A Quick Chat with K. Stevens

About K Stevens

From an early age, K. Stevens devoured all things magical and mystical. To this day, she hesitantly struggles to keep one foot in reality while the rest of her remains firmly rooted in the fantastic and insane.

In 2015, she finally worked up enough courage to share her stories with more than just her family, and was encouraged by the fact that she wasn’t eaten alive for it. She may be the crazy lady that talks to bugs and stares incessantly into the sky, but don’t mind her. She’s just thinking.

A Quick Chat with K Stevens

What book do you think everyone should read?

I think everyone should read the book that lights up their heart or sends chills down their spine.

What made you want to become an author and do you feel it was the right decision?

I think I was born wanting to become an author, I just didn’t know it; I was making stories before I could write. Now, I was NOT the kid that randomly decided to share my knowledge with anyone that listened, oh no. But my mother found a pattern to the massive amounts of pictures I drew, eventually writing down my words as I described the story to her.

Fast forward to when I’m 12; I just finished The Black Cauldron and realized I wanted to write like that. So I picked it back up and read it over and over and over (basically I began analyzing and copying what I found to better understand the craft, only I didn’t know that’s what I was doing because I was 12), and the next few years saw my first complete trilogy. After that, I was off in Never-Never Land.

As for it being the ‘right’ decision…I’ll let history answer that question. Mostly so I don’t have to.

Advice would you give to new authors?

There was something my dad used to say a LOT (usually after we accused him of cheating during a game) which was this: I didn’t cheat, I used all my resources to the best of my ability.

As a kid, this just sounded like a really wordy excuse for cheating. As an adult, I’ve realized he was absolutely right; my dad was also an IT guy, and most of the games he ‘cheated’ at were computer games. Which meant he wasn’t really cheating: he had the resources to alter the game’s programming without damaging the program itself, and he used that resource to achieve his end goal. We couldn’t do that yet, and so to us, it felt like cheating.

Aside from giving you a glance into my childhood, this idea is the advice I would give to new authors: to use all — ALL — your resources to the best of your ability. Better story-TELLER than story-WRITER?

Record yourself telling the story, either visually or vocally; you can get into audiobooks, Youtube video series, Podcasts, etc. Got a thousand ideas and can’t seem to pick one? Don’t! Start a hundred projects and use your innate ADD to bounce back and forth until you finish something. Write your real-life passions into your story in one way or another; if you’re writing an epic fantasy and you’re really into gothic architecture, then use that passion to inspire your story.

Basically, it’s not just thinking outside the box. It’s thinking around someone else’s given parameters to get yourself from where you are to what you want/where you want to be.

Describe your writing style

My writing style is most definitely first-person limited; I like to be able to tell the story through the main characters eyes, and only tell what they know. I feel like it gives the reader a chance to really know the character (via being privy to their personal inner monologue) and be part of the story. I suppose it’s more like they’re telling you the story as it’s happening. And it’s very conversational, because I’m basically writing the story with interjections from the character’s inner monologue.

Do you believe in writer’s block?

Yup. I call my block Jerald.

About the Book

Abracadabra by K. Stevens
Genre: Paranormal Urban Fantasy

Synopsis

Magic and mayhem are his middle names. Figuratively. Not literally. He’s not sure he even has a middle name, let alone two.

Rod’s a trickster by trade, magician by hobby, and thief by night. But when an old friend hunts him down and asks a favor, he can’t refuse. Mostly because she’ll likely try to kill him before asking again. But also because it presents a very interesting puzzle: to hunt down what a half-elf, magic weapons, and a killer-led cult of shape-shifters have to do with each other.

Lucky for him, Rod has the ability to be in three places at once. The problem? Even he can’t always tell which him is the real him.

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