I’ve been asked many times how I develop a story, where do my characters come from, and do I know where a story is taking me when I begin writing? The answers are simple: I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. Now you’re thinking I’m either a bonehead, or I’m putting you on.
Truth: my ideas come from life. I’ll see something interesting in the news, read about an intriguing thing, remember someone I’ve known, come up with a title, and suddenly, I’m thinking, thinking, thinking. My novel You Can’t Tell by Looking was inspired by a news story about honor killing, and suddenly I was researching and thinking, “What would happen if an ordinary Christian teen fell in love with a Muslim?” Or the death of a dear friend made me wonder “what if?” What if he and I had been lovers—a naïve ordinary teen actor and a radical Hippie? And suddenly my 1960s novel All You Need Is Love was born. And one day, when I was telling my writer’s group that I had had thirteen therapists in my life, it dawned on me that that would be an enticing title, and my first novel Thirteen Therapists was born.
From those whisps of inspiration, entire novels were born. But unlike many writers, including the very talented ones who people the writer’s group I latched onto, I don’t outline. I can’t imagine plotting each and every step of a story, even if I know that writers don’t always follow those outlines when they begin to draft their novels. For me, trying to plot an involved story is sheer torture. I can’t imagine the ideas floating around in my head being chained to Point A and Point B.
So how do I do it? I take the inspiration, be it title, plot point, setting, character idea, and I think. Oh, I think. Yes, I think. Sometimes it is weeks before I’m ready to start writing. All that thinking is not planning some intricate story. It is pre-planning what might happen, how a story might begin, what might happen in the middle of it all, or where it could end. Along the way, I realize I don’t know enough about something to write that beginning or middle or end. Then I read, read, read. I look for articles and books, and I take notes.
Finally, when I am so full of it all, I sit down at the keyboard. What is “it”? Good question. Sometimes I don’t even know. I only know that my mind is so full that it is time to try to craft a story. I am bursting with ideas, facts, kernels of descriptions, a title that needs to be attached to a story. And I must write. That’s the only way I can describe it. It becomes a need.
I wish I could say I’m the good little writer who is told “a writer a must write,” and thus he writes every single day. I can’t do it. Maybe if I had contracts, deadlines, and a family to feed from the proceeds of my writing, I would write every day. But I’m lucky enough to have an income other than from writing, so I write when I feel that I have to, to purge everything I’ve been collecting in my brain for weeks and sometimes months.
Then my fingers do the writing. What does that mean? I start and things pop into my brain from all that planning, and they begin to tie themselves together with other things and suddenly, I’m creating a story. I’m fleshing out the characters I’ve come to know only briefly. I’m letting them do what they need to do to get to the next brain burst I have awaiting them. The getting there is the fun part, for sometimes I’m amazed. Things just come from my fingers as they type. I’m really not trying to paint a picture of some writing wunderkind. I’m just an ordinary guy. But I kid you not. I can read my previous novels and have no idea where some things in them came from. It’s like someone else must have written those things. Yes, I know I created them from the first rung of the ladder to the last, but between those rungs, I find little things I don’t remember even thinking of putting into my stories.
Like many writers, my novels are filled with parts of my own life, Anyone who went to high school with me will see “me” in All You Need Is Love. Friends who have been tortured with my vacation slides will recognize the journey in Titanic Summer. Those who know my love for TV sitcoms will know where I got the “stuff” for Heartthrob. And everyone who knows even a tiny bit of me knows why I dwell on the theater in Colors, and Special Effect. It’s possible that few know my fascination with religions, but reading The Book of Ethan, An Angry God, and You Can’t Tell by Looking all explore the quirks of religion. My writing is me. My life inspires me, and I think that the avid reader I am is the reason my fingers come up with things that amaze me. And lest you think I’m bragging, I mean the word amaze in the sense that I’m continually baffled by what I come up with.
I’m very proud of Bud, my latest novel, because it explores the worlds of transgenders and ballet, two topics I’ve never thought much about until I had a burst of enthusiasm watching The Nutcracker one Christmas. Suddenly, I was thinking, “what if the Sugar Plum Fairy had begun life as a biological male?” And the writing engine started up and, at least three years later, Bud was fully formed. From where, again, who knows?
I’m a writer. And hey, writers write. Whether it’s completely pre-planned, dictated by a deadline, or just inspired by so much inside that it has to come out, it’s what we do. Write.
And hope that readers enjoy the words on our pages.
Book Title: Bud
Author: Russell J. Sanders
Publisher: JMS Books
Cover Artist: Written Ink Designs
Release Date: December 1, 2024
Pairing: Transgender MF love story
Tense/POV: First person/past tense
Genres: Contemporary interracial new adult romance
Tropes: Transgender love story
Themes: Transgender sexual awakening, acceptance of self and others
Heat Rating: No sexual content
Length: 65 000 words/336 pages
It is a standalone book and does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links
JMS Books | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Blurb
Suddenly homeless, young dancer Shelly Sheridan, heartbroken at Christmas, is taken in by an uncle Shelly has never met and didn’t know existed. The burly ex-Marine uncle and his husband welcome Shelly with a shower of love and acceptance. Their friend Estrella, a retired ballet star, is enraptured by Shelly’s dancing.
Shelly makes a new friend the first day of school in this strange place but isn’t happy, feeling out of place and very different from the other boys. The new friend eventually suggests something Shelly didn’t even know was possible. Could Shelly be transgender?
When Shelly embraces this new idea, problems immediately arise. His former nanny doesn’t approve, and the trustee of his mother’s estate fights Shelly’s newly formed decisions.
With his new family’s unconditional love, Shelly hopes all will be well. It’s Christmas once again, and it will be a merry one if Shelly’s problems go away, and Christmas works its magic.
We barely got through the front door before Greta scooped me into her arms.
I finally pulled away so I could look Greta in the eyes. I was gonna tell her to back off. I’d had enough of whatever she was doing — loving, laughing, crying, whatever. I had to get upstairs to text Mimi. I was gonna give her an earful for ruining our special time. But I saw the deepest heartache in Greta’s eyes, deeper than I’ve ever seen in anyone’s.
“I’m so sorry, Liebchen. She loved you so much. You were her treasure.” And then she thrust something into my hand. “Keep this. Keep it safe. She would want you to have it.”
I opened my fingers, and there was the ballerina necklace. Why are you giving me my mother’s necklace? And what is all this you’re saying?
And then I heard the booming voice. Unmistakable. My mother’s lawyer. Mr. Stern. Standing in the arch leading to our living room. Commanding the world in his dark gray three-piece suit. He musta had a closet full of those suits. He never dressed any other way.
Why is he here?
Looking over half-glasses, he ordered, “Come here, son.”
I’m not your son.
He held out his hand, his fingers gesturing I should follow him. His face was stern, like his name, not a trace of a smile. Greta gave me a nudge in his direction. I followed him into the living room. He pointed toward the sofa. “Sit.”
Greta, right behind me, lowered me onto the soft sofa cushion. She sat next to me, closely — like she was protecting me. Shawn too, who I had forgotten was even there, followed and sat in the chair facing us. Mr. Stern towered in his dark suit, his grim face hovering. That face didn’t bother me. He always looked like that. Angry.
“Sheldon, I have some news for you,” he said. “I don’t know how to say this, but I’ve always felt bad news is like a Band-Aid. Yank it off, and it doesn’t hurt as much. So I’m just going to say it.” He paused — a long time.
What is all this yank it off stuff, if he isn’t going to tell me? It can’t be as bad as he makes out. My mother probably is going to be gone longer than the two days Greta said she’d promised.
“Son, your mother’s car slid out of control tonight. She was going up the mountain, the road must have been more slippery than she planned for — who knows? — and she lost control.”
What? I yelped. “What hospital is she in? Take me there. Now.” The anger I wanted to text her was gone, replaced by worry.
Mr. Stern held his hands up, palms out. He patted the air like he was motioning for me to sit, although I hadn’t gotten up, and he was not even close enough to touch me. Greta put her arm around me. Even Shawn, I noticed, looked sad.
“Boy, I’m sorry. Your mother’s dead.”
Uh-uh. Not possible. Mimi’s in Park City. She’s at a client meeting.
“You hear me, son? Amelia died tonight.”
“No,” I lunged at him. “You’re crazy. My mother’s with her client. She made Shawn take me to the ballet. Very important meeting.” I beat his body with both fists until I suddenly stopped. I stood a moment. “Somebody’s told you a lie, Mr. Stern.”
Mr. Stern was playing a joke or he’d been given bad intel, as they say, or something, at least, was wrong, very wrong. My mother was not dead.
“Sheldon,” he said, “you’ve got to face it.” As he pushed me back to the sofa, he said, “Your mother, Amelia Sheridan, is gone.”
Greta leaned over and talked in my ear. “It’s true, Liebchen. I wish it weren’t, but it is.”
Greta would never play a trick on me like that. If she said it was true, it was.
I screamed. A blood-curdling wail. A scream that coulda woke the dead. Neighbors miles around musta heard it.
When I stopped, I stopped. I wasn’t wasting another tear because it wouldn’t bring my Mimi back. I remember thinking, “Lord –” I didn’t even believe in God “– please put my life back together. I’ll go to church. I’ll be the best little Mormon boy I can be. Just bring Mimi back to me.”
But God wasn’t listening.
A life spent in Texas led to a relocation adventure, and native Texas author Russell J. Sanders now resides in Las
Vegas, Nevada. He and his husband were compelled to set out for parts unknown, and that led them to Vegas, where they are supremely happy. But they don’t stay put. They’ve traveled the world, journeying to England, France, Italy, Japan, India, Bali, Jakarta, Toronto, Quebec City, Nova Scotia, Vancouver, Alaska, and Hawaii. And his novels are infused with locations as near as Ft. Worth, Chicago, Houston, and Las Vegas and as far away as Halifax. Who knows where he will lead readers next?
But one thing is known, there will be Mexican food. Russell’s on a quest to check out the Mexican cuisine in places both near and far. The not-so-good he has tried was in Wyoming; Jakarta, Indonesia, though, has some pretty decent enchiladas. The quest is to try, not to always be satisfied at what is found. So this Mexican food loving teacher, actor, director, singer, chef, and author loves adventure. And mostly, Russell’s goal is to tell the world, through his writing, that we are all put on this earth to love one
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