Speaker:And I was pretty taken by that because nobody had ever given
Speaker:me that level of encouragement.
Speaker:And, you know, at that 11th grade
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:you know, what am I gonna do with my life?
Speaker:So, but life, you know, as it goes, I became radically converted to Christ the
Speaker:next year, senior year, and that just completely my focus to want to really
Speaker:understand the Lord and know the Bible.
Speaker:And I. Wound up setting the, the writing aside in this pursuit of God,
Speaker:I guess you say, knowing God I wound up also at the end of my high school
Speaker:year towards the end, met the love of my life who now married almost 49
Speaker:years with, so it was the right thing.
Speaker:People say, you know how, how do you know it?
Speaker:Most of the not be ready of my 50th high school reunion in a month.
Speaker:And everybody's like, when they find out you guys are still
Speaker:married, you know, because we were together back then, you know?
Speaker:But she loved my writing.
Speaker:But what wound up happening is I experienced what people might call
Speaker:a call to ministry when I was 19 and wound up for the next many
Speaker:years preparing to become a pastor.
Speaker:And at age 28.
Speaker:Became a full-time pastor.
Speaker:So of course very busy life and writing fiction novels
Speaker:was not anywhere to be found.
Speaker:So I, I loved fiction and I kept reading fiction that whole time.
Speaker:But I thought maybe God will let me do this when I get older and
Speaker:retire Well, what wound up happening?
Speaker:Fast forward to year 22, I was burning out as a pastor, and one of
Speaker:the things that they recommended, we went to conference for pastors.
Speaker:lot of pastors can suffer from burnout.
Speaker:They recommend you.
Speaker:You just need to find something that refreshes you.
Speaker:Something that relaxes you, like you can help you unwind.
Speaker:'cause you don't, most pastors don't clock in, clock out, you know?
Speaker:So on the way home, my wife's like, when we met, used to love to write
Speaker:and maybe you should try that, you know, that's as deep as it was.
Speaker:And so that happened to be near Christmas time.
Speaker:So over the Christmas I happened to watch the two movies I
Speaker:always watch every Christmas.
Speaker:It's a wonderful life.
Speaker:And one of the Christmas carols, you know, with Dickens.
Speaker:So affected by these, I, I remember praying, Lord, if I was gonna write
Speaker:a novel, I'd like to write a story that at least have the potential to
Speaker:affect people the way these books do.
Speaker:I mean, these stories do every year.
Speaker:Over that holiday.
Speaker:The, the, actually the story for the unfinished gift just
Speaker:kind of dropped into my lap.
Speaker:Uh, it just started popping into my head, like, you know, I was seeing
Speaker:it like, and I just was jotting it down and over about, I think
Speaker:before the first, before New Year's.
Speaker:I had, what, what I later would understand was the synopsis written, because I
Speaker:didn't know what to call it, but I read this story idea to my wife and
Speaker:she's like, oh my gosh, that's amazing.
Speaker:You should write that.
Speaker:So I did that over the next, you know, year.
Speaker:I was writing the unfinished gift in my spare time when it was finished.
Speaker:And of course back then we're talking 2008.
Speaker:2008. There wasn't any, Amazon was nothing.
Speaker:There was no Amazon.
Speaker:There was no faith-based movies.
Speaker:Everything that we now know and seemed pretty very familiar with was all
Speaker:there was was fiction, and there was big, there was chain bookstores like
Speaker:books, million and Barnes and Noble.
Speaker:And if you wanted to buy a book, you went to a store and you got it off the shelf.
Speaker:And to get published, I found out was very, very hard.
Speaker:I mean, it was just like everything I read and everybody I talked to
Speaker:said, you know, be prepared for drawers full of rejection letters.
Speaker:Well, oddly enough that didn't happen.
Speaker:I. I had a experience that, as I've come to know now, getting to know
Speaker:hundreds of writers, nobody has a story like mine and people who hear
Speaker:my story kind of tend to hate me.
Speaker:Uh, 'cause I kind of didn't.
Speaker:And you could say, pay my dues.
Speaker:What wound up happening was I, I, I wrote this story, this Christmas
Speaker:novel and went to Barnes and Noble to find out how to polish it up and
Speaker:get it ready to publish everything.
Speaker:Told me you have to go to an an agent, you gotta have a literary agent.
Speaker:You can't go directly a publisher.
Speaker:So I looked into that.
Speaker:Back then there was, America Online was kind of like, the internet may maybe old
Speaker:enough to remember that you've got mail.
Speaker:That was kind of the buzzword for
Speaker:Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Back then a OL.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I remember.
Speaker:phone modems.
Speaker:It was super slow, I wrote this novel, right?
Speaker:And then I've spent all this time cleaning it up and I had no, I'd
Speaker:never been to a conference, never been to a critique group, never
Speaker:met any other writers, really.
Speaker:And I, from what I learned, this was how you approach agents.
Speaker:So I sent these three packages, the first three agents on this list of
Speaker:people who are told to me, these are the A-listers in Christian fiction,
Speaker:expecting course to be rejected.
Speaker:And I was gonna make my way through the whole list until I,
Speaker:you know, got to the blisters
Speaker:Yeah, start at the top and then work your way down.
Speaker:I worked my way down and maybe some, maybe, well, the first three I got a
Speaker:rejection letter, one, the other two both called me and said, I love what you sent.
Speaker:Wanna read the whole book?
Speaker:One asked for the me to print it up and send it in a box, which
Speaker:was what they did back then.
Speaker:You actually would send the manuscript in a box The other one
Speaker:was like, I can't wait for that.
Speaker:I want you to send it to me over America Online, which is phone modem.
Speaker:So all night long it took, for one word file, just watch this little blue screen.
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:like two and a half hours for one word file to get her.
Speaker:If any moment left the call, I have
Speaker:to start the thing over.
Speaker:Well, she got it.
Speaker:Read it the next day.
Speaker:in one day.
Speaker:It was a few hundred 50 page novel.
Speaker:She read it one day.
Speaker:You called me back up that night and said it was crying actually, you know,
Speaker:she goes, I, I, I can sell this book, please don't sign with anyone else.
Speaker:And I was actually thinking.
Speaker:I hope she's legit 'cause she seems a little desperate to, and so she,
Speaker:I looked her up and I told her I'd, I'd get back with her the next day.
Speaker:I went ahead and actually looked her up again to make sure.
Speaker:And sure enough she had, you know, she'd been at her for 15 years.
Speaker:She was in New York City.
Speaker:She had a, she was formerly a secular literary agent who'd
Speaker:moved to Christian fiction.
Speaker:Now had, you know, authors in both sides, but she was trying, trying
Speaker:to feature Christian fiction.
Speaker:So I signed with her and sure enough, five weeks later she had a contract with one of
Speaker:the big five Christian fiction publishers.
Speaker:The next Christmas, I'm there at Barnes and Noble with a
Speaker:hardback book with my name on it.
Speaker:My wife's taking my picture
Speaker:Yeah, that's not everybody's journey.
Speaker:Definitely not.
Speaker:And that book Wound Up winning, uh, two Carol Awards, the best debut
Speaker:author and best historical fiction, and was in all these magazines.
Speaker:I'm getting interviews and they have a publicity staff and, and a whole
Speaker:staff of people were promoting me.
Speaker:They're spending thousands of dollars.
Speaker:And then now the question is, what else you got?
Speaker:You know, book two.
Speaker:I'm like, I don't have anything.
Speaker:I wasn't thinking, if you had told me then you're gonna have 29, 30 books.
Speaker:It's like, that's un, I didn't have two, I didn't have three.
Speaker:I was like, this was the book I wrote to relax.
Speaker:I wasn't thinking it would become anything.
Speaker:And so next thing you know, I'm, my wife and I are banging our heads
Speaker:together about how we could write a sequel to the unfinished gift.
Speaker:We came up with one, about 50, 60 pages written.
Speaker:They bought it.
Speaker:That one came out.
Speaker:That was the one that probably sort of began to launch my, the direction for them
Speaker:in terms of branding me because all the magazine and reviewers were calling me the
Speaker:Nicholas Sparks of Christian Fiction, and I had never even read of a Nick Nicholas
Speaker:Sparks book, but I went and saw some of his movies and I understood why I.
Speaker:They were making those comparisons.
Speaker:So that's what they said, that's you're gonna be your brand So
Speaker:for the next several years, up through 2015, I wrote 12 novels
Speaker:with them under the sort of my name.
Speaker:But they were like, you know, promoting me like Nicholas Sparks and hoping
Speaker:that maybe some of the audience that read his book would come my way.
Speaker:And so that's what I did and, and I wound up probably around the end of
Speaker:2014, well, in 20 12, 20 13, that's when I would say there's this major shakeup.
Speaker:And Christian publishing and, and that's when Amazon, like a, like a tsunami came
Speaker:in and just in effect ruined everything that was there before just wasteland.
Speaker:Uh, publishers were going belly up.
Speaker:Big publishers were merging just to survive.
Speaker:I, half of my author friends were being dropped like a rock
Speaker:because their publishing company could only afford their contract.
Speaker:Yeah, what happened?
Speaker:That year, Amazon came out with a Kindle at $99.
Speaker:It was a number one Christmas present in America.
Speaker:Millions of people bought this Kindle for $99 and all those people who
Speaker:bought those Kindles stopped buying print books almost immediately.
Speaker:So here you have all these publishers, like my publisher had, I dunno, I think
Speaker:it was like 40,000 print run box boxes and boxes of books for the reunion, which
Speaker:was my book that came out that fall.
Speaker:Only half of the bookstores took the orders because everybody was
Speaker:buying eBooks, and so everybody, not just my publisher, all across the
Speaker:publishing world, all were just took a shellacking that year as they all
Speaker:had to grapple with this new monster.
Speaker:And Amazon only grew and its, you know, influence.
Speaker:And so a couple more years working with my publisher, I started to realize that.
Speaker:as much as, as exciting as it was working with a publisher and all that,
Speaker:it was also very confining because they only wanted me to stay in that very
Speaker:narrow lane of the Nicholas Sparks guy.
Speaker:There's all these other things I wanted to write that they turned
Speaker:down because it wasn't my brand.
Speaker:So that's what made me, really made the decision to go indie in 2015,
Speaker:which has been a good move for me.
Speaker:'cause I think my books are more double, triple in sales from when I was,
Speaker:'cause half of my books are suspense, Christian suspense and the others are
Speaker:like the Nicholas Sparks types book.
Speaker:But also I, you know, I get to write what I want and there's nobody,
Speaker:and even financially there's a whole lot less hands on the pie.
Speaker:So it's been very good for us financially as well.
Speaker:So that's.
Speaker:So being able to go independent, like you started with the
Speaker:publisher, which would you agree?
Speaker:Did that help to build your audience so that when you went independent,
Speaker:then you were in a better position than someone who started independent?
Speaker:I.
Speaker:yes.
Speaker:I would say definitely one.
Speaker:The one challenge to that is if you think about it by then, I had 12, actually, 13.
Speaker:'cause I had one book with Guideposts.
Speaker:I had 13 novels written.
Speaker:I've talked to some of my good friends on the, in the indie publishing world
Speaker:who have been very successful and I talked about for getting ready for
Speaker:a conference to, I was speaking at that everybody would assume because
Speaker:I, my career as a traditional, that I couldn't really speak to people
Speaker:who are indie because I can't relate.
Speaker:'cause I got, this, uh, big, huge audience came with the traditional success.
Speaker:But when I talked to these writers that I talked to, what they all had
Speaker:in common, I asked them question, at what point could you leave
Speaker:your day job and write full time?
Speaker:And almost every one of 'em had the same answer when they had
Speaker:about eight novels published.
Speaker:And what it turned out to be, they had like two complete four book series.
Speaker:So you think about it, They built their audience and they didn't have the fanfare.
Speaker:I had, I had all this, you know, publicity and things like
Speaker:that that they didn't have.
Speaker:But in terms of actually financial success and building an audience,
Speaker:I had 13 books and they had eight.
Speaker:So it was really, I think the audience, what I, the lesson I learned from that was
Speaker:a, you have to write books that readers.
Speaker:Can't stop reading once they start.
Speaker:I mean, you have to, the goal has to be honing the craft to where you write books
Speaker:that readers just can't stop reading.
Speaker:And if you do that, you learn how to successfully write books
Speaker:that people read to the end.
Speaker:They're gonna read the next book and then they're gonna read the next book until
Speaker:you run out book that you've written.
Speaker:If you write a mediocre book, which sadly there's many mediocre books being
Speaker:written under the indie label, people don't stay with it and you don't.
Speaker:The readers readership doesn't grow.
Speaker:So I think readership growth, it was, they definitely helped.
Speaker:But I think essentially re readership growth is more about writing great
Speaker:books and writing a lot sub them.
Speaker:Having the patience to keep at it till you've got enough books to
Speaker:read where you can grow an audience.
Speaker:makes sense.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, okay, let's talk about how you got then, moving toward the
Speaker:film side, like whose idea was it?
Speaker:How did it come about that Hey, let's make a book into a movie.
Speaker:I was contacted my, many of your listeners probably remember when the, when the movie
Speaker:came out, the Christian movie came out.
Speaker:God's not dead.
Speaker:Yeah, probably a lot, dude.
Speaker:It was like a $3 million budget, sold over 60 million in the theaters,
Speaker:Yeah, it was huge.
Speaker:In some ways, it opened the door for so much more.
Speaker:This happened because it, it cost all these people in the film
Speaker:world to say, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker:3 million and 60 million.
Speaker:And most of 'em had thought at, at, looked at faith-based
Speaker:movies as, as flops, financially.
Speaker:And so what happened was there's this group of, of Christian directors,
Speaker:producers, writers, they're in Hollywood that just kind of loosely connect.
Speaker:And because they're, it's like Daniel on the lines den, right?
Speaker:They don't have very much encouragement because they're
Speaker:conservative and Christian.
Speaker:So they would meet once a month and, uh, discuss and talk, well, that when
Speaker:this that happened, this movie came out.
Speaker:The topic of everybody's discussion was.
Speaker:Maybe we should, you know, 'cause some, these guys had been working in film
Speaker:for 20 years or more, but they always made movies that they didn't really
Speaker:care about, that just made good money, kept them working, but they thought,
Speaker:what wouldn't you like to end our life making, doing something that matters?
Speaker:I. and so they, they decided, let's pursue a project, a faith-based movie
Speaker:project, and then they were on the hunt to find the book that would
Speaker:become the story that they start with.
Speaker:Well, out of the blue, as you know, just like sovereignty, I was, again,
Speaker:you, what my tell you what happened?
Speaker:It's not reproducible.
Speaker:It's not like, well, this is what you do.
Speaker:Follow these three things.
Speaker:What happened was my church secretary for last 14 years,
Speaker:loved my books big fan and her.
Speaker:Godson was one of these producers in Hollywood.
Speaker:He'd made 20 films, gave, gave you a list of films.
Speaker:They're all these great big action films, like with Stallone and, but they were like
Speaker:huge films with Millennium Productions.
Speaker:And he was one of the guys.
Speaker:And she said, ' he called her once a month.
Speaker:Like he was more like, he was one of like his mother, even though it was a godson.
Speaker:He called once a month and she said.
Speaker:He talked to her about that and she said, well, you, I've been telling you
Speaker:about my pastor, and he writes these great books and he was always, we talked
Speaker:later, he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:But to humor her, she said, okay, send me a couple that you think are good
Speaker:and I'll, I'll take a look at 'em.
Speaker:She sends the reunion and the unfinished gift.
Speaker:He called her back before the week was over crying, having read the reunion
Speaker:and said this book was, and he's not a crier, this is not a crying guy.
Speaker:He hardly laughs out loud.
Speaker:He's a very stoic kind of guy, but he was just like, I have been affected this
Speaker:deeply by story, and I, I passed it around to the guys and, and they're all the same.
Speaker:This has gotta be the one, can you find out if it's available?
Speaker:Which was comical.
Speaker:Is it available?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:she said, well, I'm pretty sure it's available but I'll call.
Speaker:So she called me excited and said, what do you think?
Speaker:I said, what do you mean with Yeah, the answer is yes.
Speaker:The only thing I'd be careful I don't give it away 'cause I'm so excited.
Speaker:So anyways, that, that began, this saga with the reunion, one of the guys,
Speaker:Nick Lango, was one, one of these guys.
Speaker:He wound up being the one that was gonna write it for, for no, for no cost.
Speaker:I just gave them, you know, we got an option contract.
Speaker:He was gonna write the script at his expense just because he believed in
Speaker:it and wanted to be a part of it.
Speaker:Just so happens out of the blue, the year after that, while he's working
Speaker:on the script and we're talking and interacting a lot, his story, the Green
Speaker:Book gets picked up by, I think it was, I.
Speaker:Warner Brothers, one of the big ones, got picked up and they wanted, they wanted
Speaker:to turn it into a major production, and had two other writer involved with him.
Speaker:They turned this story into a script.
Speaker:They wound up making it for 23 million.
Speaker:It was one of those sleeper hits, and in 2018, it wound up just being a major hit.
Speaker:It made it for 23 million.
Speaker:It wound up winning the Golden Globes, like three Gold Globes, and
Speaker:it got Oscar nominations, and then it wound up winning the Oscar for
Speaker:best picture and best screenplay.
Speaker:So all of a sudden he Nick's coming back to me saying, I think we need
Speaker:reunion on hold and let this thing ride this wave, how far it goes,
Speaker:because I think it's gonna open a lot of doors for the reunion later on.
Speaker:And I'm like, sure, whatever you guys think, you know, and I'm just, you know,
Speaker:writing keep on writing new books and.
Speaker:Well, what wound up happening, and this is what began this like seven years ago,
Speaker:nobody could predict in that span time, it was like when he was finally ready and
Speaker:all that success after Green Book, he was like, he was shopping this story to like
Speaker:a-list actors like I just, Sam Elliot, all these different people who we never
Speaker:would've gotten the time to look at this.
Speaker:We're all like, anything you're doing I wanna read.
Speaker:And so they wound up signing a deal with a distribution company.
Speaker:I'm not gonna name names because.
Speaker:COVID hit and all of Hollywood went, you know, shut down.
Speaker:And right at the height of all this momentum, all the air got let outta the
Speaker:balloon and it came kind of crashing down.
Speaker:And nothing, there was nothing happening.
Speaker:But unfortunately before that all happened, but had gotten legally
Speaker:contracted with distributor who on the other end of Covid didn't survive.
Speaker:One chapter 11 and the bankrupt, and it caused the reunion project
Speaker:to get stuck in this legal that went on for a couple more years.
Speaker:I kind of got to be like six years.
Speaker:I figured, well, you know, maybe it's just not gonna happen, you know?
Speaker:'cause it's like this stuck in this legal thing and no.
Speaker:Well, out of the blue last August I get contacted by the two guys.
Speaker:A pretty excited Nick and, and Frank and 'cause they had been, uh, working
Speaker:with, and, and the guys that, uh, from the Reagan project who knew about the
Speaker:reunion project and loved the story.
Speaker:They found out that it was stuck like that, and they decided this story
Speaker:needs to be told and we're gonna, we'll work with us, we'll buy it,
Speaker:free it from the, and create a new LLC and launch it in, into a new
Speaker:direction free of all the entanglements.
Speaker:and so I got the next thing I know I'm, while I'm s funny, while I'm
Speaker:watching Reagan in the theater, the guys that I'm talking with on Facebook
Speaker:message are up there on the credits as the credits were rolling afterwards.
Speaker:It was pretty cool.
Speaker:So, and the way they were talking about the reunion was like, this is a, like
Speaker:one of the best stories I've ever.
Speaker:We, we couldn't let this thing sit there.
Speaker:We ha we're gonna make this movie.
Speaker:They have one more movie that they're gonna make, that they're committed to.
Speaker:Between Reagan and mine, but mine's gonna be the one after
Speaker:that that they're gonna work on.
Speaker:It's obviously, uh, in good hands, let's put it that way.
Speaker:You know, it's, it, it, I just gave it new life and it seemed
Speaker:like it was all completely dead.
Speaker:There's obviously another tale, very different tale with unfinished
Speaker:gift, the ones being made by my son.
Speaker:I dunno if you have the time to get into that or wanna take that another time,
Speaker:Yeah, let's take that.
Speaker:How about, let's get into that one in our follow-up interview, but before we finish
Speaker:out this interview, I'm kind of piecing together a little bit of a, a theme and
Speaker:I. You know, something that I think is, is very valuable that, that God is doing
Speaker:and, and showing through your life.
Speaker:One is he can make up time, you know, like you set writing aside for quite a long
Speaker:time and then you came back and picked it up, and then it just, it, just went.
Speaker:Like all the doors were open for you.
Speaker:And so I just wanna say for anybody out there that had to set their dream aside
Speaker:because they were serving God for a time, he's able to open those doors faster
Speaker:than you could have on your own anyways.
Speaker:And then second, I. It, it is one of those things that like when God says yes, like
Speaker:it doesn't have to look the way that it would for anybody else, because honestly,
Speaker:there are not very many people that would be able to relate to your story.
Speaker:Where everybody's like, Hey, are you available?
Speaker:Let's, let's get this published and let's, like, usually you do have to
Speaker:go through a lot more rejection or you have to be the one to pitch the story.
Speaker:It's not very often that you would be hunted down for a story, so.
Speaker:It's an amazing journey that you have such an incredible testimony and so it, yeah.
Speaker:I'm excited to see these projects when they get made, and I'm very
Speaker:interested in learning more about your books, but as we finish this
Speaker:portion, is there anything that you would like to share with our audience?
Speaker:Well, I guess the thing that I am concerned that hearing my story.
Speaker:It can seem like, okay, well that's like lightning strike.
Speaker:What can I take away from that?
Speaker:But it would really be what the way you summarized it pretty well, God is
Speaker:sovereign and it's kind of almost like seek first the kingdom of God and all
Speaker:these things will be added to you.
Speaker:I think we can get so obsessed with our part.
Speaker:We don't realize our part at best.
Speaker:That's what, what, what's needing is this crowd to be fed and all we have
Speaker:is five loaves and two fishes and, and we're trying to work that as best
Speaker:we can and make it look as good as we can and do everything we can in
Speaker:the effort that we we're all, we're all focused on our effort and we can
Speaker:lose sight of the fact that what's really need is so much bigger than us.
Speaker:And that we have to start, I would say putting more accent,
Speaker:more emphasis on the prayer side.
Speaker:The, the waiting on God's side.
Speaker:The trusting in God's side than the effort.
Speaker:'cause what, that's what we can, I get, I gets obsessed about, so they're trying
Speaker:to gotta try that, gotta try this.
Speaker:And I'm not saying effort's not matter.
Speaker:Obviously there's five loaves and do fish then they're necessary.
Speaker:But the real big thing is gonna turn out to be God in his sovereign way,
Speaker:doing things that we can't control and that that's really is my story.
Speaker:Even when you hear the next part of the story, even though it's very different
Speaker:path, it's very much the same theme.
Speaker:So thank you for being on this part of the podcast.
Speaker:I'm looking forward to the next episode.
