Today we’d like to introduce you to Atlas Creed

Hi Atlas, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

As an early creative, I started my journey with ambitious ideas in the throes of raging hormones during High School. I was a fanatic for creative storytelling and sought it mostly in movies, tv shows, and video games, neglecting books as many do because the required school reading left me with books that didn’t catch or hold my interest, making reading feel like a chore. That didn’t stop me from bleeding ink to page with ideas of my own. I conceptualized characters and worlds (primarily worlds as my early characters were objects to move a story and not truly fleshed out). Being ambitious, as I said, and impatient, I took a half finished product and began researching what the publishing process looks like. Which led me to a company called Xlibris, a vanity press, who was happy to take a few thousand dollars from me, a naive fresh out of high school wannabe author, to edit my half-finished book concept (poorly) and promised to edit the remainder when finished. That never happened though. I stopped writing and didn’t put words to a page with any passion until after I was married and decided to write a short story for my wife for our one-year anniversary.

The flame of my passion for writing re-kindled and turned into a fully fleshed out novel detailing my wife and my relationship in a full 80,000 words. I handed it over to her with no editing, no second look, and absolutely zero confidence. I told her she didn’t have to read it or speak about it and to this day, I don’t know if she did read it. But my passion kept growing and urged me to re-visit my old story. Re-reading the old spiral notebooks that were tucked away in my closet damn near killed my passion again as the writing was god awful. So, instead I decided to try my hand at something fresh.

I was always a fan of crime/mystery stories and do recall falling into the Jack Reacher series by Lee Childs, and enjoying the Dexter tv series as well as a newfound love in the Mr. Mercedes books by Stephen King. Writing the story for my wife simultaneously bred a passion for reading, which drastically helped improve my own writing, even though I was taking in audiobooks more so than ground trees. I began my debut novel, Armitage, as a simple crime/mystery novel, loosely based on the sister of a missing person, relentless in her search at the beach where she went missing. Soon after, a detective manifested out of necessity. Then out of either boredom with the story or a rewatch of Stir of Echoes, who’s to say, I developed the ghost of her sister to act as a guide–or the hand of vengeance against her killer. When that idea spawned, the natural progression somehow became to join this new story with the story and characters I began conceptualizing in High School. Thus, we have Armitage, the most uniquely blended story (in my humble opinion) that I have encountered.

Along that writing journey, however, I decided to share all of the knowledge I have gained to shield as many authors as I could from the vanity press trap I fell into. So, I created Indie Author Connect, a refuge for new authors to find reliable service providers, useful tips and tools, a discord community of likeminded individuals, and everything they need to get started on a stable foot at absolutely no cost to them. The product of my own free time and desire to lift the community that had given me so much.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

Well, as previously discussed, falling into the trap of a vanity press took its toll on me. But other hurdles were brought on by taking every piece of advice I encountered to heart, which led to conflicting opinions. I struggled with questions like “should I keep my prologue or are they pointless like I’m told?” “how long is too long for a debut novel?” “am I telling too much or am I effectively showing?” “is this too prose heavy or is there a balance?” It became a mess very quickly. I also found out early on about the consequences of battling the idea as it came to me. Rebekah, my main character is a Black girl. I got nervous about this, so I attempted to change her to a white girl and ran into months worth of writer’s block. It wasn’t until I leaned into my discomfort, did my research, talked to my friends, and opted for sensitivity readers that the writing came about smoothly again. There is a lot of information out there about not writing a primary character outside of your race or gender, but I disagree. I believe that it can be done, but needs to be thoroughly researched, read over by people with more like experiences to gauge the accuracy, and treat the material with respect. We are closer as people than we are divided by the things that attempt to divide us. Just treat that humanity with the respect it deserves.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?

I’m a writer and builder of worlds. I sculpt lives out of voices that speak to me from the ether. Some would call that crazy, and they would be absolutely right. As for specialties, I have none that would set me apart from any other writer. Writing is a game of patience, research and madness, anyone has the capability, it just matters how willing you are to steer into your depravity.

As of now, the only thing I am known for is my debut novel Armitage, and potentially my side passion, Indie Author Connect (IAX). Both of those I would say I am very proud of. I’m also incredibly proud of the stories that I am currently working on (the sequel to Armitage is a beast, but I hope it outdoes it’s predecessor as I am incredibly fond of how it’s coming together).

I don’t believe that “the rest” is accurate as every author has a fingerprint in the industry and each is unique. My unique attribute is blending poetic prose with an active plot pace buried in a unique blending of genres in a way that is both new, but familiar and easy to read.

What makes you happy?

Writing. Always. Writing brings me a level of peace that I am sore to find in many other places. But above writing, my family.

Soap box moment: I recently discussed with a friend about kids and they stated they don’t ever want kids because they hear parents complain constantly about the headaches (myself included). It’s absolutely fair. But, raising a family is not much different than writing in the sense that both with present their own headaches, they will both cause sleepless nights. Both will leave you riddled with stress, consume your patience, destroy your free time, and substitute your social life for internal monologues. But the journey of both will be filled with a love that you will never find anywhere else and joy that is unending. The end result of both, for better or worse, will fill you with awe and pride, and no small measure of accomplishment. That is why both family and writing hold equal ends of the scale in my heart. But of course, if ever those scales tip, family will come first.

Pricing:

• Paperback – $16.99
• Hardcover – $29.99
• eBook – $4.99
• Audiobook – $19.95

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.atlascreedauthor.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atlas_creed/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/atlas.creed.author
• Twitter: https://x.com/atlas_creed
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@atlas_creed
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@atlas_creed