We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Avanti Centrae a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Avanti, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
This fun question speaks to me as a bestselling thriller author, but I think has the opportunity to inspire everyone, whether they work as a creative or not. Even when I was a Silicon Valley IT Executive, I used creativity to solve problems at work. These days, my challenges relate more to creating compelling plot twists and generating unique story ideas, but I find similar ways to keep the creative juices flowing.
For me, the dots connect when I’m in nature, usually on a walk or a hike. The rhythm of moving my body is meditative and allows my mind to relax into a different space. That’s when I come up with my best ideas.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Sure thing. A lifelong adrenaline junkie, I blend intrigue, history, science, and mystery into pulse-pounding action thrillers. I’m honored to have won thirteen literary awards, including a Chanticleer Genre grand prize for both VANOPS: THE LOST POWER and SOLSTICE SHADOWS. THE DOOMSDAY MEDALLION won Best Political Thriller at the annual BestThrillers.com contest and CLEOPATRA’S VENDETTA took home a gold medal in the Conspiracy Thrillers category at the Readers’ Favorite Awards ceremony.
My smart, non-stop-action thrillers have hit the Top 100 bestseller lists in the United States, Canadian, and Australian Amazon Kindle stores as well as the Barnes & Noble Nook store.
I’ve also appeared on multiple radio shows, including NPR, and have been featured in dozens of podcasts and interviews to discuss my trademark blend of thrills. Mystery & Suspense Magazine, Authority Magazine, Killer Nashville, and Thrive Global have published my articles and I was mentioned in Newsweek.
My father served as a US marine corporal in Okinawa gathering military intelligence and my mom loves history. Both have inspired me. When I’m not traveling the world, driving fast around curvy mountain roads, or seeking an exhilarating escape in the Sierra mountains, I’m writing my next thriller in Northern California.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Persistence. Resilience. Self-awareness.
Those three qualities have been essential to my success.
All three can be learned. Mom taught me the first two. She had great sayings like “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” I thought they were corny when I was a kid but found that she was right. I’ve seen many people give up, throwing their hands to the sky in frustration when they don’t get a new skill right away, or when things don’t go their way. Stubbornness runs in our family and has served me well. I must’ve queried at least a hundred agents before finally landing one. In terms of advice, I have a magnet on my desk which says, “Proceed as if success is inevitable.” I can’t say it any better.
Self-awareness is a skill I learned through decades of yoga and meditation. Those resources are available in every city and across the internet. Science has shown the benefits of both, and I can vouch for the positive changes they’ve brought in my level of happiness and in contributing to my literary success. Go take a class!
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
I grew up reading everything: milk bottles, dictionaries, encyclopedias. And of course, books. I snuck novels into class to read while my grade school teacher was lecturing. I read books when I couldn’t go out to play. Books were my salve, characters my best friends, and authors my heroes.
It’s tough to pick one book. In my teens, I read mysteries, in my twenties, non-fiction. In my early thirties I was on a fantasy binge, and now I read thrillers.
Instead, I’ll talk about what I’ve learned from all that reading: empathy and compassion. Fiction makes it easier to see things from other people’s perspectives instead of living life stuck in only your own head. I’ve imagined that I could wield magic, fight with knives, swords, and guns, ride horses, solve murders, and have been both the good guy and the bad. I’ve been able to understand motivations for doing things I’d never considered doing, and have lived lives both rich and poor. That depth and breadth of life experience has not only made me a better writer, but it’s also made me a better person. In the end, it doesn’t matter so much what you read, just that you do.
Readers seeking a new thrill can check out the first six chapters of THE LOST POWER on my website.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.avanticentrae.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/avanti.centrae.author
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/avanticentrae
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/avanticentrae
Image Credits
Michelle Ocken, Redtail PRA
