I am so excited to introduce my readers to the author Steven Max Russo. I’m interviewing him today as well as giving away a copy of his book Thieves. First, here’s a bit about the book:
Esmeralda works for a housecleaning service during the day and as a restaurant hostess at night. Just out of high school, she is the sole support for her mother and two young siblings.
She has drive and ambition. What she doesn’t have is money.
She knows of a home in the upscale town of Mendham, NJ, that will be empty for more than a month. The rich people who live there go away the same time every year to spend time at their vacation home. Having cleaned the house, she also knows it contains a fair amount of cash and valuables.
Sitting with Ray, one of her co-workers one night, she casually mentions a “what if” scenario; Ray tells Skooley, a white trash drifter who recently moved to New Jersey from south Florida, and a plan is hatched.
It isn’t long before Esmeralda finds herself trapped by both circumstance and greed, forced to try and defend herself against one of her partners in crime, who she quickly discovers is far more dangerous than she ever thought possible.
So, I loved reading on your website how the idea for Thieves came about. Can you recount that for me?
Sure. The germ of the idea came to me in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I live in northern New Jersey, away from the coast, and around here we’re just not used to getting hurricanes. The damage was extensive with downed trees and power lines blocking the roads. We had the power out for over a week. Anyway, some friends of ours who live a few towns away were on vacation and they asked my wife and I to look in on their house. It took us over an hour to make what was normally about a ten-minute drive. I had to stop frequently to move trees and rubbish from the road. I had never seen anything like it. It felt like a war zone. When we got to the house, which is much like the home described in the book, I was struck by the thought of just how easy it would be for someone to break into the house. One night I just sat down in front of my computer and began typing. The very first line I wrote was “As a rule, Skooley did not like beaners.” I had no idea for a story at all, but that house just kept gnawing at the back of my brain and so I worked that into the opening scene and from there the story of Esmeralda and Ray and the deranged psychopath Lamar Skooley emerged.
I love those moments where an image won’t leave you – that’s always when the best ideas come about. You started out writing short stories until you made the decision to write novels. What was that transition like?
This may sound silly, but I’m not sure I actually made a definitive transition. Thieves didn’t start out as a novel so much as a long short story. I have written 3 complete novels to date, but I still mostly think of them as stories, not novels. Each story, start to finish, takes place over just a few days time. Even my writing style seems to lend itself to short chapters, which I feel keeps things moving at a nice pace. Each chapter, to me, often feels like a story unto itself and it seems much easier to write a bunch of short stories than one long novel. The trick is weaving these stories into a cohesive narrative and then coming up with a good ending.
Well, to date anyway, I’ve been a pantser. As I mentioned above, I usually get one small thing stuck in my head that just keeps nagging at me. I simply can’t get it out of my head until I get something written down and that starts the process. For Thieves, it was the house that I went to check on right after Sandy. For my next novel, The Dead Don’t Sleep, it was a day I spent shooting trap with a friend and his uncle from Maine. My friend’s uncle was in the Vietnam War and was supposedly involved in intelligence in some capacity. I never asked what he did during the war, but my imagination got the better of me and Uncle Frank became an aging, resurgent warrior. For my latest novel, the inspiration came from a memory I have from my college days of a guy I once saw walk into a liquor store to buy a bottle of vodka wearing nothing but his underpants. That was what inspired the opening scene of The Debt Collector, only I added a shotgun to go along with the underpants.
To be honest, I wish I were more of a plotter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stymied while writing my stories not knowing where to go next. I envy people who can get an outline down and then write around that. At least they have a direction. On the other hand, I feel pretty good about what I’ve written so far, so I guess I’ll just keep doing it the way I have been until it doesn’t work for me anymore.
Makes sense to me! You have to do what works for you. What does a typical day of writing look like for you?
For me, writing is about persistence. Some days it’s easy, and some days not so easy. When I’m working on a novel, I try to write something every day. I read somewhere that Stephen King tries to write at least 1500 words a day and I figure if that’s good enough for him, then it’s good enough for me. So that’s my goal. But sometimes I write 300 words and sometimes I write 5,000. The most amazing feeling I’ve had as a writer is when I get really rolling. I’m writing a scene or several scenes that come one after the other and I suddenly stop typing and think I’ve been at it for maybe an hour or so and find that I’ve actually been sitting at my computer typing non-stop for 4 or 5 hours. The writing process is fun and exciting for me because when I write, I actually feel like I am a part of the scene. I’ve been told that I sometimes include too much detail or that scenes are sometimes too graphic. But when I’m writing, I just describe what I see in my head. What I hear and smell and taste and sense. It’s the only way I know how to write. It’s cool because just as reading a book can take you away to someplace different in your head, writing one can do the exact same thing.
What an amazing writing habit you’ve developed What are you working on next?
My third book titled The Debt Collector is with my new agent, Peter Rubie of FinePrint Literary. It’s the story of young woman named Abigail Barnes who makes her living collecting debts for low-end bookies and loan sharks. She’s pretty, petite – and deadly. She moves to a new town and gets a job collecting for a small-time bookmaker who winds up dead. Soon both the police and the mob are looking for her believing she committed the murder and she has to try and find the true killer before she ends up either in jail or dead herself. It was a fun book to write and I am working on a sequel.
I can’t wait to see what you come out with next! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview and best of luck with your next book.
About the Author
Steven Max Russo has spent most of his professional career as an advertising copywriter and agency owner. He got interested in writing fiction after one of his short stories was accepted by an online literary journal in 2013. Then he caught the bug and began writing seriously. The publication of his first novel, Thieves, has garnered praise from renowned crime and thriller authors from around the globe. With a gritty writing style and unique voice, he is quickly winning a legion of new fans. Steve is proud to call New Jersey his home.
Readers, enter to win a copy of the book Thieves below via Rafflecopter. Giveaway ends on 8/26. US only.
Be sure to pick up a copy of the book Thieves on Amazon.com.
Good answers!
Really enjoyed reading about the spark that led to this novel.
Intriguing cover
The cover of a book always draws me in.
I believe readers can relate to this story about struggles.
Sounds like a great book! Thanks for reviewing the book and interviewing the author.
That it's a woman.
Theresa N
weceno at yahoo dot com
It has a great cover!
The cover of this book catches my eye
Definitely relatable!
the cover of the book. looks good
The cover has a mysterious quality about it and draws you in.
Love the cover and the story sounds intriguing.
cant wait to read
Where the idea came from to write the book. It's cool to see a small idea turn into a book!
The plot sounds intriguing.
The plot sounds very interesting to me.
this sounds good
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