Author Spotlight – Steve Anderson

Welcome! 

Please introduce yourself. 

I’m Steve Anderson, a ten year veteran of the US Navy, a world traveler, and lately, a teller of tales.

 

1. When did you start writing?

At age twelve, my father gave me a manual typewriter.  I wrote my first fantasy story with it to go with a map I had drawn of a magical world.  I wrote on and off while on active duty, and as a personal past time after leaving the service, but I didn’t get serious about writing until 2017.

 

2. What motivates you to write?

The sheer joy of creating a compelling story.  Having an immersive world is nice for the reader to escape their daily life.  Connecting to characters, living through their struggles, and their victories reaches deeper into what makes us human than escapism in general.  I like to provide both.

 

 3. What genre do you write in, and what made you chose this particular genre?

Both Science Fiction and Fantasy, but my focus for the past year has been exclusively Fantasy.  Specifically, the contemporary fantasy world I’ve been building.

 

4. What is your goal in writing? Do you have dreams where your writing should take you?

It may sound anachronistic, but I want to spread hope.  My stories involve perseverance despite overwhelming odds.  My protagonists exude hope the way Lady Liberty holds her torch.  I’d like my writing to reach a broad audience, but mostly, I just want to share my stories with like-minded readers who seek a little bit of awe and wonder in their reading.

 

5. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block, and if yes, how do you deal with it?

I don’t believe in writer’s block.  I can always write; it may not always be great and may throw a night’s work away after I’m done.  I still believe it’s essential for this author to write every day.  I wrote over a million words in the past two years because I believe that a writer’s job is to write.  When I got serious about the novel I wrote I finished it in five weeks.  For me, writer’s block is a sign that I’m struggling to overcome how to present an idea or a scene in a story, not that I can’t write at all.

  

6. What advice would you like to give new, hopeful authors? Write.  Don’t focus on craft to the exclusion of your voice.  If you write enough, your voice will come through, and you can learn the craft as you go.  The most important thing is to put words on the page.  You can make them pretty, or horrifying, or technically correct after they are out, but until then, they are just ideas in your mind.  The world needs to hear those ideas, and you alone hold the key to their freedom.

  

7. Please, tell us about your work.

My work is expansive.  I have six short stories set in the same world as my first novel, Fantastic America.  The premise is that magic has always existed, but was largely absent throughout recorded human history.  It came back on December 21^st, 2012.  The world didn’t end, but it changed forever.

Fantastic America looks at how people react to the return of magic, through the lens of a reporter caught up in those changes.  She doesn’t believe everything about magic is evil, despite prevailing wisdom to the contrary.  Her antagonist is a federal agent willing to do anything to prevent the miracles, monsters, and magic representing those changes from tearing apart the world he knew before the solstice.  He’s like a modern-day little Dutch boy trying to hold back the ocean with his finger.  What neither of them know, is that a dark and deranged killer has learned to harness magic to unleash a killing spree that will affect both of them and the world at large.

That’s just the first book.  It gets weirder from there!

Thank you for being my guest. It was such a pleasure to have you here!!

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Steve’s Books:

 

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Meet the Author:

I’m originally from Raleigh, NC, but now live in Ottumwa, Iowa.  I’ve traveled all over the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.  My hobbies include sharing drinks and good food with friends, gaming, studying history, and collecting comic books since age five.  I’ve been a sailor, a security guard, a tax preparer, an insurance salesman, a telemarketer, a DJ, and a bar manager.  Traveling and doing, I’ve seen a lot and love telling stories, some true, some not.  Which is which?  You decide!

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Connect with the Author:

www.renegade-galaxy.com  And soon: www.thesorcerersrealm.com

https://www.facebook.com/ReneGalaxy

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-anderson-1b371810/

https://www.pinterest.com/sea52501/