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What does it take to ultimately succeed as an author? The answer might surprise you! Join beloved children’s fiction writer, S.D. Smith (author of The Green Ember series) for an inspiring look at some of the overlooked qualities that need to be present in every writer.

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.

Marlin Detweiler:

Hello again. This is Marlin Detweiler with Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us an author that you probably know about. His name is S.D. Smith. He likes to be called Sam, so we're going to call him Sam. He is the author of the Green Ember series. Sam, welcome!

S.D. Smith:

Oh, I'm so delighted to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Marlin Detweiler:

We are excited to have you. Before we jump into some of the things that you've done that are well-known to the marketplace. Tell us a little about yourself personally.

S.D. Smith:

Well, I'm Sam. I've got my wife. Gina is wonderful, beautiful. She's a homeschooling mom and a homemaker. We have four kids from age 20 down to age 11. Two boys, two girls. We live in rural West Virginia, which is to say we live in West Virginia. And I'm a writer. I write books for kids and families.

Marlin Detweiler:

That is wonderful. How did you get into writing fiction? Tell us at the end, as you know, I'm going to ask you to help budding authors think about how they might refine their practice, but tell us your story.

S.D. Smith:

Well, I'm probably an unusual story. I think a lot of authors end up being those kind of like bookworm kids who just grow up, go to the library all the time, reading, devouring everything. That wasn't me at all. I grew up in a holler in West Virginia. I didn't know a lot of boys or males.

Marlin Detweiler:

You gew up in what?

S.D. Smith:

In a holler, the hollow between two mountains. It's called a holler.

Marlin Detweiler:

A holler sounds like something you do and you're trying to get heard.

S.D. Smith:

Yeah, well, you're so far away from people in a holler that you do have to holler to be heard. But so I grew up – My dad said we grew up so far back in the woods that no one lived behind us. And that was definitely one of my first props to the imagination. But yeah, so I didn't grow up really reading a lot.

I mean, I was I played sports and I could read and it was fine. And we were my parents were devout Christians and went on to become missionaries. I was a missionary kid at age 12, but I didn't start reading until I was probably 15 or 16 and start reading a lot myself. Kind of fell in love with reading and quickly made up for lost time.

But I was sort of even before that, I was kind of I feel like I was sort of haunted by the vocation of a storyteller. I had a teacher that read us Little Women in first grade, and I was captivated by the idea of Jo March being a writer. I just thought, “Oh, is that possible? That seems like the coolest job.”

And so I’d write little stories here and there, and I was always kind of, even though I was kind of athletic and that was more my identity was definitely more about around sports, I think. But I sort of was always a little bit of like a weird creative kid, too. I like to draw. And also in my teenage years, along with reading, I fell in love with music.

I got a guitar for my birthday in South Africa on my 16th birthday and started writing songs. I wrote poetry, so I was always kind of one of those writerly types. But my career probably started–

Marlin Detweiler:

That sound like the category of storyteller through a couple of different mediums.

S.D. Smith:

Yes, I think so. I think that's why I sort of describe it as being haunted by this vocation in a good way. But I think that a lot of things– ups and downs happen. But an ordinary dad telling I was always a storyteller to my kids, always improvised stories. And so I would tell them stories at bedtimes, on walks, just kind of had serials going.

My oldest daughter, when she was a toddler, I would just tell her stories, and we were on the porch one day, and I was it was story time, you know, I was just kind of one of those natural moments, and there were rabbits hopping around in the yard. So I just started telling our story about a rabbit, an older rabbit sister, younger brother, and this became a serial for our family.

It was just our little our family's little story. And we did that for years and years. And eventually the kids were like, “Daddy, you got to write this down.” So I stopped writing the book I was writing, a fiction book, and started just writing The Green Ember, which we shared in this sort of independent small little way. And found out that there were a lot of other families, like our family, that like this kind of story.

Marlin Detweiler:

You've intrigued me with a question here. So the Green Ember series was not your first foray into writing as a professional, is that correct?

S.D. Smith:

Oh, no, it was. I was writing.

Marlin Detweiler:

What were you doing prior to the Green Ember series?

S.D. Smith:

I was just working on stuff. At that time, I thought, I do want to do this. So I'd written a few things, I'd written some short stories and a couple of novels. They weren't ready like, like a lot of writers. Those were the ones that kind of belonged in the drawer. Those were practice.

Marlin Detweiler:

Isn't it funny how God tends to work? While, we're planning on doing something, He causes something to happen that is what ends up being the real deal that becomes our career.

S.D. Smith:

It's totally– it happened that way. I can't a lot of people even early on in the early days of the Green Ember, a lot of people would say like, “How are you marketing? Like you guys are doing so great!” And I'm just like, “Marketing, What are you talking about?” Like we, we had no idea it was so it was so organic, and I never looked at anything like, what's the hot in the market?

Or it was so natural and so uncalculated. It was really sincere. And it was also super focused.

I wasn't trying to like, be the next whatever. I wasn't trying to write for the whole world. I was writing for my kids, and I was trying to give them a good gift. And I really do believe I felt at the time, and I feel now that if that book was just a relic of our time together, it was just a little kind of a keepsake in our family. Then I genuinely thought at the time, that is winning. I’ve already won.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's all you needed.

S.D. Smith:

Yeah. And, so the fact that this has gone way beyond that, it was just it's just a big surprise and delight. But I felt like we already won before we even started, which was really cool it's really cool experience.

Marlin Detweiler:

I understand that the Green Ember series, or at least one of the books, was the number one book on Audible for some period of time. Did I understand that correctly?

S.D. Smith:

That's true, just for a short time. It was. It popped up to be to surpass some of the others for a little while, and it's always done pretty well. But yeah, that was a moment of high exposure for the books and but we've always done pretty well with audio in a lot of different formats.

Marlin Detweiler:

How would you just tell me why the books have had great appeal in audio? Why do you think that is?

S.D. Smith:

I think we've had pretty good, you know, we've had good performers. Jo Clarkson has done the main four books of the Ember series.

Marlin Detweiler:

And didn't read your own book?

S.D. Smith:

I didn't. I tried it, but I think I didn't do quite as good a job as they did. It's all about the audience. To me, it's all about serving them and giving them a good gift. And we've been pretty laser-focused on that, we're independently published or self-published.

And some people would say that's not true. It's kind of a little bit of a misnomer because that implies that I'm doing it all. And really, my partner Andrew is doing most of the publishing side of things. I wouldn't, I'd be lost. But we've got this little independent operation, but we've always had a really high – quality is the best business plan is something that John Lasseter said. We've always sort of adhered to that. So I think they're excellent products. It's not necessarily uniquely audiobooks that have taken off. It's been the print books too. So I think there's just something about the story that people are incredibly hungry for.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, I don't know what your success has been with the print books. I know you've sold quite a few, but it was particularly interesting to me to see that you reached the number one book on Audible. I know that's a very significant accomplishment. So that's really cool. Is it Story Warren through which you do the independent publishing?

S.D. Smith:

Yes, that's the company– myself and my brother and my brother-in-law that we operate together. Our little guerilla operation in West Virginia.

Marlin Detweiler:

Are you the sole talent published there or are there other books that you are publishing as well?

S.D. Smith:

So far it's been just this myself. That wasn't the original plan. The original plan was for Story Warren to publish a lot of other authors. But Andrew insisted that we launch The Green Ember first, which I didn't want to do because I thought, Oh, we own this thing. And I don't want to do my own book.

That's really tacky. But we did it. And, basically, since then we haven't really had the capacity to do anything else. We've been sort of trying to just keep up with them, that's all. So, so far it's just been it. We've done 11 books so far, ten Green Ember books, and one of the new series, Jack Zulu And The Waylander's Key. We're starting some of our new series.

Marlin Detweiler:

Let me come back to that in a minute. I want to ask you about that too. But Story Warren is more than a publisher, isn't it?

S.D. Smith:

Yeah, I think so. I mean, we have a website that's sort of aimed at – the origins of it, we're really about being allies in imagination to families, to parents who are trying to figure out what to do with their kids. And they're on the one hand, seeing stuff that's really toxic and predatory even, which that's intensified quite a bit in the intervening years.

And then on the other side, you sort of have like an approach that's kind of like safe for the whole family sometimes in a way that we feel like I feel like is actually dangerous because it's not truthful about the world. It's a little bit the patting on the head and saying, “Everything's going to be okay. There's nothing dangerous in the world,” which doesn't feel authentic or real to me.

I think about hospitality to kids is being more honest, not being edgy or being gross or being like trying to be, you know, transgressive or anything I'm not interested in. That's all lame and boring to me. But being honest about the fact that there are enemies, there is evil. Saint George and the Dragon is a true story about the way the world is that is faithful to reality. And so telling faithful stories.

So we've tried to sort of position as in like how can we be allies to parents who are trying to navigate that. And I don't know how good a job we've done, but Story Warren has kind of been a little bit of a launch pad for our mission.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, back to Green Ember. So as you you talked about it being something that kind of started on the front porch with children seeing rabbits in the yard. And that became the topic, which has turned into a very significant, I'll call it a franchise, for lack of a better term, for you. Tell me, tell us tell our audience what the essence of that franchise is.

What is it that you're trying to communicate? Talk to us about the value of imagination and those kinds of things and how you see that developing or helping to develop children.

S.D. Smith:

I don't have a particular mission as in, like, I'm trying to teach kids the value of kindness, or I'm trying to sneak a gospel message and then tell them that there's this conversion scene and you can find your own personal… there's not anything like that. So I think of it it's more of a it's more of like Tolkien's approach, in which Tolkien talks about his cordially disliking allegory, and he talks about people confusing allegory with application or applicability.

And I would say that my approach with The Green Ember is certainly more in the I want to tell a faithful story, a story which means a good story, something that has internal coherence, that can't be propaganda or pornography or something. That's all these excesses that Flannery O'Connor talks about. It's I want to tell a faithful story that's a true story, not that the events actually happen, but that the story comports with reality with a capital R. I think there are there are themes that emerge certainly from the Green Ember world and things that, especially if you're a Christian you know your bells will be ringing. Kind of like if you read The Lord of the Rings, you know, your bells will be ringing, but not in such a way that it takes you out, and you're just thinking all the time of, like, what's the lesson he's trying to teach me and how is he trying to you know, you're not thinking so much about the author.

You're in the story, and you're loving what you ought to love. And it's transformational. Certainly is for me; when I read great stories like The Lord of the Rings, I would not dare put it in that category. But I would say it's of the same kind of approach. But the stories are a lot about a longing for amending.

The people are working. They're working in anticipation of a future that's coming. The mending, the mended wood is what they're working for. So everything they're trying to do there, their values in this world, that's very chaotic, that's very mixed up. They're trying to– the characters are called to sort of keep the faith with the good calls of the mending that's coming.

So they're acting now in sort of in light of a future that's happening. So that obviously will resonate for Christians. It certainly comes out of my deep longing for the kingdom of God that’s real in my life, but it's not a 1 to 1 or anything. It's just an action story, I think.

I think why it works is probably because, and again, this wasn't planned or anything, but I think what happens at the end of the story for a lot of people is kids are leaping for joy and parents are weeping for joy. And its moms, particularly, are weeping because they feel like they understand this, this reality, this deeper meaning that's happening and the goodness, the virtue that's sort of at the heart of it.

And I think kids are just like, you know, “They won. They defeated, you know that they overcame and this heroic moment. And it's cool!” There's an awesome Robin Hood-esque kind of, you know, bows and arrows and swords and stuff. So I think it kind of works on two levels. But it's definitely not sort of an allegorical. It's more of just kind of a faithful story that I would say is an escape into reality.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. One of the things that I did in preparation for this was I asked Ned Bustard, does that name ring a bell?

S.D. Smith:

Sure, Yeah. I love Ned!

Marlin Detweiler:

Ned is a great friend and has been involved in Veritas Press since its beginning. He has really established the look and feel of our brand. And one of the things that he said about you was that you're just a guy that loves his neighbor in ways like few people do. Why would he say that about you?

S.D. Smith:

I don't know. But I will say that my kids have used the Veritas Press, like the books that Ned's done over the years and really love them. So that's been a part of the formation of my children for sure. I wonder if Ned is saying that because of how ordinary I am.

Marlin Detweiler:

I might rather the term genuine.

S.D. Smith:

Well, maybe so, but I feel there is this sort of thing with people in West Virginia, and, you know, I'm not that far removed from subsistence farmers. So there's definitely an ethic of, like, don't get too big for your britches. And I do think about this calling as being very modest, as that modesty is one of my sort of anchor words.

And fidelity is another anchor word that I want to be faithful to Christ. I want to follow the Lord in my life. So I've got modesty, fidelity, and audacity is another one that I want to be bold. I want to go for it. I want to swing. I want to try to hit a grand slam.

But the Lord blesses me with base hits, and if I strike out or get hit by a pitch and die, it's not the end of the world. It's not about me. So I think that maybe that picking up on that. I feel very much a part of the place where I live. I'm not in Nashville or Colorado Springs or in L.A. or New York.

And I’m not around a lot of other sort of creative types. I love my church. I love my family. And I think I'm just like an ordinary guy. I do love my neighbors. I hope. I mean, that's the highest praise I can think of.

But I do think of this job as one that I have where I'm wearing an apron, and I don't think of it as like this elite artist whose self-expression– and I think that self-expression is not the end of art. It's barely the beginning. And so I think of coming to work and serving, serving food. Not that I devalue stories. That's the furthest thing from the truth. But I do think of my own calling as something that I get to show up to, to serve love and service is better than fame and self-expression. That this art that I'm called to is not a weight for me to be elite and different. I'm different but different in the vision of Paul for the Body of Christ that we have all these different gifts. I don't have more value than the plumber or the stump grinder or the pastor or the mom. We're all working together, and we're on the same team. I do think of this as a service industry job. It's kind of how I think about it.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, as you describe calling there, you describe something that would make Martin Luther proud.

S.D. Smith:

I hope so.

Marlin Detweiler:

Speaking of speaking, in a recent homeschool convention, a Great Homeschool Convention in Greenville, I was not there, but we had a booth there, and our folks were there. And somebody told me that you did a talk on Christian storytelling being an escape into reality. What does that mean?

S.D. Smith:

Well, I have a friend who I would love to have come up with that term myself, but I have a friend named Heidi Johnston, who's a wonderful author in Northern Ireland, and she talked about sort of faithful stories, stories that are faithful to reality, stories that harmonize with what God is saying in his word and world.

And she talks about those stories as we often are tempted. And Tolkien addresses this about, you know, the charge of escapism. And she says that these stories are not escape from reality. They're an escape into reality. And that is definitely my heart. G.K. Chesterton said that in fairy tales the apples are golden, so that in the real world, we can remember that they're green. In fairy tales the rivers run with wine so that we can remember in the real world they run with water. It's no less of a miracle.

So I think fairy tales and fantasy and stories and imagination and fiction, they can show us things that are more true by telling us something that's technically false. And I think that's what Tolkien does. He invites us into this.

I mean, you read Tolkien, and it's just real. It's just reality, but it's all not true. So I believe that the best stories– Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, a lot of G.K. Chesterton, George McDonald, some of our best storytellers, they don't take the charge of like, “Why aren't you telling the truth? Don't you care about the truth?” And I just think that I love the truth. I love the Bible. I couldn't love it anymore. Well, maybe I could. I should. But I would say that no book has influenced me more to love who and what I ought to and to be more conformed to what the Bible story is giving me than the Lord of the Rings.

And I think these faithful stories are faithful to reality. They are an escape into reality with a capital R. They show us the real world. I mean, the Kingdom of God is not something that I can see with my eyes real clearly right now. But it's coming. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, in West Virginia as it is in heaven.

That's what I want. That's what I pray for. So that takes imagination, that takes seeing in a new way. And often times I think fiction can invite us to see that in a way that the cold, hard facts can't. And I just seem to think, why is the Bible full of narratives? Why? Why is Jesus always telling stories?

Why are we so captivated by stories? And I think the most faithful stories, they give us meaning and they don't subtract truth. They add meaning and don't subtract truth. Because truth without story is really meaningless. You can say God is love or you can say God is powerful, but we don't know what that means unless we have a story. And what do we have in the Scripture? We have these stories.

Marlin Detweiler:

We clearly see God as a storyteller if we pay attention at all, don’t we?

S.D. Smith:

Right, and it's just everywhere in the Old Testament, “I'm the God who brought you out of Egypt,” and who are we in the New Testament? These are people of the risen Christ. These are the that's our narrative. Without Easter, does anything make sense? I mean, the whole thing doesn't make sense. So we're narrative people. And so I just think that is the best fiction. And actually, the worst fiction does the opposite.

You know, it takes us away from reality. It lies to us. It does. And it catechizes us, I think, to fall deeply into things that are lies. So I think I think stories are dangerous. And I think that's bad. And it's good. Because it can be a weapon wielded in any direction, you know, God, Satan, self, it's just like the imagination. It can serve any master.

Marlin Detweiler:

Tell us about the news series. Now you're writing this. As I saw, at least the first book was written with one of your children, a son. Tell us what you're trying to accomplish with this. Where's it going?

S.D. Smith:

This is with my son Josiah, and it's called Jack Zulu and the Waylander's Key, that's the first book. And so Jack is sort of the main character.

Marlin Detweiler:

And you expect him to play through the series?

S.D. Smith:

Yes. Yes. For this trilogy, at least. There's a whole world open in the Wayland. But Jack is sort of our way into the Wayland, and he's kind of a kid based on my experience of living in Africa as a kid. He's sort of half Zulu and half West Virginian, and so he's got a little bit of a he's already sort of caught between two worlds before he literally goes through a gateway into a world between 12 realms.

But it's actually exactly what we're talking about. The heart of that story is really that G.K. Chesterton quotation. It's really about sort of like going through a fantasy world in order to see that you already live in a fantasy world, in order to receive with gratitude what you've already been given, receive with gratitude, and see with wonder.

So that's really what the heart of that story is about. But again, on the surface, it's just kind of like a cool adventure that's really fun and got all the stuff that you love about fantasy adventures.

Marlin Detweiler:

The first book is available now?

S.D. Smith:

It is.

Marlin Detweiler:

How quickly do you expect to get the other ones out? Let's give people… the problem with what we're doing here. It's a little bit timeless. So somebody watches this a year from now or doesn't realize it's a year old. That might be a little bit misleading, but what kind of interval do you expect between books?

S.D. Smith:

Well, we'd hope to have it out by Christmas of 2023, but it might be spring of 2024. It's probably more realistic. I think that's hopefully if you're listening to this in 2037, hopefully, it's out by now, and you can get it at your local bookstore.

Marlin Detweiler:

You sound to me like you're taking lessons from Veritas Press in their publishing schedule – by Christmas, but it'll get out in the spring in reality.

S.D. Smith:

I think I'm starting to think we're hoping for the spring, but it might be the fall. But we're a small operation.

Marlin Detweiler:

So I can imagine that there are a number of people who have children, maybe even children themselves, listening who say, “Well, I'm interested in being an author.” What advice do you have for them? And I do understand it is a funny thing that many people's callings aren't arrived at through a direct line. In other words, I don't set out at the age of four years old to be an author, and I arrive at the age of 30, and that happens with a lot of colleagues.

I did not expect to be doing what I'm doing now. In fact, I had a prior career, and it was really a series of circumstances that I can only attribute to God's leading that I am in the work that I'm doing. And you sounded like it was a similar path for you. So give us some thoughts here as to what might be practical suggestions for people that maybe are more intentional about it.

Maybe also if you have some thoughts for the unintentional.

S.D. Smith:

Sure. For years, I didn't want to answer that question. I saw so many people who would write a book, and then they were suddenly experts, and now they're doing a course, which is the only place you could actually make money. And I was like, I'm not doing that. I'm just sticking to it. I'm going to succeed or fail at fiction.

So I was really determined. I'm just going to go. And if people can learn something, they can. I'm going to model it. But then I got asked by, you know, 20,000 kids, “Well, you know, do you have any advice for me? I want to be a writer.” So I thought of a golden rule, you know, style, kind of like a response there was, “work hard.”

And I found out, yeah, I've got a lot of things that I wish I had known. I love these young writers, I ended up praying for them a lot. So if you're one of those people who feels a calling, feels like that might be a vocation for you in some way, then boy, I'm rooting for you.

I developed a whole course on this called The Green Writer, and you can find it at https://greenwriter.sdsmith.com/ It's got a bunch of free lessons if you want, just check it out. But I really think, like some of the stuff I was talking about earlier, I feel like the first thing to me is to think about love and service, especially if you're a Christian. You're going to hear so many lies about the vocation of a storyteller. You're going to hear a lot of things like this is what it means to sort of pump myself up or to separate myself in these sort of sometimes kind of sinful ways. And I'm not saying I don’t like to sell books, and I want to tell you can't always figure out all those motivations and stuff.

I'm not trying to be nitpicky. I'm just saying, like, there's so much more life in the idea of I love this person. I want to give them a gift and to focus on them. It doesn't mean that you give them exactly what they want, but thinking of your own identity as someone who is a servant, someone who loves, who serves someone, who gives a gift.

And that will impact a lot of the ways you do it. Because if you're writing a story and you're thinking, “I want to show off, I want to be the best. I want everybody to think ‘You're the best author ever’” – again, the motivations are kind of tricky, but you might try to like, I've got to use a bunch of fancy words and I've got to like, seem like I'm the most intelligent when really like, if you're trying to tell a good story for someone, you try to be really clear. And so as Lewis said, you always use the most simple word.

And every pro is like kill the adjectives, kill the adverbs. And that's what you do. But again, when you're trying to show off, a lot of times you'll get instructions about like, “Oh, try to build this up.” And they'll say things like, “said is dead.” And you've got to say “he bloviates it,” and really, people don't write like that.

It's not clear, it's not generous. So try to be clear, try to be generous, try to be kind. Part of that is the identity thing is, what are you in it for? It's a good feeling to try to tell a good story, try to tell a clear story.

And so I think identity stuff is where I tend to sit. You can find the craft stuff, and the craft stuff is really, really important. Raise the stakes, lower the hopes. That's a big one. You know, that's something John Luxury said– “The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the dog's mat is the beginning of a story.”

That kind of a thing. Like, it's got to matter. Like there's got to be conflict, there's got to be opposition. You want to have a character that you care about, that you're going on a journey with, that you can root for. That's not perfect yet.

There are a lot of things you can do at the beginning. I think causal relationships are important. This happened because of this. And then because of that, this happened instead of just this happened. Then this happened, then this happened. So there's a lot of those are like little, little things.

Marlin Detweiler:

Basic tips. I have a basic tip too. I spend more time editing than I do writing. I don't write well creatively. Most of my writing has been more about education and the philosophy of education than it has been fiction. But the one thing I'll say as an editor is I love when an author knows his grammar, knows his punctuation, and I can trust it implicitly.

And he's proud of a work product that he thinks will not need to be corrected at all. So I realize it's a whole different category, but that's my pitch for learning your grammar and writing and learning your Latin. Please continue, though. I want to hear another point or two if you have them.

S.D. Smith:

Well, even what you just said, like thinking about if you're a if you're an amateur, sometimes you just need encouragement when you're just starting out, and you're just writing a story. If you're really young, that's totally fine. Just enjoy it. That's cool. When you start thinking about, “I want to share this with other people”, that's when you can invite an editor.

We think going to the editors sometimes, “This is my precious little baby, and I don't want anybody to touch it.” But if it's all about you and you feel like people need to praise me and I need, I'm longing, I'm desperate. I'm this sinkhole of attention, and I need it, need it, need it.

That's a different goal. Then let's try to make something that's good for somebody. If you're making something that's good for somebody, then when an editor comes along and says, “Oh, that column is in the wrong place, or if you reworded this here, that would help the reader understand this more clearly. I see what you're trying to do.”

You wouldn't receive that as a blow to our ego. I used the example of when I was in college, and my wife is the most beautiful girl in school, and I wanted to go talk to her. And if I start to walk over, I'm going to talk to her, you know, And my brother says, “Hey, hey, your breath stinks. Here's a mint.” And if I say, “Don't tell me that that's offensive.” That's dumb. That's a dumb strategy. The better strategy is to say, “Oh, seriously? Oh, my goodness. Thanks, man.” And, you know, that's what a great editor does.

And so being able to have a humble, humble enough heart and a thick enough skin to be able to receive a little bit of feedback. And I know that's a journey. And so when you're at the beginning, I know it hurts. And I feel that too. And you're allowed to feel that a little bit. But as you grow, as you get in a little bit more, think about the end result. Think about how you want to talk to the girl. And in this metaphor, it's that you want a reader that understands and is not stumbling over your work.

Marlin Detweiler:

And enjoys it!

S.D. Smith:

Yeah, you're trying to give a gift, and they're on your team. I have not outgrown anything at all. I get massive amounts of great editing in my stories, and it's so good, it's so good, such good feedback because we're on the same team. We're trying to give the gift to the people who are going to read it.

And I've kind of gotten to the point where that's like, the harder you hit me, the better because I can take it. Because we're working on something together, we're making something great. That's going to be an amazing gift. And I'm fighting for those readers. And I'm not just fighting for a temporary moment of me feeling like I was perfect or some kind of dumb illusion.

Marlin Detweiler:

What a great way to look at it. We've run out of time today. We've had SD, but we're calling him Sam today. S.D./Sam Smith with us. Thank you so much, Sam, for joining us.

S.D. Smith:

This was a pleasure. Thanks for letting me bloviate.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, haha! I got that. Folks, you've been listening to Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Thank you for joining us.