May 15, 2025 • 26 mins
Get ready to dive into Episode #227 when host Dave Temple leads The Thriller Zone with an electrifying conversation in the world of Silent Horizons with his pal Jack Stewart!
We’re kicking off this chat by unpacking the thrilling journey of co-authoring this new gem, blending Jack's storytelling magic with Chad Robichaux's real-life experiences.
Expect some juicy tales about the creative process, the ups and downs of writing alongside someone else, and a sprinkle of witty banter that keeps things light.
We’ll touch on how this book isn’t just about action-packed moments; it’s a heartfelt exploration of faith, family, and the human experience in tough times.
So, grab your snacks, settle in, and let’s get into the good stuff!
Learn more at JackStewartBooks.com and TheThrillerZone.com
Takeaways:
- In this episode, Jack Stewart shares the behind-the-scenes process of co-authoring his latest book, 'Silent Horizons', and how it differs from his solo projects.
- We dive into the unique challenges and joys of writing collaboratively, especially when it comes to balancing creative visions with a writing partner.
- Jack gives an insightful glimpse into the themes of 'Silent Horizons', emphasizing its focus on authenticity and the struggles of faith amidst turmoil.
- The podcast highlights the dynamic between humor and serious topics, showcasing how humor can be a great tool to connect with audiences about tough subjects.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Silent Horizons
- Bogey Spades
- Unknown Writer
- Outlaw
- Chad Robichaux
- Saving Aziz
- Mighty Oaks
- Tyndale House Publishing
- Web Griffin
- Tom Clancy
- Andrews and Wilson
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:31):
Hey there, it's your goodbuddy Dave Temple here.
And welcome to the ThrillerZone where we are celebrating episode
227 with my good friend andyour favorite author, one of them,
anyway, Jack Stewart.
Today we're talking aboutSilent Horizons.
So let's get into the ThrillerZone with Jack Stewart.
All right, there's so manythings I want to cover.
(01:51):
I want to pull up my notes here.
Last time we spoke, it wasBogey Spades, which was November
of last year, which was notthat long ago.
No, it wasn't.
Which was.
I love that book.
The one before that wasUnknown Writer.
That would have been Decembera year prior, right?
Yeah, that was the last timewe talked.
But I had another book comeout in between the two, which was
(02:14):
Outlaw.
That's right.
Yeah, that's right.
We missed that one.
Yeah.
Yeah, because it was.
It was like two, three monthsafter Unknown Writer.
I'm like, I'm not gonna do this.
Who was it that said, whoasked me the other day, hey, how
come Jack gets to get on somany times and.
(02:34):
And I can't get on?
I'm like.
And I'm not gonna say who it was.
A.
Oh, come on, say who it was.
A, Jack is my buddy.
B, Jack is an interesting guest.
C, Jack writes a hella books.
And D, he offers to come outand see me.
(02:55):
And we sit down face to facewhere it really gets juicy.
Yeah, that's the best part.
I'm bummed I couldn't get out.
I could.
I'm bummed I couldn't get outthis time to do it.
Actually, I think I do have aSan Diego overnight coming up, though.
That means you have to writeanother book.
Well, it's good.
I've got more coming.
Yeah.
Actually on the 31st.
(03:16):
Are you going to be in townMay 31st?
Yeah.
Maybe the three of us can dodinner this time.
That's what I was thinking.
We are here and as you know,the weather will be either spectacular
as every day or it will be May gray.
Yeah, it's the June gloomcoming up.
Yep.
Let me share this.
(03:37):
Somebody was visiting recently.
They said, hey, they rolled inand it was.
It happened to be one of thoseMay gray days.
And I'm like, they go, Ithought sun.
San Diego was sunny all the time.
I'm like, well, let me breakit down.
April is like probably perfection.
But then by the time May comesin, you got May gray, June gloom,
July, no sky.
(03:58):
Yeah.
August fogest.
I made that one up.
And then by September, it'sperfect again.
Yeah, I want to know.
First of all, let me maybemake sure this is here.
Chad Robichaux, sadly couldnot make it on the show today.
He is, as you said, stack andpacked, right?
Yeah, he is.
But I want to know, because,Jack, we've never.
(04:20):
I.
And if we've talked aboutthis, please forgive me because my
head is a little bit blurry.
But you've never co authoredwith anyone, right?
No.
What has that.
In Silent Horizons?
What has that journey beenlike for you?
Are we recording?
Is this before the show orafter the show?
(04:40):
Dude, you know, I startrecording the minute we say hi.
No, it's.
It's been.
It's been really good.
So the background on this is,you know, Chad's done a lot of nonfiction
books about his experiences.
First one was called SavingAziz, or the first real big one was
Saving Aziz.
And that was after the fall of Afghanistan.
(05:02):
We left a bunch of ourinterpreters behind.
His interpreter and his familywere there, and they were worried
because the Taliban knew whothey were and they were going to
come after him.
And so they reached out toChad and said, we need help getting
out.
And so he organized the wholeeffort to get his interpreter's family
out, ended up getting 10,000people out and saving them from the
(05:27):
Taliban.
It was a huge Herculean efforton his part.
So the book was a bestseller,but it was nonfiction, and people
were like, well, you've had areally good, interesting military
career.
You should, you know, writeabout it.
But, you know, again, there'sa lot of NDAs and stuff that he had
to sign for the.
The stuff that he was doing.
(05:48):
And so he's like, well, I cando it in fiction, but I've never
written fiction.
And so he started reaching out and.
And we got linked up together,and, you know, so we.
We kind of came up with thisidea of.
Of a main character that sortof follows the same career path that
he followed, but it's in acompletely fictional environment.
(06:09):
And.
And then.
So I would, you know, write achapter and I would send it to him,
and then he would, oh, I'd befeeling this, or I was feeling this,
and.
And then kind of injecting alot of authenticity into the each
chapter as it went along.
And so it was.
It was good from thestandpoint of where I.
I really got a chance to, youknow, I didn't have anybody nitpicking
(06:32):
the, you know, puppy to smalldog kind of stuff.
He wasn't interested in theactual writing of it.
He was interested in thestorytelling and make sure it was
an authentic story.
And then if I ever got stuck,I could call him up and say, hey,
what would he do in this situation?
Oh, okay, he'd do this or he'ddo that.
And so it was a really cool experience.
It was probably one of themost fun books I've written.
(06:52):
As you well know.
Writing is so isolating.
You're in your own world byyourself the whole time.
And it was nice to havesomeone I could pick up and call
and who knew the world andknew what I was, I was talking about.
To me, that would either becompletely thrilling to know that
(07:14):
I have a partner in crime onthe project, or it would be terrifying
from the standpoint of, here'swhat I would be thinking, what if
I want to go this way?
And I, and this is how myhead's going and all of a sudden
I go to connect with mypartner and he's like, well, no,
I was going this way and Iwanted to do that thing.
(07:34):
Do you, do you find yourselfgoing, yeah, okay, super.
You do that and I'll do this.
And I don't know, it's just alittle, it's perplexing, I guess,
because, okay, confession time.
I'm a little bit of a control freak.
(07:55):
Maybe that would be part of it.
Yeah.
But I could, I mean, I willsay I, I did try to do a co author
project with anotherestablished thriller writer.
I won't name names at thispoint, but, you know, he was obviously,
he had his own style and howhis technique and how he would plot
(08:15):
the story out and, and, andwrite the story.
I had my own, honestly, justdidn't mesh well because I would
maybe get ahead of him wherehe was, and then he wanted to go
back.
And I'm like, no, no, we gotto keep moving forward.
And, and so that didn't workout well.
But in this situation, youknow, I think because I was doing
the first draft, it was, itwas really easy.
We agreed on a plot, we agreedon, you know, the overall story arc.
(08:40):
And then, you know, I would, Iwas free to write the first draft
and then he would kind oftweak it.
Now the very first fewchapters that I wrote, I did include
some colorful language peoplebecause it was authentic.
Right.
And it was my experiencedownrange and working with seals
on the ground.
And I knew how they talked andso I wrote it the way they talked.
(09:02):
And he contacted me and waslike, hey man, I've really been thinking
about this and I just, myfollowers are, you know, probably
would be turned off by thiskind of language.
Is there any way we can tweak that?
And I was like, absolutely.
No problem.
And this was before we evenhad a deal with Tyndale, which ended
up being a good thing because,you know, Tyndale's readers, they're
(09:23):
looking for very cleanlanguage in the books as well.
So we were able to prettyearly on change it so that there
was nothing offensive in it.
You know, it was still rang true.
It was still a very authenticstory, but it just wasn't colorful
language, which I thought tobe kind of funny, because then I
went back to writing my ownbooks, and I was finding that I was
cussing a lot less, which mymom's probably very happy about.
(09:44):
But you did not end up writingwith that person.
We had a whole fleshed outplot and maybe got like three or
four chapters in, and he hadsome things come up.
And then this opportunity forSilent Horizons dropped in my lap.
And so I told him, I was like,hey, I got to put this on the back
burner.
And it ended up for both ourschedules, it ended up working out
(10:05):
that we'd not do it.
Here's the other beautifulthing you and Chad both had.
Is it fair to say this variouslevels of expertise.
Yeah.
You're both fighting the samebattle, but you have a different
kind of expertise.
Side note, I was talking to.
Oh, so Tim's in town.
We're sitting there havingdinner last night, and he.
(10:27):
And I said, listen, I'm haveto scoot out early, squeeze in a
podcast, then I'll meet youfor breakfast.
He said, who you interview?
And I'm like, a Top Gunfighter pilot.
Like Top Gun.
He goes like, Top Gun the movie?
I'm like, yeah.
He goes like, F18.
I'm like, yeah.
He's like, whoa.
I'm like, yeah, yeah.
(10:48):
Like, if.
If only you knew him.
He's really not that exciting.
No, it's.
And, you know, I was thinkingabout this when I was looking at
the COVID So when you see theword Top Gun, all you got to do is
see that word and you're like,the movie?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Was he.
Was he.
Was he in the movie with TomCruise and Val Kilmer?
I'm like, no, he was a littlebit young then, but.
(11:10):
Oh.
I want to make sure that mylisteners know Tyndale House Publishing,
which I'm familiar with.
Tell what makes.
Tell my audience what makesthem so specific or special off the
beaten path than a lot of yourordinary publishers.
Yeah, well, so, I mean,Tyndale is the largest Christian
publisher.
So they're not, you know,they're not a Simon and Schuster,
(11:31):
they're not a Penguin Random House.
They, they do publish a lot ofBibles, they publish a lot of devotionals
and things like that.
But they're also publishing fiction.
A lot of it is very faith focused.
In other words, if you arelooking for a Christian message,
you will find it.
But what they're starting todo as well, especially with the men's
(11:52):
fiction market, is they're,they're using it as a ministry tool.
So we're really trying towrite books that are not over your
head, you know, beatingChristian morals and stuff into you
because it, it's kind ofironic, but I, I sort of find that
some of the most judgmentalpeople in the world I know you and
I have talked about this areChristians, you know, and, and we're
(12:14):
supposed to not be, we'resupposed to be welcoming and instead
we're turning people off.
And so that was a big dealfor, for Chad and I in particular
because, you know, our missionwith this book and we're, we're lockstep.
You know, Chad was the founderof Mighty Oaks, one of the founders
of Mighty Oaks.
And they, they take a faithbased approach to treating veterans
and first responders with ptsd.
(12:35):
And we know that they savelives, we know that they restore
families and their work isreally important.
So we wanted this to be abranch of that, to maybe draw attention
to Mighty Oaks.
You can't do that if you'reonly talking to people that want
to hear about God.
We want to reach people thathave been there, have done that and
(12:59):
maybe aren't solid in their faith.
Maybe don't know what they're,they're looking for.
Well, and having, as you verywell know, having grown up a pk,
I have been now on both sidesof that fence.
And it's funny, we weretalking about this yesterday again.
I, we were talking about goingto church and I said, and I can share
(13:21):
this with my listeners.
When you have been force fedreligion and I've used that term
realistically and kindly.
If it, if I can, when it hasbeen part of your DNA since you could
breathe, then you are less aptto sometimes always want to walk
(13:45):
that similar path 24 7.
Yeah.
And so I said, we were talkingabout, oh, did you, my mother in
law said, did you go to churchon Sunday?
I'm like, oh, I missed that one.
I said, you know, maybe if Ihadn't been force fed it my whole
life, I would have been therethis past weekend.
But yeah, you know, I thinkeveryone's journey is different and
not everyone, you know, even,even finds Christ.
(14:08):
And I don't view them any differently.
And that's the problem.
I do feel like people, a lotof Christians today do view them
differently, you know, andit's like we can hate sin, but we
don't have to hate the sinner.
You know what I'm saying?
This book in particular, likeif you're, if you're a non believer
and you just want a goodthrilling story, you can pick this
up and enjoy it.
You're not going to be forcefed religion.
(14:29):
You're not going to be likebeat over the head with this.
But what you will find is avery authentic tale of somebody who
is struggling with their faithand what it means to be a father,
what it means to be a husbandwhile going to war and doing some,
some traumatic, going throughsome traumatic experiences.
I mean that's, that's veryreal whether you're a believer or
not.
And you'll get that in this book.
(14:52):
And, and I think if you are abeliever, you will find some, some
things in there that will ringtrue to maybe your own path or maybe
path of, of other people whohave found God.
You know, it's funny, when wewere talking while you were talking,
something popped into my head.
I can remember where I was sitting.
It was in chapel.
I went to Bible high school,Bible college.
(15:12):
Someone was speaking one dayand when phrase I went, that's it.
And that was.
And it's this about howChristians should share the word
with the world.
And they said it's.
They felt it was moreimportant to take water to the desert
(15:33):
than to the ocean.
And that metaphor has alwaysstuck with me.
It's like not to turn thisinto a Bible course, but.
Oh well, let's not do.
Hang on one second.
I guess I shouldn't say fuckright here because that would really
kind of blow the wholeChristian conversation I just had.
Do you know who Chris Paranto is?
(15:55):
Yes.
Yeah, Tonto.
He was one of the 13 Hours guys.
And he always says like I'm,I'm a Christian.
I just say fuck a lot.
And I'm like, yeah, you know what?
That's 100% accurate.
You know, I think most of usprobably fall into that category.
Thank goodness Daddy knowswhat he's doing.
Not always.
Good thing you're a professional.
Well, good thing I don't freakunder pressure.
(16:18):
I think that's the real.
Which is a mark of a true Professional.
Hey, let's take a short break.
When we come back, we're goingto be back with Jack Stewart talking
about Silent Horizons.
Stay with us.
(16:53):
Silent Horizons by ChadRobichaux and Jack Stewart.
Available now.
The desert and I, anyway, thatalways stuck with me about our job
is to take water to thedesert, not to the ocean.
Because what I found sointeresting is this particular school
was training all these peopleto be preachers and, and, and to
(17:13):
go to Bible schools and talkto all the people who already knew
everything we were talking about.
So I'm like, shouldn't we kindof go out there where nobody knows
what we're talking about?
Right, right.
Anyway, and the other thing, Imean, I, my pastor at our church
here, one of the things thathe said recently is, you know, the
(17:34):
best way of, of, of bringingsomebody to God is to, you know,
not go out and judge them andtell them what they're doing wrong
and, you know, and show themthe way, but to live your life in
such a way that they wouldlike to model their behavior after
you.
Right.
So, like, by volunteering, bybeing, you know, kind and gracious
(17:56):
and, and forgiving and like,all the stuff that we as Christians
should be, if you do that, isgoing to draw people to them.
You know, you don't have to gobe like, you need to come with me
to church on Sunday and youneed to do this and you need to do
that.
That's just a little over the top.
Now I'm going to changechannels just a wee bit.
Is it common knowledge, andforgive me that I don't know this
(18:19):
definitively, but I don'talways have to know everything.
Is it common knowledge thatpeople may know that you are also
the author of a particularfranchise that starts with A and
ends with a G?
It actually ends with an.
Yeah, yeah, it, it has been announced.
Yeah, it's been announced, butI don't know how common knowledge
(18:42):
it is because I'm not reallypushing that one yet because I have,
you know, Silent Horizons.
And then I've got another one,the fourth book of my own series
between now and then.
So I, like, I sort of have to,you know, focus my efforts on the
closest alligator to the canoe.
So we're not, we're nottalking about that one.
I did.
You can talk about, we cantalk about whatever you want.
Yeah, absolutely.
I just wanted to mention thefact because when I got that, I was
(19:04):
privy to this news early onand I thought, wow, this is huge
news.
So now that I've built it up,you have to definitely share it.
Okay.
So for those who are fans ofthe military thriller genre and have
been for a while, Web Griffinwas probably one of the biggest names
(19:25):
in.
In military thrillers, alongwith Tom Clancy.
And he was one of the guysthat I read as a kid.
Growing up, I read theBrotherhood of War series and the
Corps series, which followedMarines in World War II.
I wasn't as familiar with thepresidential agent series, which
was kind of a post 911counterterrorism series that he wrote.
(19:51):
And Andrews and Wilson, Ithink people are very familiar with
them, wrote book nine in theseries called Rogue Asset.
And I thought the series wasgoing to be done there because there
was nothing.
You know, I hadn't heard anything.
And then one day I got a callfrom my agent that says, hey, Tom
Colgan wants you to write, youknow, book 10 in the series.
(20:11):
And I.
Okay, so, yeah, so I wrotebook 10.
It's called Direct Action.
And it does feature the maincharacter that Anderson Wilson introduced,
which was PK Killer McCoy, whowas the grandson of Kenneth McCoy
from the core series.
So is that nice, Web Griffincross, you know, series inbreeding
(20:36):
kind of thing with all thecharacters knowing everybody, which
I thought was really fun guysand gals.
For those who are not familiarwith that particular series, let's
pull up a name that you would.
All right, Tom Clancy is probably.
Would you agree, Vince Flynnor Tom Clancy would be either one
of those.
The biggest names in thatparticular genre.
(20:56):
This is right there with them.
So my buddy here, Jack, is carrying.
On the torch, a really fun one.
I'm really excited for thatbook to come out.
So let's go back to this,because this is.
This is astonishing to me.
And I'm going to use you as anexample with the conversation I had
with Tammy, my wife.
You met Tammy the other day.
She was talking about, honey,you're coming up on the fourth year
(21:19):
in June.
I mean, like, literally onemonth from today, we're gonna basically
hit four years.
Yeah.
And she said, you know, what'sgonna happen?
We got a few things plannedfor the summer.
You know, do you feel like you've.
The show has run its course?
I'm like.
And this is the first timeI've talked about this on this show,
(21:40):
and I'm doing it with youbecause you're my pal.
I'm like, you know what?
Maybe it's time to hang it up.
Maybe it's just time to dropthe mic.
And she looked at me like, what?
And I was.
I was expecting her to go,yeah, good call.
But she's like, wait, what?
This is.
(22:00):
You love this.
I'm like, I know.
So she goes, well, what's,what's making you do this?
I said, I'm talking to Jackthe other day.
And actually the other daymeaning the last time you were in
town, we're sitting at thatrestaurant in Pacific beach, right?
Yeah, of course.
I had privy to the, this bookthat we just mentioned coming up.
And I'm like, wait a minute,Jack, that's like three or four books
(22:21):
in one year.
And you're like, yeah.
And I'm like, but you fly full time.
Yeah.
How do you do it?
I just make it happen.
And at that moment, and Idon't know if I said this to you,
and I'm like, and you know, Iwrite, I don't write to your degree.
And I have not beentraditionally published like yourself,
I've been self published.
And I'm like, I want that, Iwant more of that.
(22:44):
And she goes, well, can you dothat and this podcast the way that
you do it, with this much preparation?
I'm like, I don't know.
But let's put it this way,this summer it's game on.
Good.
Now everyone, first of all,everyone's gonna hate me now for
putting the idea in your headto stop doing this.
Because you are, you have oneof the best voices in the podcast
game.
And you're, you know, your,the quality of production is always
(23:06):
top notch.
You get the best guests.
Everyone's gonna hate me.
I'm gonna get death threatsnow from every other author out there.
But personally, as yourfriend, I will say, like, I completely
encourage you doing, you know,chasing your passion.
If your passion is this, man,keep doing it.
If your passion is writing,you gotta do that.
And that's, that's, you know,that's the answer to how I write
(23:28):
so many books while stillhaving a full time job, while still
having a family and all theobligations with it is, it's a passion
and I want to put out good stories.
I want to write.
And so I made it happen.
Now, I selfishly would likeyou to do both, but, you know, I'm
going to do both.
Here's the thing, I just maynot be able to do one every single
(23:50):
week because I sat down andstarted listening to you and I listened
to the, your method of writingand you know, I spent some time with
David Baldacci recently andJim Patterson, and we were talking
about these different thingsand an off mic and this is a cool
one of the one of my favoritethings about this show is the fact
that I get access to these guys.
And I wish I could air so muchof the overtime, for instance, because
(24:16):
they tell me some inside scoopand we'll be talked along and I'm
like, o, my audience is goingto love this.
And at the end they'll go, dome a favor and don't share this last
part with them.
Yeah, yeah.
This is what everyone wants to hear.
All of that is to say, I thinkyou have to prioritize.
That's really all you do.
I mean, because when I satdown the other day and I did a little
(24:39):
exercise, how much time am Iwasting either scrolling on social
media or some bullshit?
And I went, you know, if Ijust trimmed a lot of that silly
time out, yeah, I could, Icould do them both.
So.
Yeah.
Anyway, folks, don't go after Jack.
It's not his fault.
It's just that we're pals andwe talk frankly with each other and
we tell it like it is.
(24:59):
And I'm gonna do both.
I'm not going anywhere.
Yeah.
Good news.
The book is Silent Horizons.
I love the fact that you got apretty good blurb from this guy.
I.
I think he's gonna do okay.
Jack.
Yeah.
Car.
Yeah.
The jury's still out on that guy.
(25:19):
Yeah.
A raw, intense, and authenticexperience that pulls back the curtain
on a world most will never see.
There's a guy who knows alittle bit about the world most will
never see.
Yeah.
Please give our best to ChadRobichaux and to tell him that we're
sorry we couldn't get sometime with him.
Yeah, of course.
I definitely will.
He mean, he is.
When I say he is a good humanbeing, I mean he is a good human
(25:41):
being.
He is still giving of his time to.
Yeah.
You know, go out and actuallydo the mission to help people and
change lives.
And I think that's so important.
So.
And you know, when he can'tmake stuff like this happen, I'm
like, I'm so happy to pick upthe torch and, and carry it for him.
Well, and I'm not blowingsmoke here when I say you're doing
great work.
You've got a beautiful,intelligent, brilliant, loving family.
(26:05):
You're there for them.
You.
You carry the torch every day.
You got a full time job flyingthe skies of, can I say Southwest.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and you, you know, you're.
You're just a good, solidhuman being with, with integrity
and, and I'm honored to know you.
So there.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I feel the same about you.
Except you're not flying.
(26:26):
You know, I fly, but it's gummies.
Anyway, this book is now out,so you can go ahead and order it,
and then I hope I'm.
Is it safe to say you'll beback for your next book?
Yeah, if.
As long as you're still doingthis in the summer, I'll definitely
be back for the next book.
Yeah.
And maybe we can do it inperson, because it is so much better
(26:47):
sitting across from the tablefrom you.
So let's just make a situationwhere we shoot.
We could do it out by the pool.
Yeah, I like that idea.
Yeah.
We'll have some cool,refreshing drinks, and we'll do some
laps, and we'll just.
We'll turn it into some funthe way we always do.
Yeah, I like that.
Once again, Jack, thanks somuch for being here.
(27:09):
Thanks for having me.
It's awesome.
I love.
I.
Like I said, I wish I could beacross the table from you right now
and go have lunch with youafter, but I appreciate you at least
doing this virtually with me.
We'll do it soon.
Sounds good.
Number one podcast for storiesthat Thrill, the Thriller Zone.
Hey there, it's your goodbuddy Dave Temple here.
And welcome to the ThrillerZone where we are celebrating episode
227 with my good friend andyour favorite author, one of them,
anyway, Jack Stewart.
Today we're talking aboutSilent Horizons.
So let's get into the ThrillerZone with Jack Stewart.
All right, there's so manythings I want to cover.
(01:51):
I want to pull up my notes here.
Last time we spoke, it wasBogey Spades, which was November
of last year, which was notthat long ago.
No, it wasn't.
Which was.
I love that book.
The one before that wasUnknown Writer.
That would have been Decembera year prior, right?
Yeah, that was the last timewe talked.
But I had another book comeout in between the two, which was
(02:14):
Outlaw.
That's right.
Yeah, that's right.
We missed that one.
Yeah.
Yeah, because it was.
It was like two, three monthsafter Unknown Writer.
I'm like, I'm not gonna do this.
Who was it that said, whoasked me the other day, hey, how
come Jack gets to get on somany times and.
(02:34):
And I can't get on?
I'm like.
And I'm not gonna say who it was.
A.
Oh, come on, say who it was.
A, Jack is my buddy.
B, Jack is an interesting guest.
C, Jack writes a hella books.
And D, he offers to come outand see me.
(02:55):
And we sit down face to facewhere it really gets juicy.
Yeah, that's the best part.
I'm bummed I couldn't get out.
I could.
I'm bummed I couldn't get outthis time to do it.
Actually, I think I do have aSan Diego overnight coming up, though.
That means you have to writeanother book.
Well, it's good.
I've got more coming.
Yeah.
Actually on the 31st.
(03:16):
Are you going to be in townMay 31st?
Yeah.
Maybe the three of us can dodinner this time.
That's what I was thinking.
We are here and as you know,the weather will be either spectacular
as every day or it will be May gray.
Yeah, it's the June gloomcoming up.
Yep.
Let me share this.
(03:37):
Somebody was visiting recently.
They said, hey, they rolled inand it was.
It happened to be one of thoseMay gray days.
And I'm like, they go, Ithought sun.
San Diego was sunny all the time.
I'm like, well, let me breakit down.
April is like probably perfection.
But then by the time May comesin, you got May gray, June gloom,
July, no sky.
(03:58):
Yeah.
August fogest.
I made that one up.
And then by September, it'sperfect again.
Yeah, I want to know.
First of all, let me maybemake sure this is here.
Chad Robichaux, sadly couldnot make it on the show today.
He is, as you said, stack andpacked, right?
Yeah, he is.
But I want to know, because,Jack, we've never.
(04:20):
I.
And if we've talked aboutthis, please forgive me because my
head is a little bit blurry.
But you've never co authoredwith anyone, right?
No.
What has that.
In Silent Horizons?
What has that journey beenlike for you?
Are we recording?
Is this before the show orafter the show?
(04:40):
Dude, you know, I startrecording the minute we say hi.
No, it's.
It's been.
It's been really good.
So the background on this is,you know, Chad's done a lot of nonfiction
books about his experiences.
First one was called SavingAziz, or the first real big one was
Saving Aziz.
And that was after the fall of Afghanistan.
(05:02):
We left a bunch of ourinterpreters behind.
His interpreter and his familywere there, and they were worried
because the Taliban knew whothey were and they were going to
come after him.
And so they reached out toChad and said, we need help getting
out.
And so he organized the wholeeffort to get his interpreter's family
out, ended up getting 10,000people out and saving them from the
(05:27):
Taliban.
It was a huge Herculean efforton his part.
So the book was a bestseller,but it was nonfiction, and people
were like, well, you've had areally good, interesting military
career.
You should, you know, writeabout it.
But, you know, again, there'sa lot of NDAs and stuff that he had
to sign for the.
The stuff that he was doing.
(05:48):
And so he's like, well, I cando it in fiction, but I've never
written fiction.
And so he started reaching out and.
And we got linked up together,and, you know, so we.
We kind of came up with thisidea of.
Of a main character that sortof follows the same career path that
he followed, but it's in acompletely fictional environment.
(06:09):
And.
And then.
So I would, you know, write achapter and I would send it to him,
and then he would, oh, I'd befeeling this, or I was feeling this,
and.
And then kind of injecting alot of authenticity into the each
chapter as it went along.
And so it was.
It was good from thestandpoint of where I.
I really got a chance to, youknow, I didn't have anybody nitpicking
(06:32):
the, you know, puppy to smalldog kind of stuff.
He wasn't interested in theactual writing of it.
He was interested in thestorytelling and make sure it was
an authentic story.
And then if I ever got stuck,I could call him up and say, hey,
what would he do in this situation?
Oh, okay, he'd do this or he'ddo that.
And so it was a really cool experience.
It was probably one of themost fun books I've written.
(06:52):
As you well know.
Writing is so isolating.
You're in your own world byyourself the whole time.
And it was nice to havesomeone I could pick up and call
and who knew the world andknew what I was, I was talking about.
To me, that would either becompletely thrilling to know that
(07:14):
I have a partner in crime onthe project, or it would be terrifying
from the standpoint of, here'swhat I would be thinking, what if
I want to go this way?
And I, and this is how myhead's going and all of a sudden
I go to connect with mypartner and he's like, well, no,
I was going this way and Iwanted to do that thing.
(07:34):
Do you, do you find yourselfgoing, yeah, okay, super.
You do that and I'll do this.
And I don't know, it's just alittle, it's perplexing, I guess,
because, okay, confession time.
I'm a little bit of a control freak.
(07:55):
Maybe that would be part of it.
Yeah.
But I could, I mean, I willsay I, I did try to do a co author
project with anotherestablished thriller writer.
I won't name names at thispoint, but, you know, he was obviously,
he had his own style and howhis technique and how he would plot
(08:15):
the story out and, and, andwrite the story.
I had my own, honestly, justdidn't mesh well because I would
maybe get ahead of him wherehe was, and then he wanted to go
back.
And I'm like, no, no, we gotto keep moving forward.
And, and so that didn't workout well.
But in this situation, youknow, I think because I was doing
the first draft, it was, itwas really easy.
We agreed on a plot, we agreedon, you know, the overall story arc.
(08:40):
And then, you know, I would, Iwas free to write the first draft
and then he would kind oftweak it.
Now the very first fewchapters that I wrote, I did include
some colorful language peoplebecause it was authentic.
Right.
And it was my experiencedownrange and working with seals
on the ground.
And I knew how they talked andso I wrote it the way they talked.
(09:02):
And he contacted me and waslike, hey man, I've really been thinking
about this and I just, myfollowers are, you know, probably
would be turned off by thiskind of language.
Is there any way we can tweak that?
And I was like, absolutely.
No problem.
And this was before we evenhad a deal with Tyndale, which ended
up being a good thing because,you know, Tyndale's readers, they're
(09:23):
looking for very cleanlanguage in the books as well.
So we were able to prettyearly on change it so that there
was nothing offensive in it.
You know, it was still rang true.
It was still a very authenticstory, but it just wasn't colorful
language, which I thought tobe kind of funny, because then I
went back to writing my ownbooks, and I was finding that I was
cussing a lot less, which mymom's probably very happy about.
(09:44):
But you did not end up writingwith that person.
We had a whole fleshed outplot and maybe got like three or
four chapters in, and he hadsome things come up.
And then this opportunity forSilent Horizons dropped in my lap.
And so I told him, I was like,hey, I got to put this on the back
burner.
And it ended up for both ourschedules, it ended up working out
(10:05):
that we'd not do it.
Here's the other beautifulthing you and Chad both had.
Is it fair to say this variouslevels of expertise.
Yeah.
You're both fighting the samebattle, but you have a different
kind of expertise.
Side note, I was talking to.
Oh, so Tim's in town.
We're sitting there havingdinner last night, and he.
(10:27):
And I said, listen, I'm haveto scoot out early, squeeze in a
podcast, then I'll meet youfor breakfast.
He said, who you interview?
And I'm like, a Top Gunfighter pilot.
Like Top Gun.
He goes like, Top Gun the movie?
I'm like, yeah.
He goes like, F18.
I'm like, yeah.
He's like, whoa.
I'm like, yeah, yeah.
(10:48):
Like, if.
If only you knew him.
He's really not that exciting.
No, it's.
And, you know, I was thinkingabout this when I was looking at
the COVID So when you see theword Top Gun, all you got to do is
see that word and you're like,the movie?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Was he.
Was he.
Was he in the movie with TomCruise and Val Kilmer?
I'm like, no, he was a littlebit young then, but.
(11:10):
Oh.
I want to make sure that mylisteners know Tyndale House Publishing,
which I'm familiar with.
Tell what makes.
Tell my audience what makesthem so specific or special off the
beaten path than a lot of yourordinary publishers.
Yeah, well, so, I mean,Tyndale is the largest Christian
publisher.
So they're not, you know,they're not a Simon and Schuster,
(11:31):
they're not a Penguin Random House.
They, they do publish a lot ofBibles, they publish a lot of devotionals
and things like that.
But they're also publishing fiction.
A lot of it is very faith focused.
In other words, if you arelooking for a Christian message,
you will find it.
But what they're starting todo as well, especially with the men's
(11:52):
fiction market, is they're,they're using it as a ministry tool.
So we're really trying towrite books that are not over your
head, you know, beatingChristian morals and stuff into you
because it, it's kind ofironic, but I, I sort of find that
some of the most judgmentalpeople in the world I know you and
I have talked about this areChristians, you know, and, and we're
(12:14):
supposed to not be, we'resupposed to be welcoming and instead
we're turning people off.
And so that was a big dealfor, for Chad and I in particular
because, you know, our missionwith this book and we're, we're lockstep.
You know, Chad was the founderof Mighty Oaks, one of the founders
of Mighty Oaks.
And they, they take a faithbased approach to treating veterans
and first responders with ptsd.
(12:35):
And we know that they savelives, we know that they restore
families and their work isreally important.
So we wanted this to be abranch of that, to maybe draw attention
to Mighty Oaks.
You can't do that if you'reonly talking to people that want
to hear about God.
We want to reach people thathave been there, have done that and
(12:59):
maybe aren't solid in their faith.
Maybe don't know what they're,they're looking for.
Well, and having, as you verywell know, having grown up a pk,
I have been now on both sidesof that fence.
And it's funny, we weretalking about this yesterday again.
I, we were talking about goingto church and I said, and I can share
(13:21):
this with my listeners.
When you have been force fedreligion and I've used that term
realistically and kindly.
If it, if I can, when it hasbeen part of your DNA since you could
breathe, then you are less aptto sometimes always want to walk
(13:45):
that similar path 24 7.
Yeah.
And so I said, we were talkingabout, oh, did you, my mother in
law said, did you go to churchon Sunday?
I'm like, oh, I missed that one.
I said, you know, maybe if Ihadn't been force fed it my whole
life, I would have been therethis past weekend.
But yeah, you know, I thinkeveryone's journey is different and
not everyone, you know, even,even finds Christ.
(14:08):
And I don't view them any differently.
And that's the problem.
I do feel like people, a lotof Christians today do view them
differently, you know, andit's like we can hate sin, but we
don't have to hate the sinner.
You know what I'm saying?
This book in particular, likeif you're, if you're a non believer
and you just want a goodthrilling story, you can pick this
up and enjoy it.
You're not going to be forcefed religion.
(14:29):
You're not going to be likebeat over the head with this.
But what you will find is avery authentic tale of somebody who
is struggling with their faithand what it means to be a father,
what it means to be a husbandwhile going to war and doing some,
some traumatic, going throughsome traumatic experiences.
I mean that's, that's veryreal whether you're a believer or
not.
And you'll get that in this book.
(14:52):
And, and I think if you are abeliever, you will find some, some
things in there that will ringtrue to maybe your own path or maybe
path of, of other people whohave found God.
You know, it's funny, when wewere talking while you were talking,
something popped into my head.
I can remember where I was sitting.
It was in chapel.
I went to Bible high school,Bible college.
(15:12):
Someone was speaking one dayand when phrase I went, that's it.
And that was.
And it's this about howChristians should share the word
with the world.
And they said it's.
They felt it was moreimportant to take water to the desert
(15:33):
than to the ocean.
And that metaphor has alwaysstuck with me.
It's like not to turn thisinto a Bible course, but.
Oh well, let's not do.
Hang on one second.
I guess I shouldn't say fuckright here because that would really
kind of blow the wholeChristian conversation I just had.
Do you know who Chris Paranto is?
(15:55):
Yes.
Yeah, Tonto.
He was one of the 13 Hours guys.
And he always says like I'm,I'm a Christian.
I just say fuck a lot.
And I'm like, yeah, you know what?
That's 100% accurate.
You know, I think most of usprobably fall into that category.
Thank goodness Daddy knowswhat he's doing.
Not always.
Good thing you're a professional.
Well, good thing I don't freakunder pressure.
(16:18):
I think that's the real.
Which is a mark of a true Professional.
Hey, let's take a short break.
When we come back, we're goingto be back with Jack Stewart talking
about Silent Horizons.
Stay with us.
(16:53):
Silent Horizons by ChadRobichaux and Jack Stewart.
Available now.
The desert and I, anyway, thatalways stuck with me about our job
is to take water to thedesert, not to the ocean.
Because what I found sointeresting is this particular school
was training all these peopleto be preachers and, and, and to
(17:13):
go to Bible schools and talkto all the people who already knew
everything we were talking about.
So I'm like, shouldn't we kindof go out there where nobody knows
what we're talking about?
Right, right.
Anyway, and the other thing, Imean, I, my pastor at our church
here, one of the things thathe said recently is, you know, the
(17:34):
best way of, of, of bringingsomebody to God is to, you know,
not go out and judge them andtell them what they're doing wrong
and, you know, and show themthe way, but to live your life in
such a way that they wouldlike to model their behavior after
you.
Right.
So, like, by volunteering, bybeing, you know, kind and gracious
(17:56):
and, and forgiving and like,all the stuff that we as Christians
should be, if you do that, isgoing to draw people to them.
You know, you don't have to gobe like, you need to come with me
to church on Sunday and youneed to do this and you need to do
that.
That's just a little over the top.
Now I'm going to changechannels just a wee bit.
Is it common knowledge, andforgive me that I don't know this
(18:19):
definitively, but I don'talways have to know everything.
Is it common knowledge thatpeople may know that you are also
the author of a particularfranchise that starts with A and
ends with a G?
It actually ends with an.
Yeah, yeah, it, it has been announced.
Yeah, it's been announced, butI don't know how common knowledge
(18:42):
it is because I'm not reallypushing that one yet because I have,
you know, Silent Horizons.
And then I've got another one,the fourth book of my own series
between now and then.
So I, like, I sort of have to,you know, focus my efforts on the
closest alligator to the canoe.
So we're not, we're nottalking about that one.
I did.
You can talk about, we cantalk about whatever you want.
Yeah, absolutely.
I just wanted to mention thefact because when I got that, I was
(19:04):
privy to this news early onand I thought, wow, this is huge
news.
So now that I've built it up,you have to definitely share it.
Okay.
So for those who are fans ofthe military thriller genre and have
been for a while, Web Griffinwas probably one of the biggest names
(19:25):
in.
In military thrillers, alongwith Tom Clancy.
And he was one of the guysthat I read as a kid.
Growing up, I read theBrotherhood of War series and the
Corps series, which followedMarines in World War II.
I wasn't as familiar with thepresidential agent series, which
was kind of a post 911counterterrorism series that he wrote.
(19:51):
And Andrews and Wilson, Ithink people are very familiar with
them, wrote book nine in theseries called Rogue Asset.
And I thought the series wasgoing to be done there because there
was nothing.
You know, I hadn't heard anything.
And then one day I got a callfrom my agent that says, hey, Tom
Colgan wants you to write, youknow, book 10 in the series.
(20:11):
And I.
Okay, so, yeah, so I wrotebook 10.
It's called Direct Action.
And it does feature the maincharacter that Anderson Wilson introduced,
which was PK Killer McCoy, whowas the grandson of Kenneth McCoy
from the core series.
So is that nice, Web Griffincross, you know, series inbreeding
(20:36):
kind of thing with all thecharacters knowing everybody, which
I thought was really fun guysand gals.
For those who are not familiarwith that particular series, let's
pull up a name that you would.
All right, Tom Clancy is probably.
Would you agree, Vince Flynnor Tom Clancy would be either one
of those.
The biggest names in thatparticular genre.
(20:56):
This is right there with them.
So my buddy here, Jack, is carrying.
On the torch, a really fun one.
I'm really excited for thatbook to come out.
So let's go back to this,because this is.
This is astonishing to me.
And I'm going to use you as anexample with the conversation I had
with Tammy, my wife.
You met Tammy the other day.
She was talking about, honey,you're coming up on the fourth year
(21:19):
in June.
I mean, like, literally onemonth from today, we're gonna basically
hit four years.
Yeah.
And she said, you know, what'sgonna happen?
We got a few things plannedfor the summer.
You know, do you feel like you've.
The show has run its course?
I'm like.
And this is the first timeI've talked about this on this show,
(21:40):
and I'm doing it with youbecause you're my pal.
I'm like, you know what?
Maybe it's time to hang it up.
Maybe it's just time to dropthe mic.
And she looked at me like, what?
And I was.
I was expecting her to go,yeah, good call.
But she's like, wait, what?
This is.
(22:00):
You love this.
I'm like, I know.
So she goes, well, what's,what's making you do this?
I said, I'm talking to Jackthe other day.
And actually the other daymeaning the last time you were in
town, we're sitting at thatrestaurant in Pacific beach, right?
Yeah, of course.
I had privy to the, this bookthat we just mentioned coming up.
And I'm like, wait a minute,Jack, that's like three or four books
(22:21):
in one year.
And you're like, yeah.
And I'm like, but you fly full time.
Yeah.
How do you do it?
I just make it happen.
And at that moment, and Idon't know if I said this to you,
and I'm like, and you know, Iwrite, I don't write to your degree.
And I have not beentraditionally published like yourself,
I've been self published.
And I'm like, I want that, Iwant more of that.
(22:44):
And she goes, well, can you dothat and this podcast the way that
you do it, with this much preparation?
I'm like, I don't know.
But let's put it this way,this summer it's game on.
Good.
Now everyone, first of all,everyone's gonna hate me now for
putting the idea in your headto stop doing this.
Because you are, you have oneof the best voices in the podcast
game.
And you're, you know, your,the quality of production is always
(23:06):
top notch.
You get the best guests.
Everyone's gonna hate me.
I'm gonna get death threatsnow from every other author out there.
But personally, as yourfriend, I will say, like, I completely
encourage you doing, you know,chasing your passion.
If your passion is this, man,keep doing it.
If your passion is writing,you gotta do that.
And that's, that's, you know,that's the answer to how I write
(23:28):
so many books while stillhaving a full time job, while still
having a family and all theobligations with it is, it's a passion
and I want to put out good stories.
I want to write.
And so I made it happen.
Now, I selfishly would likeyou to do both, but, you know, I'm
going to do both.
Here's the thing, I just maynot be able to do one every single
(23:50):
week because I sat down andstarted listening to you and I listened
to the, your method of writingand you know, I spent some time with
David Baldacci recently andJim Patterson, and we were talking
about these different thingsand an off mic and this is a cool
one of the one of my favoritethings about this show is the fact
that I get access to these guys.
And I wish I could air so muchof the overtime, for instance, because
(24:16):
they tell me some inside scoopand we'll be talked along and I'm
like, o, my audience is goingto love this.
And at the end they'll go, dome a favor and don't share this last
part with them.
Yeah, yeah.
This is what everyone wants to hear.
All of that is to say, I thinkyou have to prioritize.
That's really all you do.
I mean, because when I satdown the other day and I did a little
(24:39):
exercise, how much time am Iwasting either scrolling on social
media or some bullshit?
And I went, you know, if Ijust trimmed a lot of that silly
time out, yeah, I could, Icould do them both.
So.
Yeah.
Anyway, folks, don't go after Jack.
It's not his fault.
It's just that we're pals andwe talk frankly with each other and
we tell it like it is.
(24:59):
And I'm gonna do both.
I'm not going anywhere.
Yeah.
Good news.
The book is Silent Horizons.
I love the fact that you got apretty good blurb from this guy.
I.
I think he's gonna do okay.
Jack.
Yeah.
Car.
Yeah.
The jury's still out on that guy.
(25:19):
Yeah.
A raw, intense, and authenticexperience that pulls back the curtain
on a world most will never see.
There's a guy who knows alittle bit about the world most will
never see.
Yeah.
Please give our best to ChadRobichaux and to tell him that we're
sorry we couldn't get sometime with him.
Yeah, of course.
I definitely will.
He mean, he is.
When I say he is a good humanbeing, I mean he is a good human
(25:41):
being.
He is still giving of his time to.
Yeah.
You know, go out and actuallydo the mission to help people and
change lives.
And I think that's so important.
So.
And you know, when he can'tmake stuff like this happen, I'm
like, I'm so happy to pick upthe torch and, and carry it for him.
Well, and I'm not blowingsmoke here when I say you're doing
great work.
You've got a beautiful,intelligent, brilliant, loving family.
(26:05):
You're there for them.
You.
You carry the torch every day.
You got a full time job flyingthe skies of, can I say Southwest.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and you, you know, you're.
You're just a good, solidhuman being with, with integrity
and, and I'm honored to know you.
So there.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I feel the same about you.
Except you're not flying.
(26:26):
You know, I fly, but it's gummies.
Anyway, this book is now out,so you can go ahead and order it,
and then I hope I'm.
Is it safe to say you'll beback for your next book?
Yeah, if.
As long as you're still doingthis in the summer, I'll definitely
be back for the next book.
Yeah.
And maybe we can do it inperson, because it is so much better
(26:47):
sitting across from the tablefrom you.
So let's just make a situationwhere we shoot.
We could do it out by the pool.
Yeah, I like that idea.
Yeah.
We'll have some cool,refreshing drinks, and we'll do some
laps, and we'll just.
We'll turn it into some funthe way we always do.
Yeah, I like that.
Once again, Jack, thanks somuch for being here.
(27:09):
Thanks for having me.
It's awesome.
I love.
I.
Like I said, I wish I could beacross the table from you right now
and go have lunch with youafter, but I appreciate you at least
doing this virtually with me.
We'll do it soon.
Sounds good.
Number one podcast for storiesthat Thrill, the Thriller Zone.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com