Latest / The Daily Writer / David Steen on Writing & Marketing His First Book, “Almost Home”

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David Steen on Writing & Marketing His First Book, “Almost Home” · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most exciting parts of hosting this podcast is getting to speak with authors who have just written and released their very first book.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, I want you to write and release a lot of books, but there's something very special about your first book because it represents the beginning of a wonderful journey.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm really excited to bring you this conversation with my friend David Steen, who's just released his very first book titled Almost Home, Setting Our Sites Toward Heaven.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: As a typical farm boy from the South, David grew up in pursuit of the American dream.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And after graduating from college, he staked his claim in the corporate world as an accomplished senior designer in engineering, followed by an adventurous career as a product manager.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: His calling and passion to write, incubating for decades, manifested itself through personal and professional blogging as well as lots of published articles for various magazines.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: David lives on a small farm in Hartford, Arkansas, where he enjoys long walks to the creek with his lovely wife and short walks through the field with his sheep.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Other passions include writing, music, reading, cooking for their large family, and sipping on a cup of dark roast coffee as often as possible.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, David and I talk about the main idea of his book and what it means for authors, namely that we've got to make more time for space, solitude, and nature in our creative lives.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: David also shares his writing process for putting his book Almost Home together, as well as some of his marketing strategies.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Most of all, I hope that if you're thinking about writing your very first book, you'll be encouraged by David's journey and know that you can do it too.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can connect with David at almosthomebooks.com.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: All right, here's my conversation with David Steen.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: David, it's great to have you on the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I really, really love your book and I'm excited to dive into it.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So but first of all, thanks for being here.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you making time to do this and sharing your heart and uh digging into your book somewhat.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks, Kent.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad to be here with you and uh good to connect today.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So your book actually comes out in October.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's the official release date, correct?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, October the 3rd is pub day.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now uh so I've actually got a copy of it.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um you were at our Daily Writer retreat back in May, I think that was.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's hard to believe.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you had print copies then.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I know that when you publish with Morgan James, you get print copies ahead of time, which is kind of cool.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So what in terms of like the now I'm diving into kind of some granular stuff, I guess, right off the bat.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: But in terms of specifically with Morgan James publishing, what does the pub date actually mean?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the date where people can buy it on Amazon?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so essentially the pub date is the day it launches live to the world when books start shipping through all the online sites and bookstores.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, so yeah, it was that was a really strange thing for me.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we started my project, and maybe I'm jumping the gun here, but we kicked off uh my actual book publication project about the first of January.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And when we were talking about our our project, it was like, oh yeah, let's set a pub date.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, How about October the third?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just like, wow, that's a long ways out, but but uh it really helped me uh gain an understanding of the the publishing process and how long it can be and and the the hurdles you need to get get over.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess they need time to to ship the print books to bookstores and distributors and all that stuff.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then they have a you know, obviously a long queue of authors they're promoting and and there's like a whole thing.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I guess it's kind of like uh welcome to the world of it's not totally traditional publishing with Morgan James, but it's you know, there are some aspects of it that are definitely traditional.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for me, you know, because I had been wanting to get this book out for so long, I guess that's the way it is with most authors, especially the first time authors, you know, it's like, oh yeah, I can get my book, and then I want to run out and and you know, promote it, give copies away, you know, to family and friends and and sell some.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and then you have to kind of put the brakes on that, you know, in some ways, because you really do want to drive people to the publication date and get to that place and and drive that business in that direction.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you've done a fantastic job with it so far.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, not to mention just the book itself, but I see you promoting the book all the time on social media, and you've done a really great job also in I guess uh the term I would put on it is just maintaining a consistent focus on what you do.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you talk a lot about going to the creek and being in the woods and then nature, which is very much the theme of what your book is about, at least partly.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so you've done a really good job kind of cultivating this author, I guess I would call it an author brand or a persona.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: That feels very markety to say, but you know, that's something all of us have to do.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So has that kind of been an intentional thing on and we'll dive into the book in a minute, but has that been an intentional thing on your part of trying to really just keep what you talk about on social media to this kind of small range of topics around your book?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: That was really kind of a learning experience for me.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I get the book done, I'm ready to, you know, tell the world about it.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And although I have some marketing experience from my past work life, you know, I don't know how to promote books.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh ideally, you know, through some education, other other online groups and authors and things like that, I did kind of learn that you want to kind of develop a consistent pattern and really uh try to to give folks a real genuine picture of who you really are.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so even as I've been working through the process of, you know, here I am, have this book, and I want I want to get it out to the world, you know, I just I've been working through things in my own mind, you know, as to where I'm going, you know, for the next steps.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's funny when you're an author and you write things down and then you go back and it's like, oh wow, did I write that?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and you get reminded of of reading back some of your own words, you know, when I talk about, you know, some of the things that that we've been learning and growing in in our family and in the lifestyle we're trying to create.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, as I've worked through that process of what do I look like and who am I, uh, I've really just tried to make sure I'm not trying to present myself as somebody I'm not, you know, and trying to be authentic and real.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: So well, I love it.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I love your emphasis on on just being out in the woods.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, you've had at times this thing called Creek Stories, which has been really fun.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up way out in the country in southern Missouri, like five miles out of town, and and the town itself was really small.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so the this idea of just being out in nature is really that that speaks to something really deep within me that, you know, and like today as I sit here in this office, I'm kind of like um like man, I'm always itching to get outside and in nature, especially right now.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's really cool and nice outside.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, that's as I look out the window right now, you know, I can I can see my my yard and beyond the yard is the fence around our pasture where the sheep are roaming and there's a pond out there, and I can see the the changes of the uh colors on the walnut tree out by the pond.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh, you know, it's just I know that everyone can't be, you know, in the same place I am, but I think one of the things I've been trying to learn and grow and develop as we work through trying to create a a stress-free environment and a peaceful environment and a place where we can rest our minds and our bodies and our soul, you know, you know, everybody can't be right here where I'm at or at the creek.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And but we but this is what we do, you know, and so you have to find that environment where you are, you know, whether you live in the city, the suburbs, or or out in the middle of nowhere.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's more important than ever, really, because so I I've run this idea past gosh, probably a couple dozen people over the last six months.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have this working theory that people are operating on about half of their mental and emotional energy as they did a few years ago.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I think the reason for that is people are worried about the economy.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, at least a lot of people are.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a lot of political stuff going on, and anytime you have an sort of an election cycle, it's exhausting for basically everybody.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have, you know, we just went through a pandemic, and which probably there will always be effects of that on some level.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people have been through a lot of change.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of people are are seeking solace and peace and quietness.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think the things that that you're talking about in your book and on social media and elsewhere, those are really important things right now for people.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really glad you're you're emphasizing these things.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and you know, the the funny thing is, Kent, you can see where people, you know, they'll create their little environment, you know, whether that be out in the country where I'm at, or or somebody just lives in a small apartment or, you know, a trailer somewhere on the side of the hill or whatever it is.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: But then even in those smaller environments, a lot of folks don't create a place of peace, a place of rest.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: They just, you know, go in, you know, they go to work every day, they come home, they turn on the TV or social media and all this stuff, and then they flood their minds, you know, with with a lot of things that aren't necessarily peaceful, you know.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so that has to also be, you know, the next step is yeah, I can create this environment, but then if I'm in this environment and don't create this place of peace and a place of solitude, you know, to rest my mind and get away from you know, a lot of this stuff, that's that's really key.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's dive into your book a little bit, uh, because you do dig into a lot of these themes in your book.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the book is called Almost Home, Setting Our Sights Toward Heaven.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Give us uh, for those of you aren't familiar with your book, give us a rundown of what the book is about and and what people can expect and get out of it.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: So when I started writing the book, you know, a dozen or so years ago, it really started out just being kind of the story of mine and my wife's journey.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: We've been married almost 25 years.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: We are both victims of divorce uh in our early uh 20s or late 20s, actually, and came out of that never really expecting to marry again.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that was just devastating to each of our lives.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we didn't know each other at the time, and but but as we worked through all of that, God really did a work in me separately and then my wife separately before we knew each other that God brought us together in an amazing way.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I had two kids, she had two kids from previous marriages, and God brought us together in a miraculous way, uh, over 24 years ago now.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's really our journey of chasing after the American dream and trying to create this uh step family that we had no idea how to do, you know, who really knows how to do that, and where's the manual on that?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: But as we walked through the years of this step family, and then on top of having uh four kids, you know, right off the bat, we had five kids together.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have nine total children, and so this is our journey, you know, of of learning how to be a step flank family, a blended family, and and we needed space.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I talk about, you know, building a house and you know, building our dream house that we really felt like we needed, and God guided us to the place that we that we needed to build, you know, just to house our family and physically get us all in there and be a you know a place of rest and you know, have space for each other.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: But in all that, you know, I'm chasing after, you know, the American dream as far as work goes in the corporate life.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm working in a corporate job, my wife's a stay-at-home mom.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And through that, you know, we're learning how to be a stepfamily at home.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm learning how to climb the corporate ladder, which is what most people do, you know, in America.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: You go out, you get a job, and you work, and you work for this place for the rest of your life.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so just just dealing with, you know, all this stuff at home, all this stuff at work, and what are the next steps and how to be successful in this life.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: And really one of the, you know, we've been in church most of our lives as as Christian believers and grew up in church, heard the term heaven, you know, heard all the concepts, learned a lot of things, you know, that that people learn how to speak when they've been in and around the church most of their life, you know, Christianese, I guess, is a term some people use.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, we always knew and understood what heaven was about, what you know, that place beyond this earth was about.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: But somewhere in the midst of all this journey with our kids and and my corporate pursuits, you know, God just really just kind of shook us to the core and helped us get our priorities in the right place and helping us help us to let go of so many of the things that that we latch onto in this life that that really don't bring us much joy or value at all.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of the premise of the book, too, is uh learning how to let go of the things in this life that don't really matter.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there was a couple of things, a couple of really important things that uh really helped us walk through that.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: One is developing community around us with our family, our church, uh others, and leaning in and listening to those folks, you know, that God put around us to be able to hear what they have to contribute, you know, in you know, good advice and and guidance.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then also learning how to listen to God and and see where he wants us to go and where he leads us.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's been a huge thing is just learning how to to lean in and listen to others and God.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say is the is the the hardest thing about doing that?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: What are the things in life that really prevent us from being in that kind of a place?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Where we can have peace, where we can listen to our calling with clarity.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um I feel like I'm not actually being very clear with my question, but I I know what I want to say, but I'm having trouble articulated, which is not a problem I usually have doing podcast interviews, but this is it's bringing up so many things that I want to explore with this.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just curious, well, what are the main obstacles that we have to getting to that kind of a place in our lives?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Would you say probably the biggest word that everybody uses about everything is busyness, you know, just plain busyness.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we can be so consumed with a plethora of busyness.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's good busy.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we go to work, we go to church, we go to uh spend time with our family, we go on vacations, we go, you know, most, you know, if you look at the typical family, you know, of a husband and a wife and their kids, you know, however many there are, you know, you know, the average is probably two or three kids, right?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they go to school, the kids go to school, the family goes, you know, mom and dad go to work, and then they come home, and guess what they're doing all evening?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: They're either spending all their time going to baseball, football, basketball, soccer, uh, and you know, 50 million other things, you know, that they consume themselves with, thinking that these are the pursuits that are going to bring them joy, you know, just staying so busy.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then they get home at night, they eat, you know, they eat bad, which lends to us having poor health in our Western world, right?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then they get home at night at bedtime and just haven't taken any time and been intentional about finding that place of rest.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think busyness and the lack of intentionality are probably two of the biggest contributors to not being able to find that place you need to be.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: So if somebody is in that place where you feel like your schedule is consumed by your activities or maybe your kids' activities, um, you're tired all the time, you just feel like you're stuck.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Where would somebody start to what what are some things somebody could do to start to get out of that kind of a place in their life and and come to more of a healthy place where you have space and you you have renewal, you feel rested, you feel aligned with what you're supposed to be doing in life, those kinds of things.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the things we learned probably a dozen or so years ago as a family when we were, well, it's probably probably even longer ago than that, was we were we were taking all of our kids, you know, our first four, you know, our first, we call them our first generation, our four older adult kids.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we were taking them to all these different activities and everything.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then our our second group of kids, you know, the five we had together, we were starting to take them to some of these, you know, basketball activities and things like that.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And something, something just kind of shook us to the core.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, some resources we looked at, some counsel we got, and it was like, you know, the best thing you can do as a family, whether it's a family with kids or a couple, you know, that aren't really, you know, doing well in their marriage, even because they're so overscheduled.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And just just taking your year, or maybe even look at it like a like school semesters and say, how many activities do we really need to have, you know, to get through this period?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so if you looked at the fall, winter, spring schedule, you would just say, okay, we need to put some limits on this.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: We can't do everything, and so let's pick and keep that, you know, to maybe one or two activities that the family can do together.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one of the things uh that we did years ago, uh, my wife was a stay-at-home mom.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we were blessed and and made some decisions to be able to do this, you know, financially.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Was I worked, I was the breadwinner.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: My wife was a stay-at-home, but she was also a homeschool mom.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so she was busy taking care of the kids and teaching them at home.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: But we wanted to scale that back while at the same time looked for opportunities to do that together and do it well.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we chose activities that didn't separate us.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one thing that that my wife and our five youngest children did together, I was unable to do it because I was at work, but uh they joined a taekw taekwondo class.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so my wife and all five of these kids went to taekwondo together, even my wife did it, and then I would I would go there and watch them when I got off work, and that was our weekly activity together.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: But outside of that, you know, we really didn't schedule anything.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a season, you know, that we went through where we just looked for opportunities, you know, other things we liked to do as a family was go camping or go go hiking together.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we just looked for opportunities to to do that together.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's really key, even even for uh just a married couple, you know, that may not have children or empty nesters, you know, as we were as we were advised when we got married, our uh our pastor that married us at the time, he said, you guys need to sit down and look at each other and realize that that if you want to be best friends at the end of this journey, you need to be best friends right now and throughout the journey.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, there's a lot of A lot of empty nesters that, you know, they just absorb themselves with their children from cradle to college, right?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then they get to the end of that and they don't even know who their spouse is.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: They're just you're just like a stranger.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's when a lot of divorces happen.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh, you know, you just have to live intentionally with the idea that that uh and that that really is part of what I talk about in the book in several places.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we can uh discuss that as well.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: The the relationship my wife and I have that's that's just fabulous.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that's gosh, that's something a lot of people want, and um a lot of people crave, and it's I mean, that's such a core part of your family, right?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is the relationship between mom and dad.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so even as we you know discuss all of this right now, you know, it's a nice day outside.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And after we get through with this conversation, my wife and I are going to go for a bike ride and go walk at the creek.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, the weather doesn't always permit us to do that, but you have to look and plan for these opportunities.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's something that we started out early on was making sure that uh we were intentional with date nights, we were intentional with uh looking for chant chances to get away and walk together and and you know have grandparents keep the kids while we went on a an outing for the weekend or or whatever you know that looks like.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you just have to be very intentional about it.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there's multiple benefits from that.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's good for our mental stability, you know, for us to get away with our spouse.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also, you know, connects us in a way that gives us exercise when we go walk or go bike riding to the creek or go on a hike.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting, you know, multi-benefit from that, getting out and getting some sun, you know, which is which is huge for our health.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and then we also get to not so much when we bike ride, but definitely when we walk, we talk.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's when we've we uh have had our moments to just be able to talk for, you know, this hour-long walk.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can remember when when the kids were little, we had some of our older kids that were at home as teenagers.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And my wife and I would get up first thing in the morning, like six o'clock in the morning, and with the teenagers at home to watch the kids, which all of them are in bed anyway, we would we would go for a walk in the morning, you know, most of the time, weather permitting.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that was an amazing hour that we could talk through our troubles, our triumphs, our challenges, and just grow together.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it just it has just been so valuable to our relationship.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, I I highly attribute that to a big part of our success, you know, where we are right now.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of a lot of people listening to this right now, they might be hearing this conversation and thinking, okay, all that's you know, all that sounds great, but I'm just really busy with my book marketing and I've got client work and I've got all these kinds of things that I have going on in my life, all of which are important and uh maybe some of them even vital to just running a business.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Any thoughts for writers who are listening who just feel overwhelmed with activities and calls?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they've got a podcast and maybe they've got client work or or things.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, where can somebody start to build some more of this space in their life when all the when maybe they're not spending excessive time watching YouTube or entertainment, they're just they've got a lot of stuff in their business going on.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Be curious if you have any words of wisdom for those people.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me, uh one of the biggest traps was social media.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: I never was a social media guy really that much.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: I had a, you know, a couple of accounts before I started this book uh publishing and and marketing process.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: But but part of the biggest trap for me was, oh, I got to get on here and I got to get online and I gotta interact with people.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and it really just kind of consumed me, you know, with yeah, I need to post, I need to do, you know, consistent promotion and I need to interact with others to grow, you know, connections.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the even even now as I learn this process and and get better at it, I'm having to uh reel that in and get more consistent with it with my time so that I don't uh I don't get carried away on social media with you know you you get on there and five minutes later or get on there for five minutes and then two hours later you don't even know what happened.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that's that is very typical, you know, just just worthless, worthless scrolling.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think I think maybe uh maybe something I even heard from you, you know, back earlier in the year, uh on the Daily Rider was or maybe it was at the the retreat we did together, was uh make sure that you create before you connect.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and that means you know, do your creative stuff in the morning.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for me, I'm a morning guy.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do your stuff early on and when your creative juices are flowing before you get on social media and these other sites, and so you know, I say all that to say uh that uh another thing I'm learning uh through the advice of of several is to get good at creating a social media calendar.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm getting I'm getting better at that.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're great at it, Kent.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: You're the you're probably like the king of of schedules.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Not even, I'm not even like the court jester.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not even the court janitor.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean that's that is so key because it's it's actually helping me think, you know, oh, what do I have to post today, or what what do I need to schedule?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've actually had some stuff that I'm learning, you know, some of the uh some things, you know, that I do that I have, you know, in the past, especially on Facebook, is you know, I'm kind of a an idea uh visionary kind of guy.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I walk out in nature and I see something that that triggers my memory and it's like, oh, I should take a picture of that and post it on social media today or within an hour.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: But but I'm learning, you know, that that as I work through this calendar process and oh, well, maybe that can wait, maybe it can wait a week or two weeks, or or this can be something I can use, you know, even a month from now or whatever.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: So so I think being intentional with creating that space, making sure that you don't overdo it on social media with you know, just the worthless time and creating that schedule of events, all of that kind of works hand in hand to help you uh be more consistent with your time, which uh which enhances your ability to open up your schedule, you know, to be able to be available to the things that do matter.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get back to the conversation in just a moment, but first, a big thanks to today's sponsor, Vellum.
• 29:36
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• 29:40
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• 29:46
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• 29:55
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• 30:00
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• 30:02
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• 30:06
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• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's dryvellum.com slash daily.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: And now back to the conversation.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is a really good conversation for writers because it is it's really easy to get consumed with what you're trying to build, specifically for self-employed writers like myself.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a lot of different ways that you could spend your time, and it's not always obvious what you should be investing your time into if you're building a writing business.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a lot of things you could do to build your business.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you get a lot of a lot of conflicting advice from people.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not always really, you know, like, hey, here's the playbook and here's step one, step two, step three.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um maybe that's what I should create, or something like that.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also another element here where I love that you're talking about all this, David, because you know, when we come to to the later years of our lives, the people who we're gonna be taking the journey with not are not necessarily the same people that we just engage with on social media, you know, 30 years before, 20 years before.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or not necessarily all the all the things that we thought were so important when we were putting that book out there or doing those things.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just I just see it a lot.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe maybe I'm just like being kind of vulnerable here also and saying it's sometimes the things that we think are so important in the moment as we're building our business, you know, you don't want to sacrifice the relationships with the people who are going with you the on the whole journey for all the people that we could be spending time with right now.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just yeah, maybe that's a good word of caution for writers who are building a business.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as you say that, Kent, I'm just thinking, you know, with all the folks that have given me advice, you know, as a new author this year, and they say, okay, you gotta drive, you gotta tell her, tell the whole world about your new book.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta tell your, you know, your grandma, grandpa, every aunt and uncle and every relative you know, you know, to drive them to help you to success, and then and then your friends, and then your church family.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you and then outside of all that, then you have all these people that you just spoke of that may not be that close to me, you know, on social media.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so you think about it, it's like, oh wow, I got all these people that are close to me that really will help me, you know, right out of the gate with this business.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: But then we spend all of our effort and energy trying to focus on that broader picture of people, you know, the broader market.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think we just have to make sure we create a a balance, yeah, so that we just don't go over overboard and lose the connection with the people that matter.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you can also drive if you get too overzealous in your book promotion and in your business, you can actually drive those people away.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Even people who are not necessarily like super close friends, people who who you're friendly with.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I've seen it happen before where sometimes authors just get so zealous about promoting their book and promoting the book and and asking everybody to do the things.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and I understand asking for ratings and and all that stuff and reviews.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that's important.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: But we're also human beings who want to maintain good relationships with people over the long haul.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I I think building and building a writing business and an author career is a long haul type of thing.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a you know, destroy all your relationships for the next six months and bug everybody about your book 18,000 times to have that one hit because then if you do that, there will be no second book because nobody will want to hear about it.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, there's there's something that has just really gotten into me and my wife over the over the course of this book and our story, even on the cover of the book is uh is a bridge, you know, that we built across the creek.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's just it's just something we did in the story that's that's really unique to our story.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I won't I won't uh spoil that for the for the reader, but but bridges just keep coming up for us in our mind and in different uh areas as we reach out to people and as we connect with different people.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think of a a story about a year ago when I was getting close to having my manuscript done, I was starting to reach out, and of course, I've you know I've done some writing in my previous life, and I I thought pretty highly of my own writing, although I know it's not perfect, but uh, and I know I'm not a professional editor, but I went into this whole process thinking, oh my, I have read this book 15 or 20 times.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: I've edited it to death.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's very, very clean, and so I went into the process, and then you know, the publisher's like, oh, you need to find an editor.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is going to require a professional editor, and so that was a little painful for me, and obviously it costs money, and so I went through that process.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: But during that process, I reached out to a few different folks and you know, just looked for the one that was the right fit, and some weren't.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had I remember one lady in particular that I connected with, and uh, and it was kind of in the self-publishing world, and and it seemed like we just kind of didn't click quite right, you know, at first, and you know, something didn't set, you know, well with that process of uh, you know, us kind of interviewing each other, right, to see if we were going to be able to work together.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I just kind of came away from that one with with a little bit of a sour feeling, you know, for me.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and even though I didn't hire her, knowing she was a great person, a great editor, and and uh could have done the work for me, I really set out to mend fences, you know, with her.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Haven't done any work, you know, with her even since, but I went out of my way, you know, to mend fences and to build that bridge and make sure, you know, that I didn't burn that bridge.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, as we think about bridges, uh, we need to make sure that we don't burn the bridge or tear down the bridge that that we go across because we never know when we're gonna need to go back that way.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, we need to continually work with all those people, you know, out in out of the world.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: And like you said, you don't want to just thrash people to death with your book marketing to the point.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I have a fear of that, you know.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just I'm I'm not a salesperson, I've always been kind of timid in that way.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not my personality to just go out and want to sell stuff at all.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: However, I do listen to uh the advice of others and my publisher knowing that I do have to put myself out there and be repetitive and and understand, you know, that people, you know, need to see something several times before they might click the buy button.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, it's just maintaining that balance and and making sure that you just don't wear people out, you know, don't wear out your welcome.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a pretty good life philosophy too.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like you know, you're talking about bridges.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking with a um it's actually one of my son's friends the other day.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: And they were they were asking some advice about how to handle a situation they had at their job where their supervisor was doing some things that they weren't like an ethical or anything like that, but it was just things that were frustrating to the employees.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: This was actually a restaurant they work at.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to emphasize to them that you don't ever want to burn bridges, you know.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Don't ever, as long as you can help it, don't leave on bad terms, don't tick off people unnecessarily, don't burn a relationship down because of something that momentarily is really irritating you, if at all depends on you.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it doesn't depend on you.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that's man, that's a great principle because especially with the way that we're all interconnected today, anything from at any time in your past can come back into your life, you know.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like the old days where when you moved away from somewhere, you would be like, Hey, see you guys.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was I'll maybe see you around sometime and you would never really see him again.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: But we're all connected 24-7 today.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I think your advice about not burning bridges is really, really good.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do want to ask about kind of as we start to wrap this up here, if you can walk us through your actual process of writing almost home.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: So how many words is this book?
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is it around 50,000, something like that?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I want to say is that best off the top of my head, maybe in the 54,000 word range, somewhere in that nature.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I I know about how thick the book is when I hold it in my hand.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so something like that.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, what what was your process for doing the first draft of this book?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is where a lot of writers get hung up is getting that first draft done.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a longer book, you know, this is absolutely full length.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: So walk us through your process for doing that and if you had any routines and how long it took you.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, so it was messy, it was just ugly all the way around.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you for acknowledging that and not being like, oh, it was magical every day.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was not magical every day.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I started jotting things down, creating stories years ago, and just had I actually had a different book on my mind when I started writing and pulling stories together about our family and our journey.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so that just kind of created some habits of you know writing what I'm thinking about, writing what uh what I'm feeling, and also learning to follow through, but but also in in collect collecting my stories, my notes.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've got, you know, I've got all kinds of stories in my laptop, in my phone, you know, in scribbled paper all over the place, all over my desk and in notes, pads, and such.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: But so I started working on that.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I as a first-time author, I'm just thinking, what's the size of the the perfect size nonfiction book I want to have?
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I literally got some sizes of books off my bookshelf, looked at them, and I'm like, yep, 200 pages seems to be about normal.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I looked, you know, I looked through books and I literally took a book, you know, which this may sound crazy, but I literally took a book about the size I wanted and I typed out the whole page.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: I literally typed out the whole page in a word doc and counted the words on that page.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like, okay, and then if I multiply that by 200, here's how many I gotta have.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it came out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 words.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my target was to create a 60,000 word book to come up with 200 pages in a typical, you know, six by nine trade copy book.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was my target.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: I actually took a little post-it, wrote 60,000 on my monitor, and that's what I looked at for months.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started working on the content and kind of created an outline, but I'm, you know, I know you create you uh promote some amazing software tools, and but I'm I'm just old school Excel and Word guy that's just I created an Excel spreadsheet of all of my chapters, and I kept a sum total of my word count.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so every every part of the chapter I would write, I would plug that chapter in when I thought I had that rough chapter done, put the word count, and then see how it totaled out in my Excel sheet.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I just worked on that for months, you know, filling in the gaps, looking at my outline and and working around how the story was flowing together.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I just did that for for months.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Most of that happened in 2022, was when I did the the bulk of that gathering.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so so I gathered all that stuff together, worked through it, wrote the content, and just continued working that till I got to about the the uh middle of September in 2022 is when I got the first manuscript completed.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and it was around 60,000 word count.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I was, you know, this is just my ignorance in the book, the book world process, you know, it's just like okay, I gotta get that much.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, little did I know that when I submit it to an editor, you know, they're gonna go in there and just butcher the thing and and take out, you know, five to seven thousand words of redundancy, you know, that I just, you know, don't even necessarily need to to help the story flow better and that kind of thing.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was just kind of my process, Kent.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Was just, you know, rough and and and honestly, as I work through some of my new stuff, I probably do need to uh create and develop some newer uh skill sets and tools to make that a little smoother moving forward.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: But you got it done and I I actually think you did a ton of things right with this.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I mean there's from my perspective, there there's nothing that I that I would say, hey, do this different next time.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: If that's a system that works for you, then that's what you should do.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of see, this is one thing that honestly it kind of really drives me crazy with sort of the whole writing tool industry, is that there are so many apps and uh fancy programs you can use and these these things that are really complicated.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them are not complicated, but it's like at the end of the day, you just need to know your writing target and you got to sit down and write.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the simpler that you can make that process in whatever tools you like to use, that's what you should use for sure.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the idea that, and I actually do this too, where I will sit and I'm I'll measure a book and I'll be like, okay, how many words are on this page?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: What are the margins?
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: What's the actual container that I need to write toward?
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't know that, you're just kind of riding into the wind, really.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: You got to do that.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think your process was great.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you just stuck with it until you hit your word count, you kept track of the word count in a Excel sheet.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a pretty great system in my book, you know, because it it helped you get the book done.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: So well done.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was telling, I was telling a lady about it, another fellow author maybe a week or so ago, you know, kind of describing that process.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it actually, you know, now that you brought that up, it triggered me to tell you about the way I did it with my my documents.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of having one giant document, I actually had a separate Word document for each chapter.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so then I wasn't going in and working on this giant master, you know, through the whole process.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just kept a separate Word doc for each chapter.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of the process, when I knew I had those chapters pretty close to what I wanted them to be, then I dumped them all into one master file and and created the the the main source file.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 46:04
  unknown: Yeah.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: That is what I love about um what I love about Scrivener is you can you can have the whole thing there in one shot, but then you have individual folders for the files and all that stuff.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm also writing client books and I have I'm juggling a number of projects at any given time.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the only way for me to keep my sanity.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I do love the simplicity of just writing in a Word document.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I really I just miss that.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I actually just do write in Word because it can be really, really simpler.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, sometimes I just I will open up an email and I'll write something in there, or I'll get in my notes app on my Mac and I'll write in there.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's whatever I have at the moment.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if I just get inspired, I'll just open up something because you can transfer stuff from one app to another app or whatever.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I think people just make too big of a deal about I gotta use this app or I gotta do this.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I find myself uh really reliant on my my phone, you know, just just the simple notes app on my phone.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I get in trouble for that, you know, because like I told you earlier, you know, sometimes you're on social media too much, and that's what you, you know, your wife and kids think you're on all the time.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's like, you know, my wife will start talking to me, and and I just kind of like throw my hand up and say, hold on, you know, and I'm sitting there, you know, typing out a couple of paragraphs of some thought I had about, you know, something I've seen or something that came into my mind.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm actually sitting there writing in my notes app something that's gonna be a blog post or a social media post, you know, tomorrow or next week or whatever.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's just the the capture of that thought that I know when it's gone, it's gone.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm never I'm never gonna have it again.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've you know, it's that's one of the things that I've really learned is like when the things come to me, I better write it down or it's gonna be gone.
• 48:03
  unknown: Yeah.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I yeah, I love the no tap too.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes I use dictation on there and just open up and just dictate something, and it's not perfect, but it's it's fairly it's close enough.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you got the idea.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you've got you've got the raw idea, and I can always go back and change it later.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so David, where can people find your book?
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna release this actually the week after your book comes out so that people can can get it when it's available.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, where can they find your book and where can they find out more about the things that you're working on and get any sort of updates?
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: So all of the online sites you can get it right now.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, all the the Amazon Books Millions, you know, Walmart, Target, any online site that that plugs into the the uh book distribution uh system, uh you can order books from right now.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: But but they can also go to uh my website, almosthomebooks.com.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost homebooks with an S on it.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: Books.com.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they can order the books there.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've got links to all the the online bookstore sites there, and they can go there uh right now and and still order author copies for me that are signed.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, nice link to do that to order them directly from me.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: So perfect.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a blast.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad we had the chance to talk about your book and just about life in general.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate the tips that you shared for having I think you've helped us today, David, to think about the long term of what we're trying to do because we can get so enamored with all the stuff that we can do as writers.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the same time, you can kind of, you know, like Jesus talked about, you can gain the world and lose your soul.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: In this context, maybe I would reframe that a little bit as gaining a great author career, but at the same time lose the people that you love the most and lose the things that matter to you the most.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't want to make that mistake.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate the reminder to stay sane and stay balanced and get out of nature and spend time with the people you love.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's really, really important.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: Ken, it's been a joy to be here.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad to have the opportunity to be on your show.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and I just I tell you, I don't I have been uh so blessed by the invaluable uh information that you provide through the Daily Rider and and uh what what you put out every day consistently and and good uh solid information to help us all because it's it's just been a joy, you know, in multiple formats.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I get my emails from Daily Rider, I uh listen to the podcast, you know, at various different times, and and it's just great.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's just solid information, and sometimes it's just the little tidbits, and sometimes it's it's uh larger chunks, and uh, but it's all good and I and I love it and appreciate it.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate the kind words and I appreciate your support, absolutely.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you again.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a blast.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks a lot, Kent.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with David as much as I did.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: I came away from this conversation with a real feeling of peace, but also a feeling of conviction that I need to do a better job in my own life of spending time in nature, of reflection, and putting into practice a lot of the things that David talked about.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, life is busy these days.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're all bombarded with messages from 68 different platforms on a daily basis, or at least it feels that way.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of things to do and so many opportunities out there.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: But we've got to take time to refill those creative wells.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I really want to encourage you to grab David's book, again, called Almost Home.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's a link in the show notes, and you can grab that from Amazon, or you can also grab that from his website, which is almost homebooks.com.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: I really encourage you to go there and check it out.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: David is a super great guy, and he's one of those people that you kind of just need in your life to give you more center, to give you maybe some balance and to remind you to come back to the things that matter.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: And really, in a sense, that's what David's book is all about.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: So again, let's support David and his book.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is his very first book.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I, gosh, I always want people to have a great experience with their very first book.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: So go check out his book, grab it from Amazon, and also check out his site, almosthomebooks.com.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, David, thanks so much for making time to be a guest here on the show.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: Really enjoy chatting with you, my friend.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: And for everybody else who's listening, thank you for listening.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: I always appreciate your time listening to this show, and I never ever take it for granted.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you so much, and I'll see you in the next episode.