What does a lifetime of storytelling look like?
In this episode of the Made to Make Podcast, host Shannon sits down with Navy veteran, journalist, and author John Chadwell to explore a creative journey that spans decades—from military service to combat photojournalism, scriptwriting, and book publishing.
John shares how creativity can flourish even in highly structured environments like the military, and how the same storytelling instincts can move across mediums—from journalism to film scripts to historical fiction and children’s books.
Along the way, we dive into the timeless craft of storytelling, how new tools like AI are expanding creative possibilities, and why it’s never too late to pursue the work you feel called to make.
If you’ve ever wondered whether creativity fits into a disciplined life—or whether it’s too late to start—this conversation will remind you that the creative path is always open.
In this episode we explore:
- How storytelling evolves across different creative mediums
- Finding creative freedom inside structured careers
- Using AI tools to support research, artwork, and storytelling
- Lessons from a lifetime of writing and creating
Memorable moments:
- “My creative process is the same across genres.”
- “It’s never too late to pursue your dreams.”
- “You’re the only person stopping you.”
Whether you’re a writer, artist, filmmaker, or simply someone who feels the pull to create, this episode is a reminder that creativity isn’t a phase—it’s a lifelong calling.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction to Creativity and Storytelling
02:57 John’s Journey: From Navy to Storyteller
05:48 The Evolution of a Combat Photojournalist
09:05 Scriptwriting: The Fast Track to Creativity
11:56 Diverse Genres: Balancing History and Fiction
15:06 The Creative Process: Visual Thinking and Storytelling
18:13 Writing for Young Audiences: Hannibal’s War Elephant
20:47 Staying Creative: The Lifelong Journey of Writing
23:58 Advice for Aspiring Creatives
26:51 Final Thoughts: Never Too Late to Create
About John
Author, Reporter, and Photojournalist
Early Life and Military Service
John Chadwell was born in San Antonio, Texas, the product of a World War II romance. His life’s trajectory was set when he entered the U.S. Navy right out of high school in 1964, initially serving as a radioman. This early military experience would shape both his career path and his storytelling voice for decades to come.
Chadwell spent twenty years in the Navy, with most of that time dedicated to serving as a combat photojournalist. The defining period of his naval career came when the Navy sent him to the University of Southern California’s Cinema program for a year to study filmmaking. This transformative experience ignited his passion for visual storytelling and writing. He retired from the Navy in 1989 as a Senior Chief Journalist, having served with the Atlantic Fleet Audio-visual Command in Norfolk, Virginia.
Journalism Career
After his military service, Chadwell established himself as a freelance photojournalist and reporter, working in this capacity for over fifty years. He became president of Chadwell Communications, under which he worked as a freelance photojournalist, copywriter, and scriptwriter.
Chadwell made significant contributions to local journalism in Northern California, where he worked for BenitoLink as a freelance feature, news, and investigative reporter for seven years, from 2016 to September 2023. His reporting covered a wide range of community issues in San Benito County, from local government and business to human interest stories. He officially retired from freelance writing on July 28, 2023, after an impressive fifty-year career in the field.
Literary Career
As a novelist, Chadwell has published numerous works across various genres, demonstrating his versatility as a storyteller. His published novels include:
(Note: As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a commission on qualified purchases.)
Pershing – The Soldiers’ General – a biographical work about General John J. Pershing, the only person promoted in his own lifetime to the highest rank ever held in the United States Army
Werewolves of New Idria: Holy Warriors – which was optioned by Oceania Omnimedia for potential development as a TV or film series
Major Crime Unit: Operation Casablanca
His latest work, The War Elephant (published in 2025 under the Echoes from the Past series), marks his first book with a traditional publisher. This novel offers a unique perspective on Hannibal’s legendary journey across the Alps with 37 elephants, told through the eyes of an autistic teenage Carthaginian boy. The story follows the boy as he bonds with an elephant and gradually adapts to a more conventional way of life before being recruited into Hannibal’s army. Written for an older teen and young adult market, the book demonstrates Chadwell’s ability to tackle complex historical subjects with fresh, inclusive perspectives.
Screenwriting
Chadwell’s creative output extends beyond novels to screenwriting, where he has penned or rewritten approximately twenty scripts throughout his career. His work in this medium has resulted in two produced films:
Midnight Movie Massacre (1988) – Originally titled Space Patrol, Chadwell was involved in rewriting the script for this film. While he candidly acknowledges the film was not a critical success, he takes pride in the achievement of seeing his work produced.
God’s Club (2015) – Produced by Nasser Entertainment, this was Chadwell’s second produced screenplay.
Personal Life
Chadwell has made his home in Hollister, California, in Northern California’s San Benito County, where he lives with his wife, Diane. His deep connection to the community is evident in his years of local journalism and his intimate knowledge of the area’s people and issues.
Legacy
John Chadwell’s career represents a remarkable journey through multiple facets of storytelling and journalism. From his foundational years as a Navy combat photojournalist to his decades as a freelance reporter and his prolific output as a novelist and screenwriter, Chadwell has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the craft of writing and visual storytelling. His work spans genres and mediums, from historical military biography to supernatural fiction, from local investigative journalism to screenplay adaptation.
His fifty-year career in journalism, combined with his extensive literary output and screenwriting achievements, positions him as a versatile and dedicated practitioner of the written word. Whether documenting the lives of military heroes, creating original fiction, or reporting on the people and issues of his local community, Chadwell has consistently brought the observational skills and narrative clarity honed during his years as a Navy photojournalist to every project he undertakes.
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TRANSCRIPT
Shannon Grissom (00:00)
Welcome to Made to Make. Here we talk about creativity, the challenges that come with it, and why we keep showing up anyway. Because hey, we are all Made to Make.
Welcome to the Made to Make podcast. Today we’re joined by John Chadwell. He’s an author, reporter, photojournalist, and screenwriter with a 50 plus year storytelling career. Today we explore what it means to live a creative life across decades, disciplines, and dramatic change. Welcome, John.
John Chadwell (00:40)
What an introduction.
Shannon Grissom (00:45)
You know, you’ve described ⁓ entering the Navy right out of high school. You know, this is before you did all of your creative work. What was that like?
John Chadwell (00:56)
Well, it was a natural choice for me because I started working in this restaurant in Sacramento when I was 13. My mother was a waitress there and I started as a busboy. And I worked throughout school and in high school and then one June day after I graduated, I’m looking out this big window at the sunshine and I’m just going, there’s gotta be something else.
⁓ I was facing the draft at that time. wasn’t going to go to college. I knew I was going to get drafted. I did not want to go to Vietnam. So I thought, I like the Navy. My father was in the Navy and I had been in the Sea Scout. So I kind of liked that lifestyle. And so one day during my lunch break, I just walked down to the Navy recruiter and I walked in there and I said, I don’t care where you send me. I just want to go now.
Three days later, I was on my way to boot camp.
Shannon Grissom (01:54)
Wow. So tell me about the Navy Sea Scouts. I’m not familiar with that.
John Chadwell (01:59)
Well, it’s like the Boy Scouts, but there are sea explorers or sea cadets. I don’t know if they’re still around, but they were then. So I was in the Cub Scouts when I was really young. But when I was a teenager, I wanted to get back into scouting and the sea explorers was part of the Boy Scouts of America, I believe. And you know, were in Navy uniforms and you had, we had, actually had a boat on the Sacramento river and we sailed it all the way down to San Francisco on time to go to our regatta.
at the ⁓ Coast Guard base and it was sort of like being an introduction into the Navy on a minor scale. And so when it came time to join, did not want to go in the Army. So I went into the Navy and I ended up going to Vietnam three times. Yeah, I ended up on a ship and I had three deployments to Vietnam. said, well, so much for, you know, thinking what I want to do.
Shannon Grissom (02:46)
I
So when did you realize you were a storyteller as a young child? Did that come later?
John Chadwell (03:03)
Well, you know, it evolved over the years. The first two books that I remember that I read and really enjoyed were Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey. I really got into those. And ⁓ when I was in the Navy, I was on this on a ship for three years at sea. And at sea means like six to nine months at sea. This is before the Internet. And so there was no communication with the outside world.
And I was a radio man at that time. And I worked in a space that had teletype machines. And one of those teletype machines was a news teletype machine. So I would get news all the time. When nobody on the ship, and there was over 500 sailors on this ship, you didn’t know what was going on in the world until you come into some port and maybe you got a hold of a newspaper. So I put together a newspaper for the crew, a daily newspaper.
And that was my first foray into journalism.
Shannon Grissom (04:07)
Wow! That’s awesome! So when did you start to become a combat photojournalist? How did, you know, was that early on in your Navy career?
John Chadwell (04:20)
Well, that was a, it was a long road. was, like I said, I was in from 1964 to 1968 as a radio man. Got out in 68 and I wanted to go to college, but it just didn’t work out. And so I got into broadcasting. I worked at radio station KONG and Visalia as a disc jockey and a news guy. So I did farm news at that time. And then I ended up going to KRZY in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
And it turned out to be not an ideal situation. And I just happened to move in next door to a Navy recruiter. And my wife started talking to his wife saying, John is really not happy where he is and we’re kind of stuck here. And so he came over and talked to me and he said, about coming back into the Navy after being out for five years. And I didn’t think that was possible. And I didn’t want to go back in as a radio man. And he said, no, we got journalists in the Navy. went, you do?
I didn’t know that. And so I came back in as a journalist and my first duty station was Oklahoma City, part of Navy recruiting and the broadcasting because my background, did have several years of broadcasting. ⁓ I started putting together little radio shows for the various Navy recruiters and I got free records from the record companies and we do like a 15 minute show for a recruiter and give away the records.
And he would, the recruiter would be there answering the phone calls. So that, you know, I ended up helping the recruiters that way and the broadcasting and I wrote press releases and I dealt with personalities who came, came to town or Navy bands. You know, it was like their escort, everything. So it was, was in public affairs for the Navy in Oklahoma. And from there, I, where’d go? I went to Iceland.
And I was in American Forces Radio and Television Services and I was a disc jockey during the day and a news guy on the TV station at night. And from there they sent me to USC to go to film school. That used to be a program that sailors and journalists and photographers in the Navy and the Marine Corps would go to USC for a year of film school training. So I became a script writer for the Navy and I’m…
movie and TV producer. This is a strange military career, I tell you. Then they sent me to Atlantic Fleet Audio Visual Command in Norfolk, Virginia, and that’s where I got into combat camera. I was doing news segments for the American Forces Radio and Television, and they sent me, like one place I went was Grenada and another Panama and just different places to do stories, regular news stories. was the first
TV producer, military or civilian to do a story on the Navy SEALs. I interviewed H.W. Bush, H.W. George Bush on the anniversary of his being shot down during World War II. So I was kind of a senior journalist by that time, so I got all the plum assignments. that was Navy combat camera. And ⁓ when they sent us to Grenada,
They put me in charge of, we had a radio station the night before the invasion, ⁓ Operation Urgent Fury, I think it was called, 1983. ⁓ They blew up a Russian radio station the night before, and I came in with a group ⁓ and a mobile radio station, and we set it up. And my mission was to get the Grenadians who were fighting to lay down their arms.
So, ⁓ you know, we just played music and it was a propaganda thing, admittedly, but we were trying to stop the fighting and I was there for about 22 days and that was the combat in Combat Photography.
Shannon Grissom (08:21)
Wow. military life is very structured and disciplined. How did you balance your creativity? I mean, it sounds like you were a creative powerhouse even in a structured environment. Can you speak to that?
John Chadwell (08:36)
Well, wherever I was stationed, in particular ⁓ Norfolk, Virginia, and my last duty station was Long Beach Naval Station. And I would always go looking for a little magazine or newspaper in the area to do freelance. So I would, ⁓ there was one called the Quilt, or I think that was the Quilt or something like that. I don’t remember the name of it in Norfolk. And I started writing for them on a freelance basis.
So I, anywhere I could get a job. And then I did the same thing in ⁓ Long Beach. And that’s also how I got into ⁓ film. I mean, I had a couple of great breaks where I got a couple of movies made. And then I really got, after USC, I got really serious into script writing. So wherever I was, I was busy on multiple levels.
Shannon Grissom (09:31)
Well, you’ve talked before about you scare people with your script writing or you’re not and not not the scripts itself, but the actual process. So tell tell everybody about your script writing process.
John Chadwell (09:45)
Well,
first time I heard that, I mean, knew I was, I’m a very fast writer. And I credit journalism for that. you, you know, you get assigned to do a story, usually the deadline is that day or the next day or something like, so you gotta, you gotta interview people and you gotta get the photography and you gotta get the story written and you gotta get it out in a day or a few hours or whatever. So that’s kinda, I think that’s where the speed came from. So when I got my first,
opportunity to write a script in Norfolk, Virginia. The background is, for that magazine I was working for, I was doing a script on this guy, was a sailor, but he’s also a miniature maker, models, and he was involved in this movie. And he was making ⁓ models, spaceships and stuff, it was a sci-fi movie, and I did the story on him, and I told him that I was…
scriptwriter and he says you know they’re having problems with this script you think you’d be interested in i suppose so he put me in contact with the uh… that producer and we talked on the phone and he told me what the story idea was and it was a remake of an old nineteen fifties serial called space patrol and this was supposed to be a remake of that so i got the assignment i had a little
Closet hall closet that was my office and I went in there and then with a typewriter not a computer a typewriter Believe a royal typewriter. Yeah, I knocked off this script in 24 hours Yeah, and they they took it but you know with script writing in movies things change So what I wrote I wrote a remake of Space Patrol
And the movie came out first to Space Patrol, but then it came out called Midnight Movie Massacre. Believe me, that surprised even me. But what it turned out, it was a theater and some monster lands on the theater and starts picking off the people who watching the movie. The movie was what I wrote.
that was on the screen. Space Patrol was on the screen that they were watching. in essence, what I wrote still made it into the movie. and the scary part, the first person that told me that, his name is Marshall Teague. And he’s maybe not a well-known ⁓ actor, but he’s been in a lot of movies. And he, if anybody saw the original movie Roadhouse, Marshall Teague played the bad guy that
Patrick Swayze fought. And I got to know Marshall. It’s really funny because we’re good friends for like 10 years now. We’ve never met. It started off on Facebook because I saw him, he likes to promote himself because he’s an actor and he was promoting himself in a TV series called Rough Riders. And he played ⁓
Pershing and general Pershing as a lieutenant and in this was the war in Cuba and I had written a book about Pershing so I Contacted him via Facebook and I said, know, you’re the do you know you are the only actor to ever play Pershing on film and That kind of stroked his eagle a little bit So we got to know each other and and he agreed to look at a couple of my books
I sent him my book, Werewolves of New Idria and he loved it. He optioned the book. He wanted to make a movie out of it or a TV series. This is over a span of several years. He would ask, we would work together on the script, because he saw the book. It started out as a script originally, but then he saw the book first. He wanted to a
script so we kind of wrote it together and we talked it out and i would send him back a new script the next day and he said he that’s when he said you are scary fast he says he had always expected to out you know really half-baked script or something but it turned out pretty good and i was just i was i was good and he’d be appreciated and it’s he’s still trying to make a movie out of it the book is out there but no movie yet
Shannon Grissom (14:21)
So Pershing is grounded in history and New Idria explores the supernatural. Now two different genres. Is your creative process the same for each one?
John Chadwell (14:35)
Sometimes, and I’ve told you earlier that I thank God for the way my brain works because it mystifies even me because I guess from my training at USC, I’m a visual thinker. I don’t know how else to describe it. And I will think of a scene and I can see it. And I literally walk myself through it as I’m working, as I’m typing.
I’ll just go through an entire scene having already seen it in my brain. The ⁓ creative process is the same. It’s just whatever interested me at that moment. Like Pershing, I had read his biography that he wrote after World War I, and I found him a fascinating guy. I was in a mode at that time of writing a lot of screenplays because I had…
been fortunate enough, had a manager at that time, and he also managed Ron Shusett who wrote Alien. And so he and I partnered up with the idea that his name power would bring interest and I would write the scripts basically, and his name would go on the scripts. That’s kind of cheating, but that’s the way it went. So we got several assignments to rewrite other scripts, ⁓ and we got paid for them.
And then I wrote, I was in the process of writing multiple scripts. had eight or nine scripts written and ⁓ they just kind of sat. I couldn’t get anybody interested. My manager couldn’t get anybody interested in them. And so I was at that time working in journalism. was here in Hollister working at Benito Link where I work now and ⁓ nothing was really happening. But then Amazon,
where all my books were, step back, Amazon started making it possible to self-publish books. I didn’t have any books at that time, but I had about 10 scripts. And to me, a script is 120 page outline, because that’s the average length of a script. So I would just, and that’s why all my books are different genres, because I was writing scripts just to break into Hollywood or whatever.
So I go everywhere from a true life story to horror to whatever, war. And I just converted all my scripts into books, which was easy. And the Pershing one, I wrote a screenplay for what I hoped would be a five-part mini-series. So that was a big script. That’s why Pershing is the most massive book that I have in my itinerary.
Shannon Grissom (17:30)
Well, you know, I’m thinking about ⁓ The War Elephant and that that’s just an incredibly creative way to approach Hannibal’s story. Can you speak to that?
John Chadwell (17:44)
In ⁓ last year, ⁓ a friend of mine, we did a documentary together and he was doing some writing for this small publisher ⁓ up in Gilroy who did children’s books. He calls me up one day and he says, have you ever written a children’s book? I said, well, I did one. It’s kind of a children’s book called The Kid and Wild Bill. There’s a kid in it. He’s a teenager. He says, ⁓
This publisher’s looking for some children’s books because she’s trying to start a new imprint that’s featuring on young adult readers. I had read a very good biography about Hannibal. Stepping back a little bit, history has been one of my loves. I mean, started off with the Odyssey and started off with Greek.
mythology, but I really got interested in history. I read a lot of history over the years. A lot of it is in my stories. I had read Hannibal and I thought, wow, what an interesting guy. He was fascinating. I knew the name Hannibal. I knew he had some elephants, but that’s about all I knew about him. I pitched this story, Hannibal, from a kid’s perspective. That’s all I had.
This is where the scary way my mind works, because I sat down and you know how you used to say, when you’re looking up something, I’m going to Google it. Don’t Google anymore, you AI it. AI gives you a more precise answer to what you’re asking.
I just sat down and I said, right, I’m going to do a story about Hannibal. I kind of know the basic story and I used AI to research it, you know, when it took place and the timeframe and everything. And I said, all right, this is from a kid’s perspective. So it just so happens, my grand, one of my granddaughters is a psychologist, a child psychologist at a school and she deals with a lot of kids on the spectrum. So I thought,
let’s make this kid interesting. And so I knew a little bit about autism and the spectrum and everything else, but how would it be handled in 200 BC or whatever? So I just started making it up as I go. one of the books I read all the time is the Bible, so I’m interested in the Hebrews and the movements they did in that area and everything. So I’d ask AI. So would a guy in a Carthage necessarily
know or meet some a Hebrew you know trader or something and you know it gave me a whole how they traded back and forth and everything so ⁓ it just evolved by the day and and my only limitation from the publisher it couldn’t be more than 150 pages I thought well that’s that’s one chapter for me so
Shannon Grissom (20:45)
Hahaha
John Chadwell (20:47)
So, you know, I just made it up as I went. You know, I says, okay, let’s make this kid, he’s autistic, he’s in Carthage, which doesn’t even exist now. And he meets, I said, want him to on the way to Espanola, which is Spain now where the fight started off the second Punic war that Hannibal launched against Rome. They sailed over a thousand ships from Carthage to Spain.
and they had elephants and they had ships. I found out a lot by working on this book that I didn’t know before. I didn’t know that the Phoenicians who founded Carthage, they had ships with crews of like 5,000 people. ⁓ they carried 37 elephants to Spain. so, you know, and I just, I came up with this girl and I said, ⁓
her name, had named her Cleopatra, which confuses some people, but I’d also read a book about ⁓ Alexander the Great and his sister’s name was Cleopatra. So I said, it’s a common name. So I named her Cleopatra, made her a ⁓ warrior. And so it turned into an adventure novel. All these kids, they’re teenagers. I even asked the AI, said, how old would ⁓ a boy in this century be considered an adult?
They said 13. Perfect. Wow. So I said, my kids are teenagers. I mean, it starts when he’s just young because he meets this elephant and he’s deep into his autism and he won’t communicate. His father, who’s a trader and he uses elephants for hauling lumber and stuff, he introduces him to this elephant named Cirrus who is based on a real elephant. It was Hannibal’s personal elephant. And so this kid and Cirrus meet
And the elephant brings the boy out and they developed this friendship over the over the years. And by the time he’s a teenager, he gets recruited into Hannibal’s army. Him and his elephant go off to Spain and up into the Alps and everything. And the challenge was I had to keep this kid young because I couldn’t go into his adulthood. So I had to find a natural point in the Second Tunic War.
that the boy and his elephant could escape and get back to Carthage. There was actually an opportunity, historically. The book is historically pretty accurate. My characters, they’re all teenagers. I’m thinking, ⁓ movie, someday. I got it done in about two weeks.
and it took longer for it to come out than it took me to write it. And I used AI to create artwork for it and ⁓ for the cover. And the only thing about AI art, my wife says I’m cheating when I use the artwork, but I use the AI art for my books now.
So the book is out there, it’s been out there for over a year now, along with my, I got nine books now, and I self-promote all the time, and that’s my life.
Shannon Grissom (24:09)
That’s great. Speaking of self promote, we’re going to take a quick break. And now for a wee break. Is Made to Make podcast brightening your day like finding unexpected money in your coat pocket? Then help keep the episodes coming. Head on over to wearemadetomake.com. There you can share the show, contribute financially, or simply help spread the word.
Every bit of support keeps these conversations going and your inspiration flowing. That’s WeAreMadeToMake.com. Now let’s get back to the show. After 50 years of journalism, creative projects, 50 plus years, what keeps your creative fire lit? Because you’re still producing, you’re still on fire.
What keeps you going?
John Chadwell (25:07)
⁓
Fear of death, I guess. ⁓ When I got this book deal, the deal for The War Elephant was a three-book deal. The War Elephant, the publisher’s still trying to do stuff with it. I haven’t given her a second book yet. I had been working at BonitoLink.
Shannon Grissom (25:14)
You
John Chadwell (25:34)
which is a local online news organization in San Benito County. I’m a ⁓ reporter there. I was an investigative reporter, a feature reporter. I wrote anything they needed. And I left two years ago because of this book. I thought, okay, I’m on my path to stardom. Didn’t happen. I got the book out, but all of sudden I’m in my seventies, sitting around doing gardening.
trying to figure out how to keep myself busy and I’m going nuts. And I said, I got to keep my mind going. So I went back and almost begged for BenitoLink to take me back. It wasn’t much of a beg because they like me. So I got back on and now I’m focusing on agriculture and energy, but I’ll write anything they assign to me. So really the…
I needed the journalism just to keep the brain going and to stay sharp. I keep worrying about there’s going to be some big holes up there like Swiss cheese in the brain as I get older, but maybe this will head that off for a few more years. Journalism is my life now. Again.
Shannon Grissom (26:51)
Well, and Bonito Link is a really good publication. I’ve enjoyed that for many years. So good place to be. So for someone who feels like they’re made to make, made to create, but they’re just not sure where to start or don’t think they’re good enough, what advice would you give them?
John Chadwell (27:11)
Well, that interest has to be there because, well, for me, the focus is writing. If you’re not interested in writing, I mean, you might try to be an actor or some other form, know, artist or whatever, but for somebody who wants to write, you have to have that fire that you want to write. And writing for me has
It’s a lifelong occupation no matter where it is, whether I’m writing scripts or books or news stories or copywriting for an advertising agency or doing press releases for a company. It all involves writing and it’s a skill that you can hone to almost any occupation and say like you want to work in public affairs or public relations or some other ⁓ skill that you need to be a writer.
So that’s the core that you have to master first. can’t just, I don’t know, with AI nowadays, people cheat. mean, there are people who write books solely with using AI. They let AI write the book. I’ve seen it happen. ⁓
You just have to know what you want. I mean, I didn’t know what I wanted until I was in my late 20s and I just got into broadcasting. It sort of kind of happened. ⁓ I was working at the California Credit Union for a couple of years and my stepfather had been a disc jockey in Oregon.
and i got i got a peek at that well you know so many years later i thought there was an organization called columbia school broadcasting at that time i don’t even know i don’t even know if it’s still around it was a correspondence course so i had a tape recorder and i’d go out my garage and it’s in the area you subscribe to it and then they give you scripts and stuff so i went out in my garage and i set up a little studio and everything and i started making scripts or a broadcast scripts
And he starts sending those out to radio stations. And that’s what I did. And then I just got the job at KONG and Visalia. it just went from there. mean, because I was, the disc jockey part didn’t get me into writing. Farm news reporting got me into writing. So I mean, what a way to go. ⁓ So I was reporting on farm news.
what and i’m just thinking about it was strange under again for benito i have a circle of wagons ⁓
Shannon Grissom (29:59)
You’ve come full circle.
Wow, what an amazing career you’ve had and continue to have. Do you have any parting words for those who are listening on staying sharp with your creativity?
John Chadwell (30:18)
Well, I’m a, I don’t know what you call me, a fatalist. You’re not dead till you’re dead. even, you know, I’m, I’ll be 80 this year. And so if somebody’s 60, they’re a kid to me. So it’s really, until you pass, it’s never too late to continue with a dream you might’ve had 20, 30 years before. think, boy, I always wanted to write poetry.
Or I always wanted to do this. Do it. If you’re retired or you’re getting up there in years and you’re like, what am I going to do with my life? can only RV so much or I can’t afford to RV. Gardening is, how much more plants can I plant? So if you want to write or you want to do some other form of art, like watercolors or what you do, ⁓ just do it.
You’re the only person stopping you. That’s my advice. ⁓
Shannon Grissom (31:22)
Great advice. Wow, well thanks for being here, John.
John Chadwell (31:27)
My pleasure.
Shannon Grissom (31:29)
Thanks to everybody for joining us again for another episode of Made to Make, because we are all made to make. Please make sure to like, subscribe, and share so that I can create more great episodes. We’ll see you next time. That’s a wrap.