Meet Atlas Creed

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Atlas Creed. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Atlas below.

Atlas, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

When I started my writing journey, like many authors, I quickly found myself lost in the overwhelming sea of knowledge that is publishing. It wasn’t long before a life raft appeared, but as I soon found it was a false savior in the form of a Vanity Press (as I came to learn the term). It was a costly mistake that rendered a pitiful result. So, I began studying the process with a more vested interest because no one was going to have as much confidence in my work as I did.

As I researched, I honed my writing. I eventually began querying for agents for the simple reason that I don’t like marketing and wanted a sponsor to help me with that. After I sent out somewhere around three dozen query letters, I found that as an emerging artist, I wasn’t likely to get heavy marketing, a cushy five to six figure advance, or a team of dedicated helpers. Not without divine intervention or a fortuitous stroke of luck. In fact, through the process of writing my debut novel, Armitage, I found I was already building connections and making a name for myself. I also found value in my ability to help other authors, who like me, were starting out and lost in that same vast sea.

The idea struck me of creating a resource portal. I wanted a place where authors could go to find vetted professionals, who weren’t looking to scam them, who would provide quality work, and would make the process more comfortable. I also wanted this service to be free. So, I created Indie Author Connect (or IAX for short). I built a website, found service providers (i.e. Editors, Cover Designers, Illustrators, Alpha/Beta and ARC readers, Map Makers, Audiobook Narrators, Marketing professionals, etc.) and began interviewing them to ensure they were providing a genuine and quality service, and established profiles for them on the IAX website. I also created a public discord community where authors and service providers can all go to share tips and advice to help each other.

With the support of that community, I finished my debut novel, Armitage, completed a supplementary short story within that world titled ‘The Dragon Mist,’ and have been working on the sequel novel. I found beta readers to help me polish my story, I found my editor, Elizabeth Merck, and the community instilled in me the confidence to keep pushing through the numerous other hurdles writers face.

It is a challenge to juggle a day job, a family of 5, a website and discord community, all while trying to pursue my own writing dreams, but it is a challenge I am happy to face if it means inspiring others and making it easier for them to achieve their dreams.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

There’s a lot to talk about in the realm of what I am working on, but to keep it simple, I will stay focused on my writing.

I have always been passionate about stories, whether they are told through the lens of a camera, through video games or TV shows, or in books. There was always a thought in the back of my mind of writing a story, but confidence was something I lacked, which was my biggest barrier to even attempt to write. It wasn’t until I decided to gift my wife with a short story for our anniversary that I found my confidence. I wrote a story about our first date from my perspective. She loved it and asked me to write more. I did. 80,000 words later, I handed her a novel and told her I didn’t want to know what she thought and I didn’t want feedback. That novel was intended for her eyes only and will never see the light of day, but the experience re-kindled the fire of my passion for story telling.

So, I began work on Armitage, a book I’m quite proud of. To summarize, it’s the story of a young girl, Rebekah Daroh, who — through her grief over the loss of her sister — is being haunted by a Reaper. Why? Because she has a Guardian (a God) trapped in her consciousness. This struggle eventually leads her to the Armitage hotel, where she meets the secondary protagonist, an FBI Special Agent named Niko Ortez, who is investigating cold cases concerning missing persons, one of which is Rebekah’s sister. A hurricane hits, trapping them in the hotel. While Rebekah is dealing with her internal conflict, Niko discovers that the source of the missing people is a killer lurking within the Armitage hotel. There are Gods and Reapers, Witches, Mystics, and Magic, with no short supply of suspense or mystery and a Dexteresque villain to top it off.

Ok, more than just a summary, but I am enamored with the story because of how it blends genres, breaks conventions, and most importantly, focuses on the diverse cast of characters. They are the lifeblood of my stories and I want them to feel real. The underpinning themes of grief and depression transforming into hope and perseverance is what gives the story its extra fascination. That, and I had the opportunity to leverage my inspiration from writers like Gillian Flynn and Agatha Christie to build a thrilling mystery of my own, with surprising injections of fantasy and horror.

The thing that inspires me most about this story isn’t in the writing, but the reception so far. While its impact isn’t far reaching, it has been deep. During one of my Barnes and Noble signings, I met a family who expressed interest in my book. The wife went to purchase a copy while I chatted with the husband, who indicated that he’s not much of a reader. A few days later, however, I received a review on Goodreads from the wife who stated that her husband decided to read the book and finished all 376 pages in 3 days. Not only that, but he loved it and according to his wife is getting into reading. So, two days after the release of my book, I achieved a dream I wasn’t aware I had — to convert a non-reader into a reader with my book.

Since that release, I created a free short story that builds off of the fantasy world of Idromir and helps give background into the sequel that I’m working on. The short story can be found in my newsletter coming up at the end of August 2024, delivered through Substack, and will eventually come to either Kindle Vella or KU. I am currently working on the sequel to Armitage, which will focus more heavily on the fantasy aspect of the story and the mystical world of Idromir. I am planning for four books total in this series and am brimming with ideas that I can’t wait to get on paper.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Difficult question. For me, I entered this with no technical writing knowledge or any particular skill with writing. I was a hobbyist musician when I was younger and preferred creating my own songs to learning others. I’ve always be a creator at heart. But I can’t attribute all of that to writing books (certainly it helped when building Indie Author Connect). For writing, I would say my ability to recognize patterns and suss out inconsistencies had the greatest impact on my writing. I’m not a plotter, I’m a pantser. For those who don’t know the meaning, it means I don’t outline the details of my stories beforehand, I let the story unfold organically–I write by the seat of my pants, hence “pantser.”

Everything is crafted on the fly, but my mind does work faster than my hands (typically because my time is consumed by so many other things). So, as I’m working through a story concept, I’m constantly scrutinizing it in my head to ensure that from one scene to another, things connect in a way that makes sense. Doing so ensures that the world and my characters appear more real. I’ve also been one of those annoying people to question movies and TV shows as I’m watching, delivering a “why would they do that instead of this?” or a “that doesn’t make any sense.” You know, the kind of person you invite over for a watch party….

I loved having “intellectual” debates around films with my friends when not quoting the most obscenely random things as a form of meme-speak. Something like, Scream VI when they crawl across a ladder suspended over an alleyway and ghost face appears to rock the ladder, sending one of the poor college kids careening to their doom. Yet, the kids waiting on the other side of the alley had a gun and were maybe twelve feet away, and the whole movie could have been over while Mr. Killer had his feet planted, shaking a ladder trying to ruin some kids day. I digress, horror movies and poor logic are a match akin to peanut butter and jelly.

But, it helped me be a critic to my own work. It’s been a great asset in allowing me to look at my work objectively and dissect it with the same gusto that I dissect plot holes and inconsistencies in movies.

On another note, advice that I always give to writers: Do your research! Nothing breaks a reader from a story faster than having an easily google-able piece of information that they know and the author didn’t, especially if the character POV narrating should have known.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

As a writer, I am always looking to make connections with other writers. Beyond talking shop and discovering the process from other, unique perspectives, it’s a huge benefit to know others in your respective industry. I would be very interested in finding other authors would like to set up local panels and rotate interviewing each other. A highly important part of being an author is to get in front of people and talk craft. Panels are a major component of that, and to find other authors that I could invite as guests on my panels, they invite me to theirs, or we work to form our own, would be an incredibly opportunity. They are a forum to meet budding writers, experienced authors, and enthusiastic readers who want to get to know us beyond the words on the page.

Beyond panels, I’d love to do more interviews, like this one with Bold Journey. Knowing and forming relationships with other authors would allow me to boost them and refer them just as much as they could do for me. Having a small team of authors? Even better. There are endless possibilities for support knowing others with a similar passion as yours.

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