The Morning Stream - A chat with Ethan White

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Putting this on the TMS feed mainly because we think it would be a good fit for a lot of you. Ethan is pretty special kid to me, and seeing him hit his stride, publish his own book, and reach for the future is a blast to watch. I hope many of you will check his book out, and I hope you hear this interview and gain some confidence in what his generation might accomplish. - Scott Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If your alignment in charge of keeping the lights on, Granger understands that you go to great lengths and sometimes heights to ensure the power is always flowing, which is why you can count on Granger for professional grade products and next day delivery, so you have everything you need to get the job done. Call 1-800 Granger, clickgranger.com, or just stop by. Ranger, for the ones who get it done. Hello, everybody. It's Scott Johnson here. You know me, and you probably are tired of hearing from me, but guess what? I've got good news. Somebody is here with me today that will just, I think, inspire you. You're sitting around right now going, I got a creative idea, something I want to try to put out in the world, and then you're not sure how you can pull the trigger or make it happen. Well, we're going to inspire you to do that today. With me as an old friend, it's weird to say that because when I first met him, he was seven, and I was a long time ago. Hold on. How old are you now? I'm 18 now. I turned 19 this year. 18 years old. 19 this year. That's an insane thing to hear out of anyone's mouth. That makes me feel very old and I am old now. But when I first met you, I think I was just out of my 30s. And now I'm very happily in my mid-50s. Anyway, this is Ethan White. And Ethan White is an old pal of the family. He is a really, really smart kid.

used to be my neighbor, used to have a class where I taught him and his sister. And we just got really close to this family, think the world of them. And one of the things I always liked about, Ethan, was his propensity towards art and writing and creativity. And every week when I saw him, it was a chance to kind of see what he'd been doing in this notebook of his. And you'd bring this notebook, a little spiral-bound notebook, open it up, and it'd be full of these crazy ideas coming out of this kid. And it was like, wow, I don't remember. remember being quite this creative when I was his age. And so I would always, you know, really say, yeah, that'd be great. And he'd say, I'm going to make a book. And I'd say, you should make a book.

That'd be a great thing for you to do. And then kind of in the back of my head going, well, when you're a kid, you think you know what you want until you get to a certain age. And then you kind of don't want that, which is totally normal. That's everybody. Everybody has different interests in their life and those things sometimes change. But you didn't. You went ahead and made the thing that you said you were going to do. Are you surprised that you ended up making a book? writing a book? Yeah. No, there's no way I could do it on my own. I needed so much handholding and so many people that, you know, push me in the right direction, help me out. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like, I'll show everybody the book. The book is called, I'm going to say this

wrong, but I think it's Susquehannock. Am I saying it right? Susquehannock. Susquehannock. Ock, not Uck. Okay. This is the title of the book, written by Robert Ethan White. That is his full name, but we know him as Ethan. When I first got the copy of the book, my first inclination was to see where you were because it was the photo of the author on here. And sure enough, there he is on the bottom with really long hair. And I'm like, yeah, dude, living that hippie life. I look, yeah, I took a cool metal photo in my attic. I was like, I'll look really handsome if I do this. You took your own shot? I love that. Well, no, I didn't. My dad's a photographer. So he helped me a lot with that.

Nothing wrong with that. You know, that's right. Your dad's super talented, too. So that's the thing. We're talking about a family that's just got a lot of talent in them. His sister is an incredible artist in her own right. And just following you guys do the stuff you do has been nothing but a breath of fresh air for me. And I was really excited just to sit down and talk about this stuff with you and talk about what it takes to write a book at your age. And kind of what the response has been. I've had it just long enough to skim it a little bit, to do a little bit of research on it. I can't wait to fully read the thing, which I'm going to do soon.

I have to finish this book I started called The Devils and I'm completely hooked on right now. As soon as that's done, up next. But I wanted to get into what it takes, especially somebody at your young age, to do this. I'll start by saying, this isn't something that I had an option to do when I was 17, 18. This sort of thing didn't exist for me because there was no internet, at least as we know it today. That would come about 10 years later. and certainly there weren't tools to go self-publish your own book, which is not all that common now. You see a lot of successful, you know, TV or even film rights getting sold off books that were

actually self-published like on Amazon or some other, some other format. Yeah. Was there at some point where you just went, I can just do this on my own? I don't have to submit this to publishers or dink around all this time and get rejected. Oh, no, no, no. I didn't even know what the process would be like at first. I thought I was going to have to look for publishers. I thought I was, I had no idea what the process was at first.

All it was was a teacher approaching me and being like, hey, do you want to do this? And I was like, sure. That's great. That's good to hear you left here and found some teachers that were encouraged you. Almost all of my English teachers, let me rephrase that, all of my English teachers at my school have been, you know, a huge help and inspirations and have really helped me become passionate about English in writing. Did you feel like, I don't know why this is, I think this is important to hang on to for a second. It feels like when somebody has a teacher in their life, either one individual, one sometimes is all anyone ever gets that they can remember or that really inspired them. But it sounds like you've had a lot.

Yeah, three in a row is pretty strong. It seems like that's a massive reason to feel encouraged, to keep moving, to make your book to go. Oh, definitely. I'm going to be honest. in saying I didn't even read that much up until junior year, senior year, not as much as I should have been, not as much as you need to be to write a book. And it was, it was some, you know, some teachers, it's like they each had their own little job. One teacher made me like, you know, just feel very, you know, also like special and understood while another teacher helped me, you know, realize, wait a minute, this, you know, these old books are incredible.

these are some of the best things I've ever read and other people of course there's my teacher they help me actually write it and stuff these people have been incredible to me

and incredible influences I don't think I ever told you this but you were you're basically me as a kid so even at your young age like eight or nine years old you seemed there were moments where I just go

oh this is me I like the Thundercats he likes the Thundercats he's eight years old and he likes Thundercats which is a big deal for somebody who... Born in 2006. Yeah.

For somebody who very much remembers Thundercats. I mean, you were born the year the we came out. Think about that. Right? Yeah. It's a little weird. My son's only, what, five years older than you or something? Six years older, maybe.

Really? Yeah. So time is meaningless to me anymore. But I remember the time thinking, this kid is a lot like me, which means that it's, going to be really important that the adults around him give him the rope he needs to do the creative things he wants to do. And that if they give him that, they give him the tools and the room to do it, that he'll do it. And he'll take off and figure it out on its own. And I'm so

happy to hear you had that many teachers in a row because I can't say all my English teachers were like that. In fact, I can tell you they weren't. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They thought I was a goofball. They didn't like me very much. And times have changed. People recognize creativity in different ways now, how that gets expressed and then how they react to it, depending on the school and the teacher and everything, but there's just more opportunity now than I had. So I'm really glad about that. And even the beginning of my high school experience,

I did not, I still wasn't very passionate. I walked into junior and senior year, and they were saying like, no, we're going to prepare for the class. There's some books you need to have read. And I hadn't read any of them because that's so terrible. The last school was,

I didn't even know most of the classics. And I was like, I'm behind. But lucky for me, I'm a hopeless nerd and a loser and I read The Great Gatsby for fun so I I think I turned out okay

and I just got lucky because I got to experience Dead Poets Society three times Oh yeah Yeah good point Now you were always also a younger Or an older soul and a smaller body I would come to this class

And some of the kids would be just like They're still stuck in SpongeBob land Or whatever it happened to be that they were into And you were going By the way Have you heard the theory that the something something Batman when Superman comes right like a lot of like deeper nerd talk right that I usually only get from my adult friends the deep nerd talk yeah and that was unusual for me to run into with a kid like that sure um obviously you know you've you've grown into to an adult and you have retained those things and I think that's actually a good thing but I would argue as much as you hadn't been reading prior to you deciding to go for it with the writing um you were you were creating a ton And that's key.

Yeah. Like consuming is one thing. It's important. It helps inspire you. It's how people iterate and all of that. Yeah. So consumption matters. But I think creation, even with the lack of consumption, is actually probably what will have helped you in the long run.

Yeah. If I had to guess. So I'm excited. Tell me about the name of this thing. So I tried, I think I hopefully got it close. But what's that based on? Give us a kind of a basic breakdown. So this is a real place in Pennsylvania.

It's called, that real place is called Saskohan. It's an hour from my house. Nice. And it's down by the Cessagana River. I remember I came here, and I was telling my friends about it, and they were like, what's the Cessagana River? And I was like, oh, yeah, not everyone has been to Pennsylvania. And that, you know, that river's just everywhere when if you go anywhere, you throw a rock

and you'll hit the river. So it was moving there for the first time. Whenever I write anything, location means a lot to me. because it's, you know, it's what you're constantly surrounded by. Sure. And so moving to Pennsylvania, this was a very new experience. It was a state I'd never been to. And so there's this one river that's just everywhere.

Everyone's talking about it. I see it everywhere. Every time I passed over a bridge, I swear it was the Susquehanna. I mean, it was just there, I lived. But, yes, there was all sorts of, you know, it's like it just kept showing up. And then I went camping a couple times with some friends and stuff. um and with my church and stuff and we would and we would go down to this little place called sesquahannock yeah and we would go to different like notable locations there and it was like

it just kept striking me i guess differently like it just kept kept thinking about this place how it was kind of weird it was kind of creepy um and and i specifically remember there was a day i went uh there's a place called hawk point it's in the book yeah um and the guy in the main character he stands in the front and he this would be dean dean higgins yep a miserable old man living a worthless life in a little river community called sesuahanic wasting away in a shack in the sesquihanna river oh man that's a great that's a great pole right there yeah i do it got me excited i can't wait to crack into this and really read about it but this is interesting because as a kid i think every kid from the age of like 10 to about 16 needs to have this

kind of place in their head. And I don't just mean imagined. I mean like an actual place that you can then build on. You could argue that 95% of Stephen King's writing is based on this place that he has in his head. And that place is mostly where he's from. It's Maine. It's, you know, that kind of coastal old town community where something weird happens. That kind of thing. Like, you're very much along those lines. And I think that's a really, I think that's a really great place to, or a great thing for kids just to have around them. So you can have your stories and people can say, I heard they've found a body down there.

I think there's something's haunted. Sure. It's like the perfect age for that kind of stuff. Exactly. And, well, and the other thing is, though, that I think is kind of fun. I wanted to do my own spin. I didn't want to just, you know,

hop onto tropes or anything. You know, it's not like, Susquehawahawks is not a haunted place. It's not a weird or even really creepy place. It's just kind of, it's kind of ratty. It's kind of scrappy. and there's uh you know it's it's it feels kind of middle of nowhere um kind of lost in time a little bit kind of yeah i think that's exactly kind of the the point a lot of it is the river community

that the main character lives in i'm that i just made up it's just a bunch of shacks on the river that uh are kind of separated from the rest of isolated from from the cities and from uh you know civilization and that's that's actually one of the key conflicts is his separation from humanity in a way. Now, he's kind of wasting away bitter at civilization, just kind of living this dirty, rough life, fishing for things with literal spoons on the ends, looking peanut butter off of the, because he just ate with that spoon, and now he's going to put it on a hook and fish with it kind of thing.

These are some gritty themes, which is a little not surprising, but when I, you know, knew you when you were much younger, lot of bright shiny stuff coming out of your notebook but then occasionally you'd have something weird yeah something off and i'd go oh this is he's going somewhere with this and it made it made it a much more interesting conversation later i'd talk to kim or somebody and say you should see what Ethan's drawing or doing so stuff is cool it's creepy it's whatever and so it looks like you kind of kept going that way what would you put this like what genre are we talking about if you had to squeeze it into one um a lot of i think not

full horror because I don't get that vibe from it. It's not. It's not. So that's the problem is I feel like for idiots, I have to call it horror because it's like, all right, it's got monsters and it's dark and spooky. Like, sure, it's, it's horror. But it's not, I'm going to be real with you, my book's not scary. I don't expect you to go, huh, we're getting it or anything. It's, uh, it's unsettling. It's unnerving.

I've been told by many people, it's extremely uncomfortable to read, um, but it's never scary. Sure. It's just, it's a little gross. It's a little, it's gritty. It's grim. It's really depressing. And it's, but it's also, you know, but that's the other funny thing is, is that I didn't

want to just do slasher crap either. It's, um, I like to also think it's a little redeeming. It's a little lighthearted. It's humorous in some parts, to me at least. And, um, and, um, and it's, it's sweet. You think it's important to have a little humor injected? Definitely. If you have too much of anything, it's, it's, it's, what's the word? It's deplorable, I guess. To, to read something if it's, if it's too much, you just walk out feeling, wow, I feel awful after reading that. Sure. And so I wrote a book, you know, sure, it's got, it's, I think it has a redeeming ending and whatever. But, but the middle is, I like to think, is balanced with at least some fun or some kind of weirdness to go along. with all of this like wow this is awful and depressing and what a terrible thing this happened to

this poor old man if you had if you could name like a lesson that you can take away from the process of creating this because clearly you're not done you got other ideas for other cool stuff in the future yeah um i know you've got a very busy couple years ahead of you but i've got so much time you're so young um what lessons did you learn from this to to carry to your next novel to your next book to your next short story. Okay. I didn't know if you meant like what moral the book is giving or what, what did I take out of it? Yeah. What did this process teach you? Because my guess is from a, from a, from a, just a discipline standpoint, there's, there's a lot that goes in and writing this, right? Sure. It's not just simply, I have a funny idea. I'm going to write it down now.

It's a book. There's a lot more to it than that. Yeah. Everything starts like that. Sure. Are you your own editor or who did you use? I was my own editor with, uh, with some of those wonderful teachers and some friends that made suggestions and helped me really get the grammar down and stuff. But yes, for the most part, I was my own editor. Well, that's awesome. There's a lot of mistakes in it. I'm looking back through. I was like, ah, it's real now. And I look through and I was like, this looks terrible. Well, the good news is you live in a time where other than publishing runs where you actually have to print the stuff, changes can come in digital forms that change things immediately, right? Yeah. Even audio.

you can do a quick reread or whatever. That's true. Yeah. It's not as bad as it used to be. It has to be over at some point. But that, I agree. Like at some point you have to let it go, right? I don't know that there's such a thing as a perfect edited.

Oh, there will never be a perfect story. Right. Or story for that matter. And certainly no perfect edit. No. But there is some happy place where it's just, it's the right amount of worry, of writing, of rewriting, of transcripts, of early drafts and then finals. Right.

and then throwing that away and starting over, like all the things that that writers go through to get a final book on the table, there is a happy place for that. You'll probably find that in your second or third book or something like that. But has this experience put you on a path where you want to keep writing?

Oh, one million percent. Oh, all the way. I already have all sorts of ideas. I'm writing a short story right now. It's nearly done. I just need to like focus and do it. Um, that's, I'm going to do that before I, you know, leave or any other plans. My, my last official work for the next couple years, um, is, is, uh, it's, it's, it might be called, it's, I'm down between two titles. It's either going to be called the, the patron saint of trash and good fortune or, or, uh, let me tell you about my friend who's rich and dead. Oh, man. I'm between those two titles. Both of those are compelling. I could see why. And then I have some, yeah, a bunch of other ideas for deep in the future and stuff. well are you um have your parents read the book yes what's that like to be because you're still

pretty young you're just barely legal enough to vote and drive or i guess you're driving your 16 but you're you know you're an adult now but just sheer weeks ago you can count it in weeks even though i think your birthday is what a year ago you're almost no when are you 19 uh October okay so that's a ways but you were just now someone's kid still are but you know what i mean right they were fully responsible for you. Did they read this and go, my gosh, the stuff in his head, where the heck did he get all that? Do you ever have those conversations with your mom or your dad? No, I think they kind of, they were like, should be expected, I guess. Yeah. We all knew a little. Nothing's new, I guess. Yeah, for them at least. Yeah. Well, your parents are nerds too. I've always

liked this about your parents. They're big time nerds. They were like a Star Trek first family kind of thing you know and every time I'd see him your mom would say something like hey did you hear about so-and-so or this movie or this thing coming or whatever she just knew stuff like that yeah that's still our house I think that's great yeah we're we live around the TV yeah and you guys just a lot of pop culture knowledge a lot of that sort of thing which is kind of hilarious because on the other hand as a as a fellow parent across the way I also knew that you just had good fundamental family stuff going on. There's a lot of love and respect and all of those things.

But you had this layer of fun and cultural relevance that was also, I think, a really healthy thing for you guys to share and not just have, you always hear of these families where, well, the kid's into this thing. I don't know what he's doing in Minecraft or whatever it is. Right. And that's, you didn't have that. No, they always, you know, maybe they don't always necessarily understand some of the things, but they always listen.

Yeah. And they're always willing to understand. They're always very supportive. I remember you and your buddies, we talked about this a little bit before we started recording, but you and your buddies would sit out on the lawn out in front of your place

and trade Pokemon cards. Oh, yeah. And I used to kind of marvel at this because I'd go by with the dog or something and see you guys doing it. And you'd have these big books laid out with all the little pockets, all the cards and everything.

And then you were negotiating like governments over what to do and who to get. Yeah, well, yeah. And it was kind of intense because obviously trades, trades weren't happening freely. You had to like have the right. Yeah, they mattered to me. Yeah, they mattered. I don't think you understood how important those were. Those were a huge deal. And I remember at the time thinking, man, does does his, do his parents get what he's up to with this stuff? Like how deep do they understand what he's into? And I think that they knew. They understood. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's great. I think that's great. They've not just been a good support for you. But, you know, they also like it. it's not like they're you know those parents that are like well we just want to support bobby they're like nah he's doing cool stuff and we're into it too kind of and one day you're going to retire them that's how i look at it with my kids no they weren't just supportive of the book i made them cry oh goodness i made many people cry i've been told is it because what's in there

you got stuff in there that gives people i from what i've been told yes it's uh very heartwarming and heart-melting. Oh, see. I'm glad. That is my goal, as if I can give that effect to people, if it can affect them personally. Well, on the back of the book,

I wrote in my little blurb, I want to touch someone personally, and then everyone's been teasing me about the way I worded that afterwards. I'm like, mm, that's not what I meant. Yeah, that's not exactly what you meant when you wrote that. No, no.

I do that all the time. Don't feel better. Thank you. I say stuff that I don't mean. Now it's on my book. That will be my legacy for the rest of my life. Well, I think you're lucky. My mom still.

still doesn't know how to even describe what I do. She doesn't know. She doesn't get it. All this. She goes, oh, he's just with his stuff doing his thing. She doesn't know how to say it. Yeah. All these years.

And she's in her 80s now. She still doesn't really get it. So you are lucky to have a mom and a dad. They're lucky. Who understand it, right? And they are, they see this sort of thing and they're proud of it. And not just by default because they have to be,

but because they understand what you did, how you did it, how you got there, how to foster that creativity, all that stuff. Right. There's not enough for that today. And they read. a lot. Yeah. So your parents have read it, and they've enjoyed it.

They read it front to back all the way? Oh, yeah, all the way. How many pages are we talking? My whole family has. It's $3.50? Something like that. Dude. How long to take you?

Ten months. I was kind of speed running it in some ways. But in other ways, I think I did pretty okay for time constraints. I wanted to get it out before school was up. That's a good idea. So that's another interesting question. I remember high school. I remember that last year being a mix of strange pressure points, lots of pressure from teachers

to finish things out in a certain way, lots of pressure from parents to do that and then be ready for whatever next stage of life I had ahead of me. Pressure from girlfriends and friends and everybody else in the mix. Yeah. It felt like almost everybody but me. I didn't know what I was supposed to pressure myself for. I didn't know what I wanted to do. That's exactly how I feel.

Yeah. So this is a familiar feeling. Yes. So how did you transcend all that and write a book in the last year of your public school life? Because I don't know if you can feel this yet, but the minute you leave high school, the minute you go, oh, that's not as important. I mean, it's important, but it's not like the way it feels important when I'm there every day, that's gone now. Yeah. Now it's like, oh, it's this weird thing in my past.

I rely on parts of it. They still have some friends from it. but this is, I'm off in a whole different direction. This is nothing like school anymore. And I can tell you right now that feeling just gets more and more that way over time. You'll be talking about your 10 year anniversary or 10 year reunion with friends, possibly someone you're married to at that time. Like, what are we going to do?

Where are we going to go? Right. And you're going to go, I don't recognize these people. I don't remember what this was like. Yeah. Why did I care so much about what this dude thought, those sorts of things? I don't know how far into those feelings you are, but. it must, I have to think that if I'd have done something as cool as write a book during the last

chunk of my schooling, it would have helped me with the perspective switch of high school matters to it doesn't matter at all. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's kind of hard to explain. I mean, it helped that I don't have a ton of other hobbies. I have, I have things I like to do. You're like playing games, right? Right. Oh, I love, I'm a person who, who I think people will think because I wrote a book that I'm like, her, I'm high society. Suddenly, I only like reading books.

I'm in person of the opinion that all media is created equal and that you can get something just as important out of a video game, a song, a movie, or a book as anything else. They're all integral and I learn from all of it.

And there's all a piece of that in my book. Sure. Piece of everything. So in the last, in 10 years, let's say, from your age 10 till now, do you look at gaming or video games, any particular video games and go,

those were moments of inspiration that led me to this. I always want to ask that because your generation, if there's any generation that is just known games, yeah, gaming from minute born until now, you're born in a relatively modern age of 3D gaming and all of that, what that implies. and you live that entire time, and you live 18 years of life under that umbrella,

which for me, you know, that kind of stuff didn't start happening until I was in high school, really. I mean, in earnest anyway. It must be, that has to have provided something different than, say, authors before. Definitely.

So as much as, you know, a very old and widely accepted book has helped me, I think video games have had just as important of that. an impact on that. I guess if I had to pick one that's very reminiscent and that probably was the biggest influence for the book, it's Alan Wake. Oh, that is one of my favorite games of all time. Literally about an author of that game. Literally. And it's, you know, it creates things with his pages. Like, I've had people, I've only had one guy actually stopped me and be like,

you know, that sounds kind of like Alan Wake. And I'm like, don't tell anyone. Don't tell anyone. It's some big inspiration. Some people are going to be like, it's, I don't think it's a rip off. It's very, very different. Sure. But it was a huge impact, the tone, the storytelling, just the feel of that game. It's incredible. I love that game so much. And that is probably the biggest impact.

In retrospect, I also am a, I didn't play it at the time, but now I'm a huge Doom fan. And looking back, I realized, maybe there's a reason I like Doom so much, because this book shares a lot of themes. Well, you were like wall-to-wall Kirby when I knew you when you were little. Oh, yeah. And I still love Kirby. I still love all of that stuff. But, yeah, if there was one thing that was a huge impact on this book, it's Alan Wake. Yeah.

That's awesome. Did you play the new one? Alan Wake, too? No, I don't have the new one yet. Oh, that's really good. I've heard it's really, really good. Yeah. I think you'd like it even more.

I'm sure I would. It's hard to, it'll be hard to cram all that in with everything you got going on. I didn't play the new Doom either. I don't have to. Oh, it's good, too. I know. It's really good. I need to get on the new stuff.

Yeah. Well, I mean, look, there's lots to catch up. You're young. You got a lot of time. A lot of room in front of you. Yeah. One of the things I thought was interesting about you as a kid, and I sense this is still true of you now, but when you were a lot younger, from my perspective, the adult teacher in the room, I would get used to the dynamic of the different personalities and how they interacted with each other. Yeah.

And there's always somebody who's a little more. more prone to maybe being a little mean or bully-ish. And there's maybe other kids who are a little less that or the opposite or a little sheepish or a little standoff or shy or whatever. You were this weird category of your own. It's a good start. Yeah, I don't know how to describe it, except that you would basically, if anybody gave you crap for anything, you would blow it off.

You were just like, yeah, whatever. And you keep doing whatever you wanted to do. and to those who were maybe the shy or the skittish ones, you were always very kind to them and made them feel comfortable. You really did. This is something we notice as an adult because I don't think when kids behave that way when they're seven or eight, they don't even know they're doing it.

It's just their natural personality trajectory, I think. So watching you do that at the time, I was like, well, this is perfect. He's got the best of both worlds. He's got a kind heart for those who need it. But he also is going to just blow off Garland. from people who give him heat because there's always what's the old phrase 80% of the people in the world no no no 10% of the people of the world that you'll ever meet are going to hate your guts for

whatever reason they have yeah 10% are going to love you no matter who you are what you do and the other 80% don't care they just don't know you just never going to know them and it just seemed like you kind of had that figured out even though you didn't know what that was they really didn't yeah but you just blew it off it was like amazing and I would I would see other kids behave poorly toward you and you would go okay whatever and you'd be off to do whatever you wanted to do I think that that's not only just good character trait but I wonder if if some of that is you being the it's hard to explain like from an author position of observing things happening not getting bunged up in the things that are happening not worried like I can't speak to too much

your high school life because you'd moved away by then right but high school is a mindfield of personalities, behavior, emotions, relationships, all the stuff that comes with the high school experience. Do you feel like you kind of were like that there where you kind of, you were just like an inch above it all a little bit? Not in a cocky way, but like that. I never felt like that for a long time.

I think everyone has to go through the dark ages. Like they have to go through some kind of experience where they have to, I don't know, wade through their lowest points in their life but if you ask me now I think now I'm hitting the point

and I'm realizing as a person like okay I have my opinion and you have yours and I guess if there's one thing that like I guess that you were saying that does kind of resonate that I do think I

that I do okay with sometimes is I try not to villainize people or even really you know put people above other people I think that I just try to look at it the way it is and I write it the way it is It's it's without without opinion and then what I do is I make characters very opinionated Because people are very opinionated sure so it's really fun to narrate something From I guess my point of view which is you know

Everyone's all wrapped up in all sorts of things about politics or opinions or something and and And and I will hear people I know and love say I hate this type of person and I say okay that is a logical reason I understand that but I can't say I I understand I don't want to hate that person either because it's not fun no it's not is it it's awful it's an awful feeling this is always wonder about this about your generation because we don't really know yet you're all just hitting 18 we don't know what they we don't know what you as a whole mean as a generation I don't think we know it you guys probably don't know either but I feel like there's I have a lot of I'm an optimist but

nature. I tend to think that things get better over time. You do. Yeah. And I think that you guys have this unique experience of a chunk of your childhood was during the pandemic. A large chunk of it, which a lot of it happened during the exact same time. It is still happening now is in some very perilous political times. Oh, yeah. And I'll tell you what, when I was 18, I'm trying to think I was worried about whether I had to get up early on Saturday to do chores after when school ended, what were they expecting me to do in the house? How much were those Metallica tickets? My back tire may have a little air, maybe a little low on air. Those were the things I was thinking about. But I feel like society with it's on all the time,

thousands of screens everywhere, all the time is constantly going, bah, blah, blah, in your face in a way that they didn't do with me. And I, I think, I guess I'm on pins and needles to see how your generation handles that, you know, because now it's go time. Yeah. A little bit, right? Right. I mean, it's no huge responsibility for you yet in terms of societal anything, but how that

will affect your writing, how that will affect the kinds of jobs you take, what that job world even looks like for somebody during a time like this. And I'm not trying to be overly dramatic about it. It's just very, very different. Yeah. And maybe you guys will come through it with shining. colors and can, you know, continue to make Gen X look like we dropped the ball because we probably did. We're not very, whatever. They told us we were lame and we weren't going to amount too much.

They tell every generation that this is the worst generation. They really do. I hate that generational stuff. But I do think a lot about kids around 2000, born in 2000 to about 2008, that age range having to grow up through some of these significant things and be so young while it's happening. to be like a big impact. Did that affect the writing of this book? For example, are some of the themes in there reflective of, I don't know, a giant world pandemic or that kind of thing? No, actually.

Those are kind of actually more in tune with the ideas I have for the future. What this book was, is this, I think this one was kind of my personal journey. This one was, here's everything that I feel like a lot of people, including myself, struggle with or this is what it means to be suffering you know instead of everything is so too much on the outside literally this book is about a guy who gets um separated from that he doesn't have to worry about that yeah the one thing he does have to worry about is his own discipline um in in this world and and he's not disciplined he grew up in in uh you know a kind of a not great household under a lot of terrible circumstances on top of that he's a pretty bad hand and he doesn't

make a lot of very good decisions he he makes he in fact he makes tons of mistakes and he's and and the thing i really wanted to nail in the beginning i don't know you know anyone who's read it if they agree but i like to think he's pretty deplorable at the beginning you i've had people tell me i hated him real so much at the beginning and i love that because that's exactly what i wanted to do because I've also been told after people finish it they realize it's them the same way it was me

I want you to look at it and realize oh this is this person I hate so much it's everything I hate about myself and this character's journey and them getting better this is me getting better this is me learning like I shouldn't do things like this

or this is how I should treat people or this is how I can be better And so that was, this book actually has very little to do with any kind of political statement or any kind of, I don't know, stand in terms of, I don't know, anything as of recently that's, I guess, going on in the world. Sure. It's really, I really just wanted to write a book that could hopefully, you know, hopefully the way classics work is they can apply to any generation. anywhere. So if it hits classic status, that means that it's timeless. And I want it to apply to anyone in the world because hopefully anyone in the world can relate to, I've done something bad and I want to be better. Yeah. I think that's great. I think that's a very optimistic message,

despite the fact that even by the cover of this thing, you look at it, oh, something dark and scary going on here. But, you know, there's light at the end of that tunnel. Do you think you'll ever poke your head into like science fiction, fantasy, any other genres? uh kind of what my my next ideas are i've been i've had so my the short story right now is science fiction um the the idea i'm really excited about right now who knows if i'll still be excited about it like two three years into the future but uh i'm kind of like oh maybe i'll tread into dystopian or sci-fi or something like that's my favorite that sounds fun yeah i'm my mad max crap back here i'll tell you all you need to know about my love of that genre but yeah

i'm so i'm interested in in that but honestly uh i don't don't really want to be a genre writer. Some people have asked me like, they asked me like, did you read Stephen King to prepare for your book? And I was like, I've never read any Stephen King in my life. I will. I'm sure he's great. You'd probably really like it. In fact, I'll just give you a quick recommendation. Here are the two I would read. I would read the stand. That is my favorite standalone novel of all time. Love it. I think thematically, it will speak to a lot of the stuff we talked about here today. And it's also unusual for him. It's not a horror novel. It's like a... That's cool. I don't know how to explain it. It's the weirdest book.

I love it so much. Very apocalyptic, but it's also... I don't even know how to describe the stand. The stand is an all-timer. I love that book so much. And I've read it five times. And I still don't know how to describe it to people. And then the other is his Dark Tower series. Dark Tower is one through seven. Those books are so good. And it's basically his answer to, you know, Robert Jordan or somebody with like a gigantic library of a series. Yeah. That's gone on for a forever. And it's very unusual. It also connects to the stand in a weird way. That's cool. So those are the two I'd go for. He's a great author. I've read almost everything he's ever read or written. I like a lot of it, but it's a lot. He's got a huge library. And he's a,

you know, an all-timer for a reason. But those in particular just really are right up my alley. That's great. You know, I think like, I didn't know anything about him. I had no opinion, but one day I went in a bookstore and I was like, hey, the shining is on the shell. I picked it up and I read the first page and I was like, that's a good hook. I like that. It's like, that's a solid beginning. He's good at hooks. If he struggles with anything, it's endings, but his beginnings are often very strong.

Yeah. No, I, my point is, though, is that like everyone was saying, like, well, then if you didn't read him, how did you write horror? And I was like, because I don't know, I've read a couple other things and it was my own ideas. I don't want to steal from other people. I don't want to be a horror writer. In fact, I don't know if I'll ever write horror again or three. or whatever you would call this.

I kind of want to give it a go, kind of like, I grew up with Steven Spielberg a lot. I really like him. And what he does, that's pretty cool, is he's written and directed almost every kind of genre in the world. Sure. That's true. I think he's done everything.

I think I literally saw a thing he said once, where he said, I've done every kind of movie except for a Western. And now I want him to make a Western. Oh, I would love a Spielberg Western. Why hasn't he ever done that? I don't know. He's making another UFO movie. Come close with, I guess, Indiana Jones is definitely not a western. It's more of an adventure action movie, but still.

But, like, I kind of want to do that. I want to give everything a shot, you know? I think I could do a unique spin on a bunch of these different things. And if it's not, you know, what the genre normally has in it, like, okay, screw you. I'm going to do whatever I want. I want this, you know, it's, I'm writing for my, for my own enjoyment, or maybe, maybe for an imaginary person. If I enjoy it, then people like me will enjoy it, you know?

Well, your beginnings are very Spielbergian because his first book was a horror movie about a, or his first book, his first movie, actual theatrical release, was a horror movie about a giant shark that wants to kill people. Now 50 years old, that thing just hits its anniversary. And then his next big hits in theaters were ET, a science fiction story. like that's your you're going you're starting

with a little scary and creepy you're going right to the science fiction who knows after that where you'll end up you have to write a dinosaur's novel then you got to make oh yeah

you got to have dinosaurs you got to have war movies yeah got to have a couple spy movies and then some really iffy kids movies whatever I know people like hook

I don't like hook hate hook it's fine yeah it's fine I don't have to remind myself my family's gonna get mad at me it's fine it's not great

it's fine well this is great I need to tell people where they can get this thing I want people to grab this book I know you did the publishing through to Lulu.com That's where you can buy it too

You can buy it there right? Yes So go check it out 1999 nice nice price Just search for Susquehannock It is if you just I think if you just do

S-U-S-Q It will auto-complete And be the rest But if you look for Ethan White Or Robert Ethan White You will find his name easily I went and did all this earlier It was no problem

Super easy And Nab has book today and check it out. And we have, I know we have a bunch of authors who listen to the various shows where this is going to be posted. Love to hear your feedback as well. If you have any thoughts or feelings or any stuff about what we talked about today and like the process of writing and what that's like, maybe if you have tips and hints, you know, for Ethan, I'll pass those long. Yes, please. But we'd love to hear about it. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about or say before we close things out today? I feel like I always end every like interview or something with this. But I hope if you it, that it affects you. I hope that, you know, you can have some fun with some silly monsters, like some ribcage spider things and some, you know, gore and stuff. I hope you have some face level fun. Sure.

But I really hope that this can open your eyes and change you as a person as well. Yeah. The same way that it kind of helped. Did that for you, didn't it? me to the point to the extent that I didn't think like my book had all that I don't know many cool lines or anything but one of my one of my wonderful English teachers I was leaving and she got gifts for all of her favorite students and she got me a little keychain that quoted my book and had my name on one side and on the other side it says uh he was a man because he was

good and that's big that comes from a line in the book where he says he was he was he was a man because he was good and he was good because he was a man. So all those other students that didn't get anything, now you know why she only gave it to the best writers in the class. That was the deal. Now that's cool though. And the fact that you had these teachers, I cannot state enough how important that is. That it's not your parents.

It's these third party independent brains and voices in your life that can see your worth, see your talent and know where you're headed and know what to tell you to help you, but also see the potential. Not enough kids get that. got really lucky. I know, yeah, I'm forever indebted to them and I'm still in contact with them too. That's great. They're my friends.

Do that as long as you can. I have an art teacher like that who passed away recently and it was horrible. Died too early, had some kind of crazy cancer. But this guy had this huge effect on me. I don't think I would have done any of the cool stuff I get to do now without them. Right. So you're probably going to feel the same way about these people as time goes on and it'll even build, you know, more down the road.

They're going to want to hear about when you have kids. They're going to want to get a copy of that next book. like they're going to want to be a part of Ethan's life down the road. And I look forward to all the cool stuff you're going to do, dude. Thank you. I'm excited for you. I'm excited too. Yeah.

Well, that's going to do it. Thank you all for watching. Thanks for listening for everybody at home, which is, by the way, about 40,000 people will hear this interview. Really? Yeah. That's just the podcast. Then a couple thousand on YouTube.

YouTube's not as big for me, but there'll be a fair number over there. No pressure. But I really do want to hear feedback. back from people. Let us know what you think. Do you have your own kids? We've got a lot of parents out there. You've got your own kids. You're trying to encourage. I hope this has been helpful for you as well as they attempt to make some cool choices about their creative life, whether it's writing, drawing, whatever. And you should see her, his sister's work. She'll probably interview her sometime soon because she's also really good. Would she be? Yeah. She was always a little less

she's a little more camera shy than you. I'm a little more Looney Tunes. She's a little more... Yeah, like the Osmond's brother-sister thing. He was a little more rock and roll. She was a little more country. You're a little more author. She's a little more drawer,

but she's also a little quieter. I like that about her, though. Your sister's sweet. Yeah. Yeah, I miss her too. I wish you guys still lived here, but whatever. We're in the same country.

Everything's fine. Hi. Well, that's going to do it. Everybody, thank you for listening and watching. And send us your feedback. You can find all those details at frogpants. We'll see you next time. If you work as a manufacturing facilities engineer,

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