In this episode, Belinda Pollard, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy interview Buck Storm, the critically-acclaimed award-winning author of 8 literary Americana novels, who is also a songwriter and recording artist. Buck dives deep into the issues of engaging with biblical and cultural research, and writing from the heart about God’s extraordinary love.
Scroll down for audio, video, and a full transcript,
or subscribe to the podcast on your favourite podcast player
In conversation in this episode:
- Buck Storm, singer/songwriter and author of literary Americana
- Belinda Pollard, author of mainstream crime novels, writing coach, accredited editor with qualifications in theology, writing and publishing blogger at smallbluedog.com, and Gracewriters founder
- Donita Bundy, writing teacher, preacher and author of the Armour of Light supernatural fiction series
- Alison Joy, romance author, former early childhood teacher and mother of 4 adult children
Topics covered in this episode:
- Buck’s process of starting with a blank page and seeing where the story takes him.
- How creating cadence in songwriting transfers across to cadence in fiction, especially in dialogue.
- Buck’s habit of reading his books aloud to a family member once the draft is complete, and how seeing their reaction to the story informs his further work on the manuscript.
- How Buck wrote and researched The Light, the story of a broken, powerless person in the 50 days between the Resurrection and Pentecost – and how the process differed to his more intellectual book The List which looked at Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea coming to faith through prophecy. Authenticity and the power of research, plus the reactions of readers to the characters.
- Working at avoiding using a Western lens to understand biblical background.
- The relevance of OT prophecy today, and the power of how Jesus united Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who were from opposing parties.
- Changing popular culture as a writer, one person at a time, by sharing your heart with them on the page.
- Not writing to “teach a theme” but just to tell a story and share the love of God. Not knowing the theme until the book is finished, or even until the reader tells you what it means to them.
- Writing on automatic pilot vs the times when God really digs deep into the writer. Taking time out when it gets too mechanical.
- Praying for our writing, and the practice of praying without ceasing.
Find Buck Storm online
Buck’s website: https://www.buckstorm.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buckstorm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buckstormauthor/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BuckStormMusic
Check out Buck Storm’s books
https://www.buckstorm.com/books
Or click Buck’s collection of covers below, or titles in the transcript, to find out more on Amazon (an associate link that helps earn a few cents for Gracewriters):

Please share
Please use the sharing buttons at top and bottom of this post to share on social media or directly with Christian writers you know.
Audio
Video
Transcript
Belinda Pollard: Welcome to the Gracewriters Podcast – Christian Writers Changing Popular Culture. Hit subscribe on your favourite podcast player so you never miss an episode and find show notes, useful links and a full transcript at gracewriters.com.
Today on the podcast, award-winning author and musician, Buck Storm.
I’m Belinda Pollard. I’m an author, editor and writing coach with a theology degree and 20 years in the publishing industry. I blog for writers at smallbluedog.com and you can find links to all my blogs, books and online courses at belindapollard.com.
Alison Joy: Hi, my name is Alison Young. I’m a former early-childhood educator with four adult children.
Aside from writing, my other passion is photography and as part of the media team at my local church, I have the privilege of capturing God moments, both big and small. I write contemporary romance under the pen name Alison Joy and you can find out more about my books at alisonjoywriter.com.
Donita Bundy: Hi, I’m Donita Bundy. For the past 20 years, I’ve been using my theology degree to underpin my preaching and, more recently, to inform my urban-fantasy series, Armour of Light. You can find out more about me at donitabundy.com.
This morning on the program we have the pleasure of talking with Buck Storm. Buck is a recording artist and touring musician as well as the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of eight novels including The List, Truck Stop Jesus, The Beautiful Ashes of Gomez Gomez, Miracle Man and Venus Sings the Blues, among others.
His books and songs have made friends around the world. A native of Arizona, he now makes his home in Idaho.
Welcome to the podcast, Buck.
Buck Storm: Thank you very much. You guys have such great credentials. I’m a little nervous now!
Alison Joy: Buck, just for our listeners to get a little bit more information about you, we just wanted to know if we can subject you to the rapid-fire five.
Buck Storm: Let’s do it! Can’t hurt too much!
Alison Joy: Who is your target audience?
Buck Storm: I would say both believers and non-believers, adults and those who might be buying a book to pass out for people that really need to discover the love of God in their lives.
Alison Joy: Sounds good! What is your main genre?
Buck Storm: Literary is my main genre. Literary Americana is what my recent publisher has called it. To what we’re talking about today, The Light is biblical fiction but still I would put it in the literary genre.
Alison Joy: What is your optimum time for writing?
Buck Storm: Well, I’ve been a musician since the early 1900’s so I still work on musician’s hours so, it would be later afternoon, even evenings. Sometimes the middle of the night.
I don’t do mornings very well, I will say that.
Alison Joy: So where is your favourite place to write?
Buck Storm: You know, I’m not very particular. I could be on a couch. I do have a desk and an actual chair that I occasionally work on but I do find myself wandering around the house or writing out on the porch or anywhere it’s sunny or maybe if I could find a beach, that’s even the best.
I’m not very picky about where I write.
Alison Joy: So, how did you get into writing in the first place?
Buck Storm: Well, as a kid I was a very avid reader. I read everything I could get my hands on. I don’t know. It was a natural process for me. I thought I would be a writer someday. That’s what I always dreamed and I started actually writing songs and so, that took me into that world. With the guitar and some stories, I’ve seen a lot of the world. I’ve never been to Australia, believe it or not. But, yes, I’ve seen a lot of the world and that’s how I got started writing.
Maybe 10 years ago, I wrote a really long song. It was about 100,000 words and it became my first novel.
Belinda Pollard: Oh, my goodness! I love that.
Alison Joy: A lot of verses in that!
Belinda Pollard: Buck, you’ve written eight books that range from historical, biblical, modern Christian fiction, travel books and a novella. Where does the inspiration for all of this diversity come from?
Buck Storm: People ask me that question quite a bit, and I know this sounds strange from a writer’s perspective, I find no end of inspiration. I think there are stories everywhere.
I think there are too many stories that I see, to even have time to write. I could write a whole book out of a sentence I hear in a conversation and that’s just how my books have come about.
I don’t understand writer’s block. I don’t usually have it. Things just roll for me. People talk a lot about planners or pantsers if your audience is writers. I think I’m the king of the pantsers. I start in and see where the story goes. It’s just a joy to do. It’s something I find so much joy and so much value in, is just to take off and see where a story goes. See what characters walk into a scene and they inspire me just as much as anybody that I’ve actually heard or seen.
Belinda Pollard: Do you start from a completely blank page or do you have a character or a premise or something in mind first?
Buck Storm: You know, almost all my books have started with, aside from the travel book, which is a whole other story, but have started with a rough idea of one chapter. I have friends that are really excellent writers that are great planners. They will plan for a year or two, and outline everything and I’ve tried to do that because I think it would be so easy but it’s so hard. And I have great respect for anybody who does that.
I usually limit it to an idea that’s about one or two chapters long and my chapters are very short, generally, and then just see where things so from there because usually by chapter two, things take a hard right turn and I have no idea where it’s going to go but I just enjoy the ride like everybody else.
Belinda Pollard: You’ve mentioned the musical background and the songwriting, and writing, of course, has a cadence and I would think, particularly with literary writing even more important, that cadence.
In what way does that interact for you, the fact that you’ve got that musical background and the word background coming together?
Buck Storm: You know, that’s the first time anybody’s ever asked me that question and that’s a fantastic question.
I have a really good friend, Randy Stonehill, who’s been a longtime Christian musician since the Jesus Music and we’ve done a lot of songwriting together and, in fact, he just texted me the other day talking about the cadence in writing and how he hears my songs in my books. It’s interesting that you asked that.
It’s not a conscious thing for me but I do think that there is a definite cadence in writing and especially in dialogue, for me. I love to write dialogue. It gives me the most fun out of writing a book especially if there’s a little bit of humour in it or the characters are fun to play with.
So, I think there is a real cadence there and I do think that somehow, and I don’t know how to explain it, I’m not very educated with the writing process of it and what I’ve painfully put myself through educating myself, but I do think there’s definitely a cadence. And I think that comes through in my writing, somehow. I’ve heard it from other people and it’s interesting that you asked that.
Belinda Pollard: When you’re writing your dialogue and when you’re looking for the cadence of your writing, is it just in your head or do you read it aloud? How do you test that?
Buck Storm: I don’t read it aloud until I’m done with the whole book. That’s just the way I do it and the way I’ve traditionally done it is I have two grown children, I have a daughter and a son and both married – my daughter’s got two girls. But I’ll call my daughter and from my very first book, I’ll say, “Come over and can you slot out eight to ten hours and I’m going to read you this entire book?”
I really get a lot of rhythm reading it out loud to her. I have to read it out loud to someone. I don’t know, I can’t just do it in an office by myself. It doesn’t seem to work for me but when I’m reading it to someone that’s actually listening and I can see their response to the story, I really feel the rhythm and really feel the cadence much more and so, I’ve tortured her through eight books now.
Donita Bundy: Back in your 2020 book, The Light, you bring to life an unnamed, faithless biblical character. What prompted this?
Buck Storm: Now this takes me to a little bit more serious subject and that is, I had written a book previously called The List, that was very intellectual as far as prophecy is. This is a biblical fiction book we’re talking here, The Light, it takes place in the 50 days between the resurrection and Pentecost. A time when it was just crazy in Jerusalem in Israel. Some people believed the Messiah, some people didn’t believe it and hated anybody who did and here this grave is empty and yet, you have a bunch of believers that had no idea where he was and if he had risen. And it was a dark time and I wanted to write a book about that time.
In my first book, it was a very intellectual process. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea coming to faith in Christ through prophecy. An intellectual walk to faith. That’s not how I came to faith. My journey to faith and I think, sometimes, it’s an ongoing process, I don’t know that we can ever say that we’re finished at all, has been one of – sometimes being so broken that I can’t say that two plus two on the page equals four, let alone try to figure out what prophecy might be what. And God met me in those broken places and so, I wanted to write a character, I called her Sister because she’s so base, she didn’t have a name. She’s in the lower city of Jerusalem. She’s a prostitute. She’s hopeless. She’s got nothing. And to show that the least of these are the people that Christ is passionately interested in. I wanted a character like that because that’s been me in my life.
It’s been interesting, when I wrote her, and her journey to faith, as crusty and as hard as she is, out of any characters of any book that I’ve ever written, I’ve had more people contact me, email me and say, “This is the person I understand. I understand this Jesus. I understand this brokenness and this Jesus.” That goes for men and women. It’s been really interesting to hear that from readers.
Donita Bundy: Do you think at this particular time in history, there is a more of a connect with those 50 days of darkness?
Buck Storm: I think, absolutely. I’m in America where all hell has broken loose, politically. You talk about being nameless and faceless, it’s the same all over the world. I know you see it too.
We’ve got our daughters taking off as many clothes as they can on Instagram just to get attention. Our sons walk into schools with guns just to say, “Hey, somebody look at me.” And the fact is, is that we are wonderfully loved from the foundation of the world.
I think it is a dark time. I think the world’s obviously gone through dark times before and we’ve had our ups and downs. My thinking is, and I don’t want to die on this hill, but I think it’s just going to get darker and darker until Christ’s return. And I think we’re there and I think we’re seeing it happen. It’s pretty obvious that there’s a battle raging around us. The beautiful thing is that we do have a hope. We can look up and say, “Hey, you know what, I may be a pantser but I know the end of this story.”
That’s what’s so obvious and so great to me. I have a hope in that and I can have joy. I can have joy every day no matter how hard things get. I think people do resonate with the darkness right now.
And people are dying for something to believe in. It doesn’t matter what they say, and they say a lot of things. We shake our fist at heaven but we’re dying to have a God that loves us.
Alison Joy: So, why is biblical historical and cultural accuracy important in the writing?
Buck Storm: When I set out on these books, one of the purposes was to be biblically accurate. I think if we’re going to stand on a foundation of Scripture, then why not stick to it in the storytelling. That’s my opinion.
Now, I’ve seen a lot of books and movies and TV shows that don’t stick exactly to it that I think have incredible ministry value and I think they’re great. In my case, when I wrote the words of Christ, I wanted to write the words of Christ, to the word, and then fill in the scene around it. That was so challenging. So incredibly challenging, really. But I think at the end it really worked and I’ve had a lot of people that have responded to that to say, “Hey, I’ve never seen that Scripture like that but now I feel that I can hear it. I can smell it.” You get those things in there.
Culturally, I’ve been to Israel many, many times. I’ve travelled the land both in tours, as a musician, just getting in the car and driving around, going to a grocery store, coffee houses, a pub, whatever, just talking to people and I wanted to also paint the story in a culturally accurate way.
I think that’s important that we see the world, so often, the biblical story through a Western lens when maybe when that’s not quite the right lens. I’m not saying that God can’t use that lens but I thought it would be interesting to write it in a culturally accurate way. And historically. People ask me, “Why try to make it so historically accurate?” I say, “Why not?” The history of the first century Israel if you really get into it and really study the maps and the history and what was going on, the absolute, insane violence of Rome, the control and the hard thumb of the Jewish elite over the people. It was just an amazing time to write. An amazing background to write against and I thought it was so fun to write against that background.
Belinda Pollard: You include Old Testament prophecy, as well, don’t you? Does that still have relevance for us today?
Buck Storm: Absolutely. Prophecy never, never is out of style. It might be out of vogue but it’s always applicable.
I think it’s important, as Christians, that we take a look. I know a lot of churches don’t really teach it and I’m not one to church bash or anything like. Prophecy is a road map to where we’re headed and so, yes, that’s very important.
When you look at the prophecies that the leaders, especially the religious leaders of the Sanhedrin in ancient Israel, first century Israel, as Christ came on the scene, it was pretty clear that this was the Messiah. They knew, almost to the day, when the Messiah would come. If you look at the book of Daniel and some of the prophecies that they had at the time, which is why a lot of them believed.
That’s something that we don’t often talk about but a lot of the Jewish elite, the Jewish rulers, the Jewish scholars believed that Jesus was the Messiah including Nicodemus who went to him at night.
Including Joseph of Arimathea who was a member of the Sanhedrin, both of them, the great Sanhedrin, who took him and put him in this tomb.
That was one of the reasons I thought the story was so amazing. You have Nicodemus, a Pharisee, and Joseph of Arimathea, a Sadducee, this is like the polar opposite ends of the political and even doctrinal spectrum, coming together at the end of the story to take Jesus’s body and put it in the tomb together. That’s a miracle in itself.
And that’s what Jesus does. He unites people in faith and unites people in Him and unites people in love and hope. It likes that. That was a fantastic story to write.
Belinda Pollard: Interesting, too, that you’ve got the religious and political leaders of the time rejecting clear truth. That makes sense today, too, doesn’t it?
Buck Storm: Absolutely. It’s easier to reject something when rejecting it gives you power. It helps you retain power and that’s what was going on then and that’s what’s going on today.
Power is a drug that people want to hold on to pretty darn tightly with white knuckles and so we see the same thing happening today that happened then. It was clear that Jesus was the Messiah. It’s as plain as the nose on your face that they should have recognised it and that’s why many did. Some of them, their greed and their power, was just too strong. They couldn’t go there. So strong that they killed him.
Belinda Pollard: I guess there’s a challenge for us, as individuals, too. It’s very easy to look at the leaders who are leading us astray but we also need to thing about our own desire for power over our own lives and our own opportunities and whether we are submitting to God. That struck me as you were speaking, too.
Buck Storm: Yes. Yes, it’s easy to do. It’s easy to point fingers and say, “I would have done it different.”
When I was 17, I was a genius and now I’m 57 and I’m an idiot and I look back and say, “I don’t know what I would have done.” I’m a horrible, cultural Christian at times. I struggle and I stumble and I just throw myself on the feet of Jesus and say, “I thank you for your grace.”
Donita Bundy: Buck, the Gracewriters’ slogan is Christian Writers Changing Popular Culture. What’s your response to this?
Buck Storm: I like that slogan, for sure. I think the only way to change popular culture is to do it one person at a time. That’s been my experience in my travels and my world. I think that as a writer, you’re an artist and as an artist you’re trying to share your heart with people. If you’re solid with Christ and that is your passion, that’s going to come through in your writing and that’s going to come through in your heart.
I don’t really love the term Christian writing. I just think we should be Christians wherever we are. People ask me, a lot, about the theme of my books. They say, “Now, when you started writing this, what was the theme, what was the lesson you wanted to teach.” And I never have an answer for that but I do know this, I do know by the time I’m done with the book the theme will be God loves you and God loves you where you are. You can run as hard as you want and God will get you in a headlock and take you down to the mat with His love.
And that’s always the theme of my books because that’s the theme of my life. As believers, just share our hearts and our art, then I think we’d have a big impact on the world. And not try to be, “Hey, this is this kind of book and this is this kind of book and I’m going to teach this and I’m going to teach this. And we’re going to disguise this mini sermon in a story.” That’s so obvious and boring to me. I really like to just see art and I know a lot of writers that do. Just to read books that, “Oh man, I see the heart of this man or this lady.” I love that.
Donita Bundy: Have you seen a development or is there a connection between your relationship with God and your writing, your faith?
Buck Storm: Yes. I think it has to be. It’s the same with music. My story, I was a secular musician for some time and when God got a hold of my life, everything changed and my art changed. My music changed. My message changed. If your faith is genuine, it will appear in your art. That’s just the way it is.
That doesn’t mean that your faith is perfect, ever, but if your faith is genuine and if you’re trying to press forward with it, it’s going to show up in everything you do in the creative world. That’s how it is in my life. It’s never a conscious thing for me. I really don’t ever start off with any sort of sermon in my head. I just don’t.
I’m invited to go do a devotion for some guys at Moody College this week and even that just stresses me out because I have to actually come up with the theme. I have to do something. I’d rather just share my heart and my art and what comes out, comes out.
Donita Bundy: Regardless of the outcome of the art and the story or the music, do you feel God is actually using that process to deepen your relationship with Him?
Buck Storm: I think the correct answer would be yes but let me give you an honest answer.
I think there are times that God really digs deep into me when I’m in a certain space of writing. I think I can also, depending on deadlines or just what’s happening in my life, slide into an automatic pilot mode, too, where I am just filling in blanks. When I catch myself there, I have to stop and say, “Wait a minute.” And not in a hyper spiritual way because I’m saying I need God to work on it but because I know it’s not going to be the best work. It’s not going to be what God had planned in the beginning. But maybe even in that, that’s God drawing me and teaching me so, I guess the answer is yes.
Everything that we go through but I know there are times where I’ve been writing from just a place of, “Hey, I have to get this done and I’ve got to make this work.” And then when I get done, it’s not my best work. I know it’s not. I think that there is a place where you can go, when you’re really deep in that creative moment where you’re just communing with the Lord.
I read books. One of my favourite books ever is The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis and I probably read that book once a year. And I just know when he wrote that book, he was in that place where he was communing with God and there was something there that was much deeper. It meets me in that place. It always puts me in a heavenly mindset, always.
And I hope that I can get to a place in my writing that is in that deep of a communion with God where it might put somebody else into that place too. I don’t know that I’m always there but I should be. And I think when we’re not as writers, we should, especially as believers, we should check ourselves and say, “Ah, maybe I should step back and take a little time to go on a hike or go on a walk and just think about this and maybe reconnect a little bit.”
Belinda Pollard: I’ve found it interesting what you said earlier about having to have a theme. I remember when I was working on my first book and I was only about 30,000 words into it and I had a session with a manuscript consultant who wanted to know what my theme or meta-narrative was for the book.
Buck Storm: Yes.
Belinda Pollard: And I did the shifty-eyes thing first because I write commercial fiction and I’m thinking, “Does commercial fiction have a meta-narrative? I didn’t know!”
I scrabbled around and told her, “I think it might be about greed.” And it wasn’t about greed. I didn’t find out until I finished it, it was about forgiveness and when it’s withheld and how poisonous that can be. (I write crime novels.)
I found that interesting that you were also having trouble with the theme and you don’t necessarily know the theme until you’ve finished.
Buck Storm: Yes. That’s interesting that you say that because, first of all, 30,000 words, isn’t that the worst place to be. Thirty thousand words and you’re just thinking, “And now I’ve been writing forever” and now suddenly it’s a marathon and you realise I’ve just still got to write the middle.
That’s exactly right. I think the theme, to me, is usually revealed by the end. Sometimes it’s revealed by somebody that’s read the book and says, “This is what this book’s about to me.” And I go, “Oh, yeah. That makes sense!”
Belinda Pollard: And maybe it is a different theme for a different reader?
Buck Storm: I think that art always has a different, no matter what it is, has a different message to every reader.
I was reading a book recently by a very popular songwriter that I’ve always loved, and he hit some of the places where he started to talk about why he wrote a certain song and I’d skip it because I wouldn’t want to know why he wrote it because I know what that song meant to me, in my life, in that moment. I think that’s just the way it goes.
And I think, also, as a writer we write to an audience but I heard a jazz musician, recently, and I thought it was just so brilliant. Somebody asked him who is jazz played for, the audience or the musician and he said, “It’s always the audience but the first audience member is the musician.” I think that goes with writing too.
You guys know. You guys are writers. You always have somebody in your mind, usually, that you’re writing for, that you hear their critique. Mine’s my wife. My wife is always in my mind when I’m writing a book but you write it for yourself too. You’ve got to write something that you love and you’ve got to write something that moves you.
And you know those moments where you write something and you almost tear up, yourself, because you go, “Man, that’s the stuff.” Those are the moments that you live for.
Belinda Pollard: Do you pray about your writing? Do you pray during your writing, before your writing? Are you interacting with God about it as you write?
Buck Storm: I do. I prayed before this interview, actually, too.
I remember one of the most glaring examples of that was the book I wrote that was a travel book called Finding Jesus in Israel that my agent had been after me for a couple of years. He wanted me to write a travel book about Israel. I’d been there a bunch and seen a lot of off the beaten path stuff and I kept saying, “No, man. I just can’t do it.” I know so many scholars that could write so much more and be so much more eloquent about Israel and its history and these guys are my friends. He kept hammering me and he kept hammering me so I finally wrote a chapter. He called me a month later and said, “Hey, Worthy Publishing wants you to do this book but they want the manuscript in 90 days.”
That’s when I started to pray. And that was most scary. I would actually write a chapter or write a bit and I live in Idaho, there’s a lot of woods around here, there’s a hike close by, I would go and do a 3 miles hike and just pray the entire time, come back and write again. The next day I’d do the same thing.
That book was written with a lot of prayer. I write just in literary novels, I think, maybe not direct conversation with God but always the knowledge. The Apostle Paul said pray without ceasing, right. To me, that is to try to just live in the constant presence of God whispering in your ear, has His hand on your shoulder, His arm around your shoulders and so I try to write in that space and hope that I do the best to keep it unfiltered and let God speak.
Belinda Pollard: Buck, where can people find you online?
Buck Storm: I’m very hard to find! Buck Storm is my name, just like it sounds. I didn’t even make it up. That was my dad’s fault. buckstorm.com. So www.buckstorm.com.
Belinda Pollard: Excellent! How about I pray for you before we finish?
Buck Storm: That would be great, thank you.
Belinda Pollard: Heavenly Father, we thank you for Buck and we thank you for this amazing creativity and ideas and possibilities that you’ve woven into his life as a musician and as a writer. I pray that you will continue to encourage and bless him and help him to go on being a blessing to others.
Thank you for the way that he’s so closely connected to you throughout his writing and creative careers and we pray that you will continue to work through him and his words and the possibilities that are out there.
And we pray for all the other Gracewriters out there, too, who are also trying to find that perfect rhythm and cadence, that connection to you, that honesty about connecting to truth, both in history and in current times.
And we pray that you will bless them all in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Buck Storm: Amen. Thank you, guys.
Belinda Pollard: Buck Storm, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. Fantastic conversation.
Thank you, Donita Bundy and Alison Joy. I’m Belinda Pollard and we will see you next time on the Gracewriters podcast.
Gracewriters is run by volunteers and we’re incredibly grateful to those who have contributed financially to help keep this ministry running. Thank you so very much.
If you have enjoyed this podcast and you’d like to help, please go to gracewriters.com and look for DONATE in the menu.
Continue today’s conversation in our free online forum and find useful articles, links and resources at gracewriters.com
Leave a Reply