Cheryl Mckay with Stone Impact Media

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: Welcome to Fearless Formula. I’m Business RadioX, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. I’m your host, Sharon Cline. This is a surprise Tuesday version, which is usually on Friday, but I love mixing things up a little bit. Still getting used to my new intro, which I’ve had for maybe like three months and I’m still like it’s new! Anyhow, I’m so happy to have in the studio today the Chief Creative officer, writer and the creative force behind this, a TV series called These Stones. So lucky that this woman lives in Woodstock and can come into the studio and chit chat with us today. Her name is Cheryl McKay. Price. Welcome to the studio.

Cheryl McKay: Well, thanks for having me today, Sharon.

Sharon Cline: I’m so happy to chat with you. Interestingly, I love your story because you used to live in Los Angeles, where I always think of, you know, the Mecca of TV and and movies. And then you come here to Woodstock, which is like the little baby version of it. And you found some really great success here. Yeah.

Cheryl McKay: Well, when I was training to be a screenwriter back in like around 1999, I asked all those teachers, do I need to live in Los Angeles to do this? And at the time they were all like, yes, you do. You have to get known and break in and get contacts. And so I packed up my stuff from Charlotte, North Carolina, and I moved there, and I did live there for 15 years. And I do think they were right that at that time it was important. But the great thing is it didn’t stay important and that once I had other successes, like on other movies that had been made and released in theaters, it didn’t matter anymore where I lived because all of my jobs, ironically, were from other states like, I don’t think I hardly ever worked for a California client until I moved here.

Sharon Cline: Oh, funny.

Cheryl McKay: So here in Georgia. So it was just kind of funny. That. And also when I moved to California, my first job was from North Carolina, where I had just left. And so it’s like it kind of just shows you that when the job is right for you, that it’s going to follow you no matter where you are.

Sharon Cline: It is very interesting. I always think about this with even the voiceover world. It’s who you know. It’s the contacts you make and the networking that you do. It’s it’s the person to person as opposed to just a name. So I’m wondering if that’s really what kind of impacted your your success. It’s not just having gone out there to, um, you know, be successful in your own way in movies, but meeting the right people to even bring you back this way. Yeah.

Cheryl McKay: Yeah. Well, our move here was driven. Not it had nothing to do with the industry in the sense that we were living in California. Like, I got married, um, four years before we moved here, and we realized we weren’t seeing our family. They were in North Carolina still, and I was like, I don’t think it’s okay to see everybody once a year now. And so we thought, well, let’s get closer. But we don’t want to live in Charlotte because at the time there was not a lot of production there. And we had, of course, been hearing about this place called Little Hollywood, as you alluded to earlier, which isn’t so little anymore. Um, and we were like, well, why don’t we at least move where things are happening? Even though I wouldn’t say my so-called success here has anything to do with here so much as it’s when the doors opened, I said, hey, I want to make this TV show here. And so that was partly driven by me already living here and knowing I love the place. And then because I did have a part in producing the show, I had a say and I was able to persuade them by showing them pictures of how gorgeous it is here in Cherokee County, Georgia.

Sharon Cline: What I love about Cherokee County in general is that there’s there’s just such a diverse landscape. You can feel like you’re part of the city if you want, or you can feel like you’re in the mountains and you can be by a river, and it’s just you kind of get a lot of all of it.

Cheryl McKay: That’s why we picked up here rather than like down by Trilith Studios, where it was Pinewood at the time, because I’m like, I’m not going to be working on Marvel movies or studio movies. I’m going to work on independent stuff, so why not go where it’s already gorgeous and where this landscape is so varied. And I mean, I probably have 10,000 location photos just in this area. Every where I go, I’m like, oh, this is another location. I want to put that in a movie or that in a TV show one day because it’s gorgeous or cute or unique.

Sharon Cline: So you get to almost your your pre-scouting. Yes, yes, yes.

Cheryl McKay: And then sometimes I’m like, I don’t know when I’m going to work something in, but then I find a way to do so. Like I’d say my favorite example of that is Circle of Friends, the local cafe that hires adults with developmental disabilities. I told them two years ago I was like, before we had shot. I mean, I’m like, hey, I want to put this in a project one day. And then sure enough, when these stones came up, I made one episode about that outreach.

Sharon Cline: Oh, I love it. Well, I wanted to go back a little bit to when I know you have been since I want to say 97 is when you did your first screenwriting. When? When did you know you really wanted to get into this industry? Had you always been creative?

Cheryl McKay: Yes. Well, my aunt will joke that I was always writing as a five year old on my grandmother’s roof. And so I had this. I had a book like. I mean, now today you just call it a journal, but it was called the Next to Nothing book. And I would write stories and I would draw pictures, even though I’m terrible at drawing. And so also I was writing things that we could act out for our neighbors, and I put on little plays and force everybody in the neighborhood to sit on the grass, and we’d act things out, partly because I had an interest in acting as well as writing. And then I went to college for theater. However, my teachers were all telling me, you are not a good enough actress to chase this, and you’re really good behind the scenes. And I always try to joke that I’m like, I hope that wasn’t a knock on what I look like to say, get behind the camera. And. But they were right. And at the time I thought I would one day leave and prove them wrong. But it was such a good I call it my best rejection, a God redirection of my life into what I was really meant to do. And now you couldn’t pay me enough to become an actress. Like I like doing little teeny parts in my own shows, but I would much rather be alone behind a computer and not with anybody. And I like to act out the characters at my computer when I. If I make myself laugh and myself cry as I’m working on them, I think that’s where the acting has come in really handy.

Sharon Cline: You can identify with those emotions so easily. Yeah. Why wouldn’t you want to be an actress these days?

Cheryl McKay: Because I look at what we put these people through and it’s like take after take after take because you need all the angles. And can you cry again? Oh, I know you just spent the past hour crying, but could you keep crying? And that was actually the part that I was the worst at. It was I could cry alone in my room in front of the mirror doing a monologue. But you put me on a stage or in front of a camera and I would freeze up. I would be nervous, and it’s just like I could never really tap into the way that actors need to be able to be vulnerable in front of other people. Like sometimes a crew of 50 people. And so knowing that I wasn’t good at that was just I didn’t want a life of being nervous all the time.

Sharon Cline: Yeah, I get that. Yeah. So. Well, it’s interesting too. It’s like, I love how you say that. You embraced a different path. Like you didn’t fight it. Maybe a little bit. But you really did embrace. You embraced where you believed you were meant to be and that you were really glad. There’s so many. Even myself. I’m like, this is where I think I should be. And I fight so hard to stay somewhere where I think I should be when it’s really not meant to be mine. Like a surrender you have. Like a surrender to it. Yeah.

Cheryl McKay: Well, and I can tell you, it’s. I’m much happier doing that. Like, honestly, I was that weird actress who never wanted to be in the spotlight. So it was like, please put me in the chorus role, give me a dance role, give me a singing role. But put me in the background and I liked being with other people in that way. I might have been more introverted then too. Um, but I never wanted the lead roles. I know, that’s that’s weird. Usually actors are always like, I want the lead.

Sharon Cline: Yeah.

Cheryl McKay: You know, but I would much rather have had a small role and I enjoyed doing my own, even if it’s no speaking lines. I like doing that on my own shows.

Sharon Cline: I love that you have had some major stars work with you. In 2007, you had a movie come out that had Brian Dennehy in it. Abigail Breslin? Yes, um.

Cheryl McKay: James Garner’s.

Sharon Cline: James Garner.

Cheryl McKay: It was his last movie. Oh.

Sharon Cline: You’re kidding.

Cheryl McKay: I know his daughter really wanted him to be able to do the sequel, but by then he’d had a stroke.

Sharon Cline: Oh my goodness, what was that like? How? Okay, first of all, when you found that you were going to be, you know, interacting with these people, what did that feel like to you?

Cheryl McKay: Well, it’s a little different when you are just the writer for hire. Like, so these stones was the first time I actually produced my own project, and I had a giant say in the casting, whereas in those other jobs it’s like, hey, take this book, what’s your take on it? Like, that’s what happened with Ultimate Gift. And quite a few writers auditioned on paper for the job And then eventually I got that job to do the adaptation. And then your your job is over. So you have nothing to do with the filming, the casting choices or anything interesting. And the you’re lucky if you’re a writer and you can get yourself invited to set, which I’ve been blessed that my producers and or directors have supported that. Um, the producer who hired me for the ultimate gift was the one who let me come for two weeks. And my other directors that I co-wrote scripts with, like for Indivisible and Extraordinary. They, of course, were very welcoming and they would always throw me in as extras as well. So I’d have my little mark on a scene. But you don’t have anything to do with the casting. So like James Garner, Brian Dennehy, Abigail Breslin, um, I didn’t actually meet James Garner.

Cheryl McKay: His scenes were all shot on one day, and I wasn’t there yet because I wasn’t able to come home to Charlotte was where it was filming, and it was for the. I was there for the final two weeks of five, and James Garner had already wrapped by then, but I wanted to be there for all of Abigail Breslin scenes, and that’s what I made it in town for, because that was my favorite part of the whole story, was because she was the heart of the movie for me. And so her and then the girl who played her mom. Turns out we had done plays together when we were teenagers, and when I found out she got cast, I’m like, what the heck? Like, I had nothing to do with that. It’s just it was such a random thing. We both were in Charlotte at the time, so. Oh, wow. And she had also moved to LA. So it was fun getting reunited with her on set because she hadn’t even noticed my name on the script. Oh, wow. Cause I guess actors don’t care. Yeah. Actually, who writes a project, you know. True.

Sharon Cline: It’s interesting. I haven’t really put that together in my head. How much a writer really isn’t included in the whole production part.

Cheryl McKay: A lot of times they’re shut out because they think writers are going to be too possessive of their words, and they’re just going to get mad if people try to change things. I mean, there’s other situations like television is a little different because it’s like directors are king and features, but writers are king in TV, and so they have a lot more control and a lot more say, and they will be on set a lot more often if you’re doing a television series. So because directors are more director for hire Usually, except in my case, I hired my favorite person ever to play me the director.

Sharon Cline: You know, but.

Cheryl McKay: Normally they’re right there. Director for hire. They just show up for an episode and they’re told what to do because they’re being handed a show that already exists.

Sharon Cline: Got it. What was it like to see the actors saying the words that you wrote or, you know, I know ultimately it was somebody else’s story, but you actually put into a screenplay?

Cheryl McKay: Yes. Well, it can be different with each one. Like some of them. You go and it’s very recognizable, and then there’s others and you go, I don’t remember that scene. And so it got added later, you know. And it really varies because as you know, film is a very collaborative medium and I don’t always see the scripts or I, and sometimes I don’t want to read them before, but I am happy to visit the sets and see how everything is coming together. And I’m just there basically to sit, watch, be quiet and eat craft services and have fun. But the difference was with the stones, we hardly changed a word before we filmed and everything just flowed and we didn’t have actors coming to us and saying, oh, I can’t say this line or this doesn’t fit my character or anything. I think they were all they had. They had meetings ahead of time with the director, which was unusual. They had 2 to 3 hours. Each actor she spent time with to talk through character, just to make sure there wasn’t anything we needed to change so that by the time they got on set, they were very prepared. And I think that’s why everything went as well as it did.

Sharon Cline: So let’s talk about these stones. Can you tell me the history of how this came to be?

Cheryl McKay: Well, I was going through a season in life where I was very irritated about never being able to produce any of my own work, and I was complaining to my buddy Jeannette Towne, who had never been a part of producing films either. Um, she had hired me to write something for her a few years ago, and we stayed friends. And when she asked me, well, what do you need in order to be able to produce your own stuff? And I said, well, I kind of need that structure of a production company and people who know how to raise money, because that’s something I’ve never had. And she had just retired from a big business in California. And she said, well, I would know I would be able to do that. So we ended up teaming up, forming Stone Impact Media, and she was very supportive in the whole way of like the content. Originally we were going to make my passion project. Never the Bride, which we had to put on hold in favor of. We’re in a Covid era and people weren’t going to theaters. And so when her pastor had written a play called These Stones, and a lot of that was like two person scenes where someone being helped by a Bible character through a problem that matches what they went through in the past. And then he expanded it into a book manuscript that I was given to read over. And she’s like, what do you see in this? Could we make a movie or whatever out of this? And I’m like, it’s a series.

Sharon Cline: You already knew.

Cheryl McKay: Yeah, I’m like, because there’s no shortage of Bible characters. You could pair with people with problems based on his original concept. And so, um, I said, well, let me blow it up into a show. And I created the whole family that goes through this drama together. And then the device of how this young girl, who’s played by Madeleine Carroll, is helping match the right Bible character to the people who need help. And so all of that was really fun. And I got to sit through and think of, well, I want to do six episodes for the first season because that’s commonly done in some of the streaming channels. And I was like, what are the six problems I want to tackle? And so I just got to brainstorm through that whole thing and then come up with, I did a show Bible first, which would show like the scope of the show if we did multiple seasons, and then from there did the proposals for all six scripts and then wrote them and my director would polish them off while I would move on to the next episode. And then I invited her to co-write the finale with me, because I had created all of these questions I didn’t know all the answers to yet, and I’m like, help me figure this out.

Sharon Cline: So can you kind of even believe when you think about it, it’s like, this is impacting who knows who in the whole world, but that it so much of it came through your brain and your creativity. Isn’t that kind of amazing?

Cheryl McKay: It is really fun. But also it’s I’m a Christian and I pray through everything that I write and I always like in this case, I’m like, God, what are the stories that people need to hear today? What are people grappling with today that’s going to be relatable? What’s also cool is that you can show it to people, and everyone’s going to get something different out of it. Someone might migrate toward episode two, while another really hit home for episode four. Episode four is one that I knew I wanted to write first. I knew it wasn’t the first episode, but it was the first story that I’ve always wanted to do. And it’s the one about a singer songwriter who is a cutter, who has low self-esteem because of promiscuity. And she’s in high school still, and that was one that I always wanted to do that story. But one of the most meaningful stories that I read online was a 70 year old who was impacted by that episode, big time, of her feeling like she’d been cutting herself emotionally her entire life for some mistakes she’d made that God had forgiven her for. And I would not have expected my teen episode about physical cutting.

Sharon Cline: Yes. Yeah. I never thought about that either.

Cheryl McKay: So it was really. That meant a lot to me. And that that’s the kind of thing that someone can walk away from this from by. But it’s going to be different for everybody.

Sharon Cline: And if I saw an episode, excuse me today, I may, you know, five years from now see that episode and be impacted differently as well. Yes. You know, depending on where, what season I’m in or what I’m experiencing.

Cheryl McKay: Right. Well, and we also wanted to and I was very thankful she gave me permission to do this because we took a chance on an episode by, um, what happens when you get a no. What happens when life doesn’t turn out the way you want? And we had to be careful that it didn’t come across as hopeless. But I was like, well, this is the episode that I needed to see when I was going through things in my life where I got to know. And I’m like, I find that encouraging because then I know I’m not alone. And that’s the tagline on our poster. And somewhere in every one of our episodes, we have that line in some way to tell the person that’s dealing with something, you are not alone in this. And it’s like, you may think you’re unique in the sense that no one else is going through this trial, but that’s not true. And we don’t want people to feel like they’re dealing with things by themselves.

Sharon Cline: I like that you’re talking about universal truths about being a human, you know? Yes. It’s all of the different ways that we can relate to each other and that we’re more alike than we are different. And of course, no one’s exactly like me or exactly like you. But I know what it feels like to be, you know, despondent or to discouraged or in love, or all of those different emotions that just make us a whole human being. So it’s wonderful to know that we can all unite that way and connect that way.

Cheryl McKay: Yeah. Well, another really cool thing that we did with this is the Bible. Characters are not put up on pedestals every episode. They’re going to tell you what they did wrong because they’re not going to relate because of what they did right all the time. You know, most of the time, I mean, yes, there are definitely inspiring people in the Bible, but that’s like even on the episode about Sarah of Sarah and Abraham. She’s very upset to find out she’s not here to give a girl her happy ending that she got. She’s here as I marry him. Um, played by Karen Abercrombie. Says you’re here because of your messy middle. That’s what she’s going to relate to, not your happy ending. Because miracles are unique. They’re not the common. And so we all usually live in the common. Not that miracles can’t happen every day, but you know what I mean, I.

Sharon Cline: Do, I do. The main huge miracles that are life changing are not the are not. That’s that’s that would be news. Yes. That’s not what we deal with every day as I’m going to the grocery store and, you know, dealing with weather or whatever, and.

Cheryl McKay: I don’t want to imply to someone watching that, well, you’re going to get the same miracle that this person got and have them hold out hope for something that might not be for them. Like, I don’t want to hurt people that way either.

Sharon Cline: So there’s a sense of like moral responsibility that you have when you’re making these episodes.

Cheryl McKay: Yeah. And I understand that there’s going to be good things that do happen in these. I mean, it’s certainly is a series that has a lot of hope at different times. That’s kind of why we do this. But at the same time, I think there’s hope in knowing that when things don’t work out well, that that’s okay too. And how how do you respond to that and how do you move forward in life and not be so devastated that you want to give up on life?

Sharon Cline: Gosh, it is so true and everyone is in a different stage. I get that, but just the notion of wanting your happy ending and my idea of a happy ending may be very different from whatever God’s idea of a happy ending would be. And I only have my human brain to really deal with and then, you know, just faith and hope. But fascinating to think that it doesn’t all mean that everything’s going to get tied up with this little ribbon. It is the human condition, you know. And how do you how do you persevere and have the strength and resilience to find whatever joy you can, even though it doesn’t look the way you want, right?

Cheryl McKay: I mean, we start off the entire show with the mom saying, if you’re watching me on this video, I’m gone. So you know that there’s a huge loss that this young girl has experienced. Um, but her mother didn’t leave those videos to leave her hopeless.

Sharon Cline: Oh, wow. So you had, um, obviously you had gotten the funding, got the cast, made these episodes. How did you find your way to having them be on a network?

Cheryl McKay: Well, that was a lot of work, because when you. The good part about making them independently is we got to make the show that we wanted. And so and we also wanted to prove we could make the show we wanted so that we could set the tone for what it should be, so that if in the future to do future episodes, we have other partners come to the table, there’s at least a template that we’re going to be trying to go by of what we had established, including people we had already cast, or the style of how we handle biblical content. Got it. And also in hopes to keep it in Georgia. That would be the other thing, because.

Sharon Cline: Look how beautiful it is here.

Cheryl McKay: Yeah. Yeah. It would be hard to move and duplicate that beautiful farm property that we use, among other places. But to answer your question, um, when after we finish post-production, it took about a year of going to different conferences, to pitch fests, to places where there were distributors seeking content and meeting with all of those people and meeting with them again at the next conference longer. Like sometimes you do those little speed dating pitch fests where you get like five minutes to show a trailer talk. Hi, what’s your name and and what do you like? Like, I mean, it’s just kind of funny how that works in doing go to the next table. And so it’s a lot of collecting of info. And then when we went to the next one, I was able to reach out to the ones that had interest and say, can we have a half hour meeting? Not at a pitch fest. Yeah. And then we met with all of those key people again. Um, and then from there it’s just becomes the how do you pick the best partner? Um, at least for the start. And what we felt very comfortable going with up Faith and family, which is the streaming part of Up television. Like they have a cable station called up TV. And one of the things I loved about them is they believed in us. They loved us. They weren’t going to chop up our show. They were just going to put it on their streaming service, and if we gave them a window of exclusivity, then that also came with marketing push. And they did a really good job getting us an audience. And just like even just ads and you could see people interacting with that, saying they’d seen episodes, they wanted more. Lots of complaints that season two is already out.

Sharon Cline: Are you serious?

Cheryl McKay: No pressure. I don’t know. Like. Oh, okay. Because to them it’s new. And I’m like, yeah. To us it’s like, okay, we better hurry up and get started. Um, and so but the nice thing is, I mean, you know, talking through with them of how well it’s done, they knew by episode three that it was a hit with their audience. And so we’re furthering the conversation of expanding with them. So we’ll see how all of that plays out. But my hope is that we’ll be able to continue.

Sharon Cline: Did you know when you were making it? Did you just have that feeling of, oh, we’re on to something big? Do you know that feeling? Yes.

Cheryl McKay: Um. It is. And what’s really. This is such a strange way to describe this. There’s the part of like some of us knew that you could tell some people working with us could not tell. And it’s partly because and I kind of tried to look at it from the point of view of like, let’s say you have a production assistant who’s there to help you, and they don’t see the scripts. They’re just watching these little snippets of scenes and going, what the heck are these people doing? Like day two, we’re shooting Sara’s reveal scene in front of like, first she’s in normal clothes and talking with her accent or whatever. Then you put a green screen behind her and all of a sudden she’s in biblical garb. And then I remember hearing behind the scenes, they were like, what are we making? Like, this seems so weird. And then so somebody slipped them the first two episodes of the script and said, you need to understand what we’re making. And when they read them, they were like, oh. And I thought, oh, I guess that would be weird if you hadn’t read the script and you’re watching it because you shoot out of order. And we’re in the middle of episode three on day two and they’re like, what is this? You know, and then we’ve gotten notes from people after the fact going, I had no idea we were making a show this good while we were making it. Oh, and I’m like, well, we did. Yeah, we had the whole picture, though. I mean, when you’re the writer and the director and the producers, you know, but it’s been nice to get those after the fact responses of people realizing that we really were making something special.

Sharon Cline: Do you ever kind of look back at your path to where you are now, and can see the different parts of you that learn different things that all lent so well to this, to this project?

Cheryl McKay: Well, I definitely think with every project I might grow as a writer, but I also never want to stop learning. And so I still take classes, I teach them and I take them. But also I think what helps is relationship, because there’s people that were on this show that I knew from other productions that I don’t know how I would have gotten them because you’re doing like a lower budget production. They’re used to working on higher budget productions, but they happen to like me enough to read the script. And they loved the script and said, I’m in. And so, like I worked with Karen Abercrombie, who’s most famous for playing Miss Clara on War Room and then Cameron Arnett, who has just finished The Forge, which was perfect timing for us because he’s like the lead in that. And it came out in August and we came out in September. But he’s also a very good friend of ours. He and his wife BJ, and then Madeleine Carroll had worked with me on indivisible, and she impressed my husband and I so much backstage that I was like, I have to work with her again. And so when this came up, I’m like, I’m going to write something that she’s right for and then see if she’ll come play. Um, and so it’s that’s what has helped me with the past. And because we pre-cast a lot of our cast before we ever had our casting director put people up in the, in the auditions and then the callbacks, I think eventually we used relationships to bring in about 19 of our 27 actors, and then the other 8 or 9 we found through casting, which we found some gems through casting. So I’m very glad that we were able to do that as well.

Sharon Cline: Not everybody can say that they were able to cast or even have a series written for them to, you know. Yeah.

Cheryl McKay: Well, you know, it was absolutely awesome about that. And this is one of those little behind the scenes miracles to me, which was that when Madeline was doing a talk show, um, doing PR for I Can Only imagine a lady brought her backstage after and prayed over her and she said, when you turn 26, someone’s going to come to you and say, they wrote a project for you. And so when she read the script, I say those words to her and she’s like, I’m 26. She knew this was the project. No, which helped because she had a better offer at the same dates.

Sharon Cline: Really?

Cheryl McKay: And so it really helped her say, yes, thank God. And she’s so good. Like, that girl can just act. And then she’s funny because she’ll be bawling her eyes out and then like, oh, where’s the snack? Like. And she looks away from the camera and she’s totally back to normal being as silly buddy, you know.

Sharon Cline: What has surprised you the most about this series?

Cheryl McKay: Well, it still makes me cry. Like, I can watch it and remove myself and forget that I’ve seen it a hundred times, you know, and I’m still moved by what they did. I think we were. We were blessed with such a tremendous cast that really knew how to dig deep but not overact. And I think when when actors know how to pull back, it actually brings out more emotion from your audience because they’re not over doing it. And the way that they all just cared about it as we were going through it. And I mean, one of my favorites is in episode four, The Girl that was the cutter who also wrote the song that’s in the episode. She did so much research about people who were cutters. She interviewed them. She put out an ad at her her university and said, I want to talk to people who are through it. She said she didn’t want to talk to anyone who was still in it, because she didn’t want to be a cause of, um, triggers for them. But she wanted to talk to people who had healed so that she could play the role with as much authenticity as possible.

Sharon Cline: Wow. Her heart was in it, and I’m sure it comes across. Yeah. It does.

Cheryl McKay: Yeah. It does.

Sharon Cline: So now that you have had success with this, and now that you know that there’ll be another like season two, we hope it’ll be season two.

Cheryl McKay: We’re not quite to the yes yet, but you’re.

Sharon Cline: Getting there, right? You you had when we had spoken on the phone, you were talking about how you had all these different people that you’re like speaking with executives. And what is it like to be in that world where, you know, you have this amazing, amazing product and that you’re protective of? Um, what is it like to have it out there in, in the world and have to deal with? Not I don’t know if deal with people, but interact with people who are potentially wanting their part of it as well.

Cheryl McKay: Well, I know we all, like I said before, we know that film is collaborative and you can’t do this without other people. You just have to be discerning over who the right partners are and what are their motives. And do they really see the value in your show so that they’re not necessarily in it to try to make it their own for the sake of making it their own? I love when people come to the table with ideas that aren’t mine. If they’re good and they serve the project, so that’s okay. And that can come from any crew member, no matter. I mean, it can come from a grip if they have a great idea, you know? Um, but when you it’s like you have to be careful what kind of contracts you sign and make sure that they really do believe in your vision. I’ve had that problem a lot on Never the Bride, and it’s why I’ve said no to so many offers to make it.

Sharon Cline: Let’s talk about Never the Bride, if you don’t mind, for context of of listeners.

Cheryl McKay: Well, you know how well, that’s also one of my stories. Like mine, like me as a story when I was single, annoyed at God for, as I call it, being asleep on the job of writing my love story. And then within the context of this romantic comedy, he shows up to face the charges and says, I can’t write your love story for you if you don’t surrender your pen, the one you clutch and write all of the love story the way you want your love story to go. So it’s kind of like a tug of war story between a girl and God. And really, it’s about her getting to know that her love relationship with a human is not the most important thing, but that doesn’t mean God doesn’t care about that part of her heart. But the challenge that we’ve run into with that one is, I won’t say what the twist is, but there’s a huge twist of what God is up to, because God is not predictable and the script is not predictable. And it’s not because I’m a good writer. It’s because he gave me a brilliant idea.

Sharon Cline: And I love that you’re not even taking credit.

Cheryl McKay: I was shocked when I asked him a question and he gave me an answer. Doesn’t happen that often. But when he did and I’m like, no one is going to guess that. And we just did a table read for it that I just won from winning Best Screenplay at the Faith and Film Festival, and they cast with a lot of very recognizable people to do this table read for me. And you could see on their faces the ones that only read their parts, that they had no idea that the twist was coming. The challenge is like even our really early days, we were at a studio that wanted to make it. They brought us to a big agency for packaging, and the first thing they say is, let’s make God an old woman.

Sharon Cline: Oh.

Cheryl McKay: As soon as you do that, the twist is gone. And so it’s like they’re all like, we love this. We love this. It’s like the sixth sense. No one’s going to see the ending coming. Everyone’s going to have to see the movie twice. But that would have wrecked it. And then the next one, one of them twice, three years apart, the same studio said they love the script, but they said, but will you diminish God’s role? Oh no kidding, I said, no. And when they came back three years later, they said, is that we can’t stop thinking about it as it’s still available. And I’m like, are your notes still the same? And it was end of conversation, really. And it’s not me being a bratty writer. It’s that’s you are going to ruin the integrity of that story if you don’t preserve and protect how God has portrayed. So another group wanted to make him another old man or, you know, just. And I’m like, no, there is a certain way this one needs to be made, you know?

Sharon Cline: So you’re holding steady to what your vision is. Um, interesting how many people and companies want to change? Yeah, yeah.

Cheryl McKay: It’s like, take the thing they loved most and wreck it. I can’t tell you. I could tell you more of those stories on that same thing. And I’m like, no, I would rather not make it than have that happen to it.

Sharon Cline: Isn’t it nice to know you don’t have to? Yeah.

Cheryl McKay: I mean.

Sharon Cline: There’s something about that that’s just so pleasing to me that you don’t have to give compromise.

Cheryl McKay: Well, I mean, there’s times where you’re like, I could sure use the money. I could sure use another project. But that was the convo I was having with Jeanette that turned into these stones, because I said I was in the middle of yet another one of those. I won’t tell you what they told me to do to God, but they told me to do something really ridiculous to God. And I was telling her about it and I’m like, so yet again. And that was money on the table. And I’m like, I am not doing that. And so we that was when we were forming our company to make that. But I voluntarily set it aside and I said, I don’t think this is the right project for us to make. First, I don’t know if I’ll get to make that movie with this group, because I think we should be focused on season two of These Stones, naturally. And I want to. I love these stones. Um, but I felt like it was not the right time to make it in 20, like we started the company in 2021, you know. So and even now I’d be happy to make it for cable. I really don’t care. As long as we get to preserve the integrity of it and the messaging of it. And that is just that. God is madly in love with us.

Sharon Cline: Like.

Cheryl McKay: That. He cares. But he’s not going to compromise on being first in your life. Like, just.

Sharon Cline: Like you’re not going to compromise how it’s being made. You know, it sounds like it was like the correct me if I’m wrong, that the way that it came to you and the way that the story is, was a gift to you. And you don’t want to change that. Yeah. You know, or let anyone change that. Yeah.

Cheryl McKay: Well, and I had written it. I mean, I’ve had it 40 drafts. It’s not like I’m opposed to rewriting. Trust me, I’ve rewritten that thing over and over and over again. Um, but it’s like when it came to me, I was still single. I was still irritated. So it’s very relatable to people who have been through this journey of being single too long. And when I sold it to random House to be done as a novel with partnered with Rene Gutteridge, a writer who I really love, and we’ve done like six books together now. I was still single, and then I didn’t start dating my husband for a year after. So it turned out a lot of the stuff I wrote in that happened with me and him after I’d written it, and it was like, oh, I wrote my own life story without realizing.

Sharon Cline: No kidding.

Cheryl McKay: Yeah.

Sharon Cline: Like you made your own screenplay? Yes. Of real life? Yes. I can’t.

Cheryl McKay: Yeah. It was funny, um, of how that happened. So it’s it’s great, you know.

Sharon Cline: So you’ve also written several books, right? You mentioned. Do you want to talk about how all those happened or in a general sense.

Cheryl McKay: I, I wish I was a better novelist. And it’s one of those things I joke about when I’m when I’m ready to retire from the film industry. I want to just go be a novelist and self-publish and not care if anybody reads it or not. Um, I’m actually taking some novel writing classes right now, and it’s not because I’m about ready to retire. I just am bored and I want to do something creative. Yeah. And so while I’m waiting for that thing to break through with our season, but, um, I have some nonfiction books, some novelizations of scripts that I wrote first, that we turned into novels as well as some nonfiction. Like it’s in My Heart. Like, if I’ve gone through something difficult that I went through different phases of life, like the very first autobiography ever, it’s called Finally Fearless, and it was about my journey through panic disorder. And then finally the bride is Journey Through Singlehood. It’s kind of that nonfiction version of Never the Bride, but I didn’t actually publish them until I got married. And then the most recent, we wrote the devotional for These Stones because we’re hoping, like my director, Susan Rohrer, and I co-wrote it, hoping that people can just dig deeper into the episodes that we came up with and maybe form groups and start talking about things that we came up with a lot of discussion questions to go with each one.

Sharon Cline: I it’s funny how my mind works. I think I’ve gotten into like a commercialization of things so much, but I’m like, maybe they’ll be shirts and tote bags and things.

Cheryl McKay: To come.

Sharon Cline: Out. Are they really? Yes.

Cheryl McKay: It’s going to be on CafePress. We’re just waiting on the approval of the logo. Like we have to prove we own our own logo. And because we’re trying by Christmas, you know? Right. Oh, I want stuff for Christmas. I’m going to buy myself a few gifts.

Sharon Cline: Of my own. Yes.

Cheryl McKay: So the only thing we’re not doing yet are the stones, because those are very expensive to custom make for. Like in each season we have six new words will be introducing. And so even though we’ve had people ask about them, I’m like, we spent a couple hundred dollars on those for the show. I don’t see why people would want to order them.

Sharon Cline: Have you had to do any of your own marketing or like you said, it’s the production company has some thinking about things like there’s a book series that my daughter loved so much, and there was a and it hasn’t been made into a movie yet or anything, but it’s there’s a whole TikTok world about it and people and on Etsy they make products that are associated with this book series. And I’m thinking maybe.

Cheryl McKay: That’s where we got our stones was through an Etsy creator. Oh, wow. That’s interesting. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, Jeannette has done a lot of our social media posts. My husband did all the BTS videos, and so as much as he has time to edit is what comes out, we probably have more footage of BTS than we.

Sharon Cline: Do at the show. Like.

Cheryl McKay: I think the hard drive space is a lot, but we just don’t have the time and the and the manpower to put it all together. There’s some pieces he’d love to do. Sure, sure. But, uh. But yeah, but other than that, it’s the upside up. Actually, did these really sweet blogs to go with each episode, like there was a girl there that wrote them, not us. And that about look at the deeper meanings. And then she would point people to the book. But took one question from our devotional, um, for each episode. That’s actually how I saw the comment about the person who was touched by that fourth episode that was older. You know.

Sharon Cline: I don’t know why, but my brain loves understanding history. Put in a fictional characters like Titanic or, you know, any anything. I love history, but I get a little bogged down with facts. I like the imagined story, the Outlander, you know, because I get to kind of understand what it would be like in the 1700s in Scotland. You know, I never really would get that same feel or impact in my brain without having, like, the fiction part. So it’s it’s interesting to me to imagine, you know, I understand what the characters are, you know, and the different characters in the Bible, but to interact with them in a way that is so personal and relatable and human completely impacts differently, I think.

Cheryl McKay: Yeah. And our idea of that is we we have a disclaimer at the beginning of the show to say we’re not trying to say that this is still happening today. This is just a what if. But what we’re trying to show is that they are their stories are still applicable today. It’s just that we’re letting you hear from them rather than having to read. But what we’re hoping will happen is when someone sees an episode about Rahab, they’re going to be like, I want to know more about Rahab’s story. What can I can I read more? Um, you know, because and putting it in more like modern day language, like, I don’t know about you, but when I try to read the Bible, I have a very difficult time understanding it. My comprehension is not very good. I’m the same. And I mean, I may be a good writer, but I’m a terrible reader. And so, I mean, you know, the standardized tests, I would fail the reading and I’d do wonderful in the math. Go figure. Right. Writer.

Sharon Cline: And so.

Cheryl McKay: And so. It’s it’s so hard for me to just sit and focus, but I can watch. I love that we modernized it. We do get you a peek into what they might have looked like back then, during what we call the reveal moment. Oh, I gotcha. Kind of like touched by an Angel when they’re like, I can tell you I’m actually from Bible times.

Sharon Cline: Yeah.

Cheryl McKay: You know, it’s fun writing the jokes in there. Like saying you’re you look really young and, like, I’m a lot older than I look.

Sharon Cline: Yeah. Yeah.

Cheryl McKay: Because I’m really. I’m like, from 2000 years ago or 3000 years ago, depending on the person’s story. And it’s like an inside joke. The audience finds humor in, you know, um, but our hope is that people will want to dig deeper and learn more. And some people, we may only take a piece of their story as it applies to this episode, and we can use them again in a future season, sharing a different shade of like, think of David. We haven’t used him yet, but I’m like, my goodness, we could probably put him in ten episodes into all the different things that he has been through. And then there’s others who weren’t in long enough. And one is enough.

Sharon Cline: I like what you’re talking about is regarding like wisdom that is shared, um, from experience and how people from different parts of their lives, they can glean the wisdom and take it if they want it or not. Because that’s kind of what I like about this show, is I like people to come in, tell me what you’ve learned, tell me what you would do different. Tell me what you wish you had known before you got started following whatever dream you or yours was. So that someone who’s listening can understand that there are experiences that people have that maybe they have already problem solved. There’s a reason why. Maybe they’re not following their dream. Well, here’s an answer to why that may impact you and hopefully give someone encouragement, courage, um, inspiration to be able to do what they feel like they’re supposed to do while they’re here on this planet. And so that’s kind of why I like talking to you, because it through the pandemic in particular. I mean, so many people became voiceover artists and like did their own podcasts and things because they could be home, which is great. But what if there are I mean, just in Woodstock? What if there are a million writers who wish they could have their story put into a movie? And so I guess what I’m wondering is, what advice would you give to people who are in that mindset, where they wish they had the connections that you had, or if they got started without everything that you had put together, where would they go? Well.

Cheryl McKay: If someone even thinks they might have their own talent for that, my suggestion is learn as much as you can so that you can do it. Because the hardest part about this job is finding somebody to hire you to do it. And so or if you don’t think you’re qualified finding how can I fundraise for this? Find people who believe that my story should be told, and then going and finding the right writer for the project. And I do mean the right writer, not just me, because I happen to be here, the right person for that story. Because there are some times I’ll hear someone saying, hey, would you write this? And they only want it because of a credit, and I’ll look at it and go, I don’t really think my heart would be in this, you know? And so it could be a great story, but find the person that’s right for it, but also be willing to learn and put in the time. You know, like I, I don’t there was a time that I used to say I had written 40 scripts. By now it’s probably 80. Like, I don’t know, I’ve stopped counting. And it’s like I learned on a lot of those and a lot of them are crap. They’re in a drawer that I’ll never see again. Um, but even in an acting realm, like, kind of try to always be willing to practice. Like when I was so bored right out of grad school, I shot my portfolio script in Charlotte on weekends on a hi eight camera with $3,000 worth of equipment that I paid for, and I dragged the youth group at my church to be because it was a high school story.

Cheryl McKay: Even my husband, who was my friend at the time in the singles group, I made him pretend to be a high schooler in these scenes. Thank God it was long before we started dating. And so. But that led me to the ultimate gift, ironically. So you just never know. It’s like, go and do stuff instead of just sitting at home because there’s outlets, you can put stuff on YouTube. Something will catch the eye. And I don’t mean my show caught anyone’s eye because it’s it’s very bad, badly made and blurry now because of the quality of videotape back then. But the I was using a school that had a drama group. One of the girls in that class is Rick Aldridge’s daughter, who is the producer of Ultimate Gift. Oh, wow. She goes, my dad makes movies. You want to meet him? And I’m like, yes, I would love to meet your dad. And then he ended up hiring me to write kids shows like audio dramas with Frank Peretti. They’re called the wild and wacky, totally true Bible stories. I got that job. I think it was three days after I got to LA, even though I had been pitching for it and trying for it.

Cheryl McKay: It was funny to be like, I landed in LA and I have a writing job. Everybody liked that story, you know? And I’m like, well, there’s six months of pitching first, but it just happened to get greenlit. And so. But you just never know when doing something on your own, finding friends who believe in what you’re doing. That could be that stepping stone. I mean, I’m not a huge fan of making short films, I’ll be honest, because I don’t know how you make money that way, but if you do something that could be like the pilot for a web series, that makes more sense to me because it could have a future life to it. But the if unless it’s just a short, that’s a short version of a longer movie and it’s your pitch piece, like, um, like Angel Studios has what they call, um, torches and it could be a seven minute version and you have to it’s not a trailer. You have to make sample scenes. It’s a real one. So if you’re doing stuff like that, that can lead you someplace else, great. If it’s just a one off story, that’s ten minutes. I was never interested in trying that route, but a web series, even ten minute episodes, I know one that’s on a faith and family. That’s adorable. It’s a teen detective show that is a ten minute webisode, and they picked it up for up Faith and family.

Sharon Cline: Wow. That’s amazing.

Cheryl McKay: Yeah.

Sharon Cline: So I had another really good question for you, but I got all distracted. So sorry. This happens to me all the time because I don’t plan. I’m just like. It’s like a conversation with you and me. Yeah, that’s exactly what happens. Um, so, um, when we were talking about how you’ve obviously you pitched your series and you’ve, you’ve had it successful in its own way. You’ve also won a lot of awards through it. Can you talk about the awards that you’ve won? I mean, it’s like the list is really long. I was so impressed.

Cheryl McKay: Um, yeah. It’s funny, we we stopped using the individual laurels and decided to just make a one of that has the title, because then it just kind of gets laurel and.

Sharon Cline: Laurel and laurel.

Cheryl McKay: Like our, our beloved executive producer who’s kept up with the Stone Impact Media website. After a while, he’s like, this is just starting to look messy. And so our director is the one who made him the all encompassing 23 wins and 18 nominations now. Um, wow. And it’s it’s been very it’s been very awesome to see that the little show that almost no one could have ever heard of. I think that’s one of God’s vehicles to get us known. And I really feel like we had a lot of favor there. And our actors, like, I think Madeline has won four of those and one is a nomination, or she got bronze, I think, on one of them. And, um, so she’s been honored quite a few times. Karen Abercrombie and one of the more recent ones was at the Content Festival that that there was one of the only ones that nominated scripts like, I don’t know what it is about TV, but most of these festivals don’t do that. But that fourth episode I told you about, the teenager won best TV series because I use that as a sample and and the pilot. But they chose that one for best series, and they chose that one for best storytelling. Um, plus two of our actors that we had 13 nominations at that because they loved the girl who was a singer.

Cheryl McKay: So she is a nomination. So that’s why we have some on the nomination column, you know? But it’s neat because I like seeing other people honored as well for what they did for us. So I have a lot of actors who are like, thank you for honoring me because I did all of that. I researched all of the, um, the contests and tried to pick what were the ones that I thought would be helpful. And what helped was those conferences. When I told you that I sold, I was able to get the meetings to sell the show at conferences. Those are the same conferences where your nominee. Oh, wow. And so when you’re in there and you’re like, hi, I’m here this weekend. That’s the show that’s up for an award tomorrow night. And then they see you win or they see you get bronze, silver, gold. Whatever the case may be, it helps because then they hear, oh, well, they liked it too. And then credibility. Yeah. So it really did help us a lot. Um, one of our wins actually helped us snag, um, a foreign contract. So starting in April next year will be available internationally. And that person from that distributor was in my screening of episode three, where the girl gets a no.

Sharon Cline: So got, you know.

Cheryl McKay: So.

Sharon Cline: When you think about it, it has its own momentum. Right.

Cheryl McKay: Yeah, it did help us, I think, a lot. So it seemed a little bit like I was entering too many at first, and then I realized it was helping us a lot. So we’re almost done with that. Like, I have a handful that are left or that were in the nomination category that just haven’t been decided yet. So we’re actually going to NB, which is a very big conference in February, because the show is up for best series and one of my actresses is up. So we all just booked our trips. So we get to go out and mingle a little more, but that’ll be nice and easy because we don’t have to sell it anymore. It’s just so fun.

Sharon Cline: So what is next for you?

Cheryl McKay: Well, I certainly hope it will be future seasons. Um, and we also are trying to figure out how to make Never the Bride. Um, and then I teach for Regent University. That’s where I do most of my screenwriting teaching. And then we’re talking about collaborating on some projects. And so I don’t know what that’s going to be yet. What I wish I could break into is doing Christmas movies, too. Like, I would love that to be my side gig in between other jobs. So sometimes I talk to those players and I’m like, can you hire me to write a Christmas movie?

Sharon Cline: I’m sure you could write it.

Cheryl McKay: It’s hard, though, because a lot of those networks are like, no, we just want to see finished scripts and I don’t want to write a bunch of Christmas scripts. I have one, and it’s called O Little Town of Bethany. No.

Sharon Cline: Close enough. You never know. I mean, it certainly seems like the connections that you’re making and the ideas that you have are landing where they should. Yeah. Yes. How does that feel?

Cheryl McKay: Well, it’s good. It’s. But there’s a lot more downtime in between than I would like, you know, because especially like this being my first time of producing a show, the writing season ended in June of 2022, and then we were filming by September. And so then the producing side has taken me a little by surprise. How long the job lasts. It’s almost like the job that never ends. And then you’re also when you’re in, when you’re in a small production, you end up doing a bunch of jobs that you never really thought you were going to need to do, like fixing closed captions and.

Sharon Cline: Oh wow, you know.

Cheryl McKay: And mentoring my lovely nephew into helping us with our foreign dialog scripts because I’m like, I just can’t do this anymore. So thankfully, I have a generous executive producer who said, okay, hire your nephew to help with that, because it’s like taking speaker names of who’s talking every single line and adding it to the closed caption so they can translate those lines into another language for next year. So it’s 600 lines an episode.

Sharon Cline: Oh, no.

Cheryl McKay: I was like, I just don’t feel like doing that.

Sharon Cline: Yeah. So thankfully you can hire some family.

Cheryl McKay: Sometimes, yes. But a lot of the stuff, it’s like myself, the director and the executive producers and my husband have done it all like ourselves. After wrapping, we’ve had to do a lot of it ourselves.

Sharon Cline: I don’t know, there’s something about that, though, that feels so true. Like you believe in it so much that you’ll just do whatever is necessary and and you just want it to be good no matter what it takes.

Cheryl McKay: Yes. And that is definitely the hope, you know. So and we’ve had some really fun fans like I love this radio show. We got to do that. The guy who was connected to me because we won an award, and the lady from that festival said, interview her the week the show comes out. It turned into eight interviews on his show, half an hour shows, and it started with me and ended with me. And I had six actors in between. And he interviewed one, 1 or 2 people a week based on the episode because he just fell in love with the show, and he’s a guy and he’s like, you know what? He goes, I have more guy listeners that like your show than I hear from females, which we always thought it would be more of a female driven show. But and he’s like, and I’m sitting there on the couch and I’m crying with my wife. And um, anyway, so his name is Joe Inman. He’s great. So and then he’s been re-airing those episodes on Friday nights in syndication. Oh, wow. So I mean, he’s like, I want another season. So I’m going to spread the word. And I love that because it’s someone that I didn’t go after who believes in us and wants to help us succeed.

Sharon Cline: Lands where it’s supposed to. Yeah. So well, if anyone wanted to watch the series, where can they get. Where can they watch it?

Cheryl McKay: They can go right now on up Faith and Family.com and they can if you if they’re willing to sign up on a computer instead of like going Amazon Prime has an Up app and Roku has an up app, but the coupon code won’t work if you try it that way. So that’s why I’m telling you. But if you go on a laptop and you type in up faith and family.com, there will be a box for a coupon code and they could put in stones 30. So that’s spelling out in capital letters S t o n e s and then three zero. Okay. And they’ll get 30% off that first month. And all six episodes are already there. So they could just look up the name of our show These stones. And they can watch they can binge watch all six. For those who want to watch it fast, I say watch three a night. Like, don’t try to watch all six. It’s 3.5 hours. It is hard to stop watching once you hit them, but then if you start four, you’re not going to stop til you get to six, because there’s a big thing that continues from 4 to 6, okay? It makes it harder to stop.

Sharon Cline: Look at you trying to help us with our time management. Yeah, well.

Cheryl McKay: I want you to enjoy the ride. So, like, we there’s a lot of shows, like we just like to watch. We’re like, all right. Once a week, we’re not going to binge.

Sharon Cline: It’s hard. It’s discipline. Discipline. Yeah. And then if anyone wanted to get in touch with you specifically to talk about any of the things that you’re doing, how can they do that?

Cheryl McKay: Um, I have a writer page on Facebook. It’s called Cheryl McKay. Mckay. Um. And Cheryl c h e r y l. Um, because that’s my writing name. My married name is price, so that’s the difference. But they can write to me over that. Um, Facebook page. Um, I also have a website, Purple Pen Works.com. And then they can follow Stone impact Media.com. And we have a big site for the show that has like all bios on the actors and some of the awards they’ve won, their laurels are up there.

Sharon Cline: Oh, that’s so exciting. Yeah. Well, I want to thank you so much for taking some time out of your very busy world to come and talk with me here. Having me here? Sure. It’s been a pleasure. Um, and I’d love to have you come back as time goes on and things are growing and just learning about what your experiences have been as as it grows, what you wish you had known before you even got started writing all of these things. I really love that giving people an A normalcy for the the non-smooth road, the bumpy road, or the or the pivots that we all have to take. That doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong path. And I love the idea of having a real life example of that for and in a very big media way, not even just small, but lots of people can witness it and hopefully find encouragement for it. Yeah. So that’s.

Cheryl McKay: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me.

Sharon Cline: Sure. And thank you all for listening to Fearless Formula. I’m Business RadioX and again, this is Sharon Cline reminding you that with knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a good day.